Chartered Surveyors Manchester Greater Manchester

Approximate Population: 458,100

Much of Manchester’s history is concerned with textile manufacture during the Industrial Revolution.   The great majority of cotton spinning took place in the towns of south Lancashire and north Cheshire, and Manchester was for a time the most productive centre of cotton processing, and later the world’s largest marketplace for cotton goods. Manchester was dubbed “Cottonopolis” and “Warehouse City” during the Victorian era.  In Australia, New Zealand and South Africa, the term “manchester” is used for household linen : sheets, pillow cases, towels, etc.

Manchester began expanding “at an astonishing rate” around the turn of the 19th century as part of a process of unplanned urbanisation brought on by the Industrial Revolution.  It developed a wide range of industries, so that by 1835 “Manchester was without challenge the first and greatest industrial city in the world.”  Engineering firms initially made machines for the cotton trade, but diversified into general manufacture. Similarly, the chemical industry started by producing bleaches and dyes, but expanded into other areas. Commerce was supported by financial service industries such as banking and insurance. Trade, and feeding the growing population, required a large transport and distribution infrastructure: the canal system was extended, and Manchester became one end of the world’s first intercity passenger railway—the Liverpool and Manchester Railway. Competition between the various forms of transport kept costs down.  In 1878 the GPO (the forerunner of British Telecom) provided its first telephones to a firm in Manchester.

The Manchester Ship Canal was created by canalisation of the Rivers Irwell and Mersey for 56 kilometres (35 mi) from Salford to the Mersey estuary. This enabled ocean going ships to sail right into the Port of Manchester. On the canal’s banks, just outside the borough, the world’s first industrial estate was created at Trafford Park.  Large quantities of machinery, including cotton processing plant, were exported around the world.

Chartered Surveyors Manchester Greater Manchester

Chartered Surveyors Stockport Greater Manchester

Approximate Population: 136,082

The earliest evidence for human occupation in the wider area around Stockport.  These are microliths from the hunter-gatherers of the Mesolithic period (the Middle Stone Age, about 8000–3500 BC) and weapons and tools from the Neolithic period (the New Stone age, 3500–2000 BC). Early Bronze Age (2000–1200 BC) remains include stone hammers, flint knives, palstaves (ie bronze) and funery urns; all finds have been chance discoveries, rather than a systematic search of a known site. There is a gap in the age of finds between about 1200 BC and the Roman period (ie after about 70 AD). This may indicate depopulation, possibly due to a poorer climate.

There is little evidence of a Roman military station at Stockport, despite a strong local tradition.  It is assumed that roads from Cheadle to Ardotalia (Melandra) and Manchester to Buxton crossed close to the town centre. The preferred site is at a ford over the Mersey, known to be paved in the eighteenth century, but it has never been shown that this or any of the roads in the area are Roman. Hegginbotham reported (in 1892) the discovery of Roman mosaics at Castle Hill (the area around Stockport market) in the late eighteenth century, during the construction of a mill, but noted it was ‘founded on tradition only’; substantial stonework found in the area has never been dated by modern methods. However, Roman coins and pottery were probably found there during the eighteenth century. A cache of coins dating 375–378 may have come from the banks of the Mersey at Daw Bank; these were possibly buried for safekeeping at the side of a road.

Chartered Surveyors Stockport Greater Manchester

Chartered Surveyors Bury Greater Manchester

Approximate Population: 60,718

Bury, Greater Manchester, was formed around the ancient market place but even prior to this there is evidence of a activity dating back to the period of Roman occupation. Bury Museum has a Roman Urn containing a number of small bronze coins dated for AD 253-282 and found north of what is now the town centre.

Under Agricola the road building programme included a route from the fort at Manchester (Mamucium) to the fort at Ribchester (Bremetennacum) that ran through Radcliffe and Affetside. The modern Watling Street, that serves the Seddons Farm estate on the west side of town, follows the approximate line of the route.

The most imposing early building in the town would have been Bury Castle, a medieval fortified manor house. The castle was built in 1469 by Sir Thomas Pilkington, lord of the manors of Pilkington and Bury and a powerful member of Lancashire’s gentry. It sat in a good defensive position on high ground over looking the Irwell Valley. At that time the Pilkingtons had been lords of Bury for nearly a century, having inherited the manor from a family named de Bury.
Bury Parish Church

The Pilkington family suffered badly in the Wars of the Roses when, despite the geography they supported the House of York. When Richard III was killed in the Battle of Bosworth, in 1485, Thomas Pilkington was captured and later executed. The outcome of the battle was that the Duke of Richmond, representing the House of Lancaster was crowned Henry VII by Sir William Stanley. As a reward for the support of his family Thomas Stanley was created Earl of Derby and amongst other land the confiscated Pilkington estate in Bury was presented to him.

Chartered Surveyors Bury Greater Manchester

Chartered Surveyors Wigan Greater Manchester

Approximate Population: 81,203

Wigan was historically part of the hundred of Newton, later becoming part of the West Derby Hundred. The ancient parish of Wigan All Saints contained a number of townships which formed separate civil parishes from 1866.

On 26 August 1246, Wigan was granted a Royal Charter, making the town a free borough. This happened after Salford was granted its Charter in 1230 and before Manchester in 1301. As a borough, Wigan was represented in the Model Parliament from 1295–1306 by two burgesses – freemen of the borough.

The Charter allowed taxes to be made on transactions made in the borough by tradesmen and permitted the local burgesses to establish a guild that would regulate trade in the borough. Non-members of the guild were not allowed to do business in the borough without permission from the burgesses.

It is thought that when the Charter was reconfirmation in 1350 it was changed, allowing the election of a mayor of Wigan for the first time. Three burgesses were elected to be presented to the lord of the manor who would choose one man to be mayor for a year.

Wigan is in the Wigan Parliamentary constituency, which was recreated in 1547 after having covered the borough in the late 13th century. From 1640 until the Redistribution of Seats Act 1885, the constituency returned two Members of Parliament (MPs), from then on it had only one. Since 1918, the constituency has been represented by the Labour Party. Neil Turner is the incumbent Member of Parliament for Wigan and has represented the constituency since 1999.

Chartered Surveyors Wigan Greater Manchester

Chartered Surveyors Rochdale Greater Manchester

Approximate Population: 95,796

Rochdale stands about 150 feet (46 m) above sea level, 9.8 miles (15.8 km) north-northeast of Manchester city centre, in the valley of the River Roch. Blackstone Edge, Saddleworth Moor and the South Pennines are close to the east, whilst on all other sides, Rochdale is bound by smaller towns, including Whitworth, Littleborough, Milnrow, Royton, Heywood and Shaw and Crompton, with little or no green space between them. Rochdale experiences a temperate maritime climate, like much of the British Isles, with relatively cool summers and mild winters.

Rochdale’s built environment consists of a mixture of infrastructure, housing types and commercial buildings from a number of periods. Rochdale’s housing stock is mixed, but has a significant amount of stone or red-brick terraced houses from the late 19th and early 20th centuries.

Rochdale’s Town Hall, seven large tower blocks and a number of former cotton mills mark the town’s skyline. The urban structure of Rochdale is regular when compared to most towns in England, its form restricted in places by its hilly upland terrain. Much of Rochdale’s built environment is centred around a central business district in the town centre, which is the local centre of commerce.
Neighbouring towns, villages and places.

There is a mixture of high-density urban areas, suburbs, semi-rural and rural locations in Rochdale, but overwhelmingly the land use in the town is urban. For purposes of the Office for National Statistics, forms the fifth largest settlement of the Greater Manchester Urban Area, the United Kingdom’s third largest conurbation. The M62 motorway passes to the south and southwest of Rochdale. Two heavy rail lines enter Rochdale from the east, joining at Rochdale railway station before continuing southwards to the city of Manchester.

Chartered Surveyors Rochdale Greater Manchester

Chartered Surveyors Salford Greater Manchester

Approximate Population: 72,750

Although the metropolitan borough of the City of Salford was a 20th-century creation, the area has a long history, extending back to the Stone Age. Neolithic flint arrow-heads and tools, and evidence of Bronze Age activity has been discovered in Salford. The Roman road from Manchester (Mamucium) to Bury passes through the city; a hoard of over 550 bronze Roman coins dating between 259 AD and 278 AD was discovered in Boothstown; and a Romano-British bog body, Worsley Man, was discovered in the Chat Moss peat bog.

In 1142, a cell and priory dedicated to St. Leonard was established in Kersal. The 12th century hundred of Salford was created as Salfordshire in the historic county of Lancashire and survived until the 19th century, when it was replaced by one of the first county boroughs in the country.

Salford became a free borough in about 1230, when it was granted a charter as a free borough by the Earl Ranulph of Chester. The cell in Kersal was sold in 1540 during the Dissolution of the Monasteries. A 16th century manor house, called Kersal Cell, was built on the site of the priory.

In the English Civil War between King Charles I and parliament, Salford was Royalist. Salford was also noted as Jacobite territory; its inhabitants supported Charles Edward Stuart to the Throne of England and hosted him when he rode through the area during the Second Jacobite Rebellion.

Chartered Surveyors Salford Greater Manchester

Chartered Surveyors Oldham Greater Manchester

Approximate Population: 103,544

Lying within the historic county boundaries of Lancashire since the early 12th century, Oldham, Greater Manchester, was recorded in 1212 as being one of five parts of the thegnage estate of Kaskenmoor, which was held on behalf of King John by Roger de Montbegon and William de Nevill. The other parts of this estate were Crompton, Glodwick, Sholver, and Werneth.  Oldham later formed a township within the ancient ecclesiastical parish of Prestwich-cum-Oldham, in the hundred of Salford.

In 1826 commissioners for the social and economic improvement of Oldham were established. The town was made part of a parliamentary borough, in 1832, though it was in 1849 when Oldham was incorporated as a municipal borough, giving it borough status in the United Kingdom, and in 1850 the Borough Council obtained the powers of the improvement commissioners.

In 1880, parts of the Hollinwood and Crossbank areas of Chadderton and Ashton-under-Lyne townships were added to the Borough of Oldham. Oldham Above Town and Oldham Below Town were, from 1851 until c.1881, statistical units used for the gathering and organising of civil registration information, and output of census data.

When the administrative county of Lancashire was created by the Local Government Act 1888, Oldham was elevated to become the County Borough of Oldham and was effectively a unitary authority area exempt from the administration of Lancashire County Council.  In 1951 parts of the Limehurst Rural District were added to the County Borough of Oldham, and in 1954 further parts of the same district added to it. Since 1961, Oldham has been twinned with Kranj in Slovenia.  Under the Local Government Act 1972, the town’s autonomous County borough status was abolished, and Oldham has, since 1 April 1974, formed part of the Metropolitan Borough of Oldham, within the Metropolitan county of Greater Manchester.

Chartered Surveyors Oldham Greater Manchester