Hadfield | |
---|---|
Station Road – The main street in Hadfield | |
Location within Derbyshire | |
Population | 6,763 (2021 Census) |
OS grid reference | SK021963 |
District | |
Shire county | |
Region | |
Country | England |
Sovereign state | United Kingdom |
Post town | GLOSSOP |
Postcode district | SK13 |
Dialling code | 01457 |
Police | Derbyshire |
Fire | Derbyshire |
Ambulance | North West |
UK Parliament | |
Hadfield is a town in the High Peak of Derbyshire, England, with a population at the 2021 Census of 6,763. [1] [2] It lies on the south side of the River Etherow, near to the border with Greater Manchester, at the western edge of the Peak District close to Glossop. It doubled as the fictional town of Royston Vasey in the BBC comedy series The League of Gentlemen . [3]
Hadfield is in the northwest of England, between Bottoms Reservoir and the Glossop Brook, on the southern side of the River Etherow valley, which is known as Longdendale. The town lies between 394 and 690 feet (120 and 210 m) above sea level. Hadfield is 12+1⁄2 miles (20 km) from Manchester.
Hadfield was part of the Manor of Glossop and, at the time of the Domesday Book in 1086, belonged to William the Conqueror. [4] King Henry I granted the land to William Peveril. In 1157, King Henry II gave it to the Abbey of Basingwerk in North Wales. In 1537, King Henry VIII gave it to the Earl of Shrewsbury, from whom it came to the Howard family (Dukes of Norfolk). While the Howards were responsible in the 1810s for the development of Glossop, it was the Sidebottom family who developed Hadfield. They bought the Waterside and Bridge Mill complex from John Turner and John Thornley in 1820.
For three generations, they developed these mills as a large spinning and weaving combine. They built their own branch railway to the mill and, in 1880, ran 293,000 spindles and 4,800 looms. In 1896, the Sidebottoms went into liquidation. Bridge Mill was destroyed by fire in 1899, but Waterside Mill was bought by John Gartside and Co of Ashton-under-Lyne. Gartside's re-equipped the mills with automatic looms from the United States and installed new engines and electric lighting. [5]
During the First World War (1914–18), the mill was taken over by the Greenfield Mill Company but parts of the mill were used to produce munitions. After the war, the company declined. In 1940, the mill was occupied by Maconochie's Foodstuffs Ltd, which had been bombed out of its previous premises in London. By 1954, about half of the original building had been demolished and more was to go. In 1976, the site was redeveloped and renamed as the Hadfield Trading Estate. [6]
Station Mill was built in 1834 by Thomas and Edward Platt, members of a family who had farmed Longdendale for generations. The family owned this cotton mill for 68 years, before selling it in 1923 to E. Wilman & Sons, which converted it to silk noil spinning. The mill closed in 1989.
Hadfield Mills were corn mills from before 1819. In 1874, Thomas Rhodes and Sons converted the mills to the manufacture of cotton. A thousand workers were employed there in 1873, but it closed in 1932. In 1940, it was reopened by Hadfield Worsted Mills Ltd for cloth manufacture. [6]
Hadfield and its mills were linked to Glossop via an electric tramway which operated between 1903 and 1927.
Hadfield is administered by High Peak Borough Council at the Town/District/Borough level of Government and by Derbyshire County Council at County level.
Representation on Derbyshire County Council is split between the divisions of Glossop and Charlesworth, and Etherow – with the majority of the town being in the Etherow division. The Etherow division contains Hadfield North, Hadfield South, Gamesley and the large and sparsely populated Tintwistle ward. The Glossop and Charlesworth division contains, amongst others, the Padfield ward (which takes the northern side of Station Road, the main shopping street). These boundaries were set in 2013.
Division | Holder | |
---|---|---|
Etherow | Cllr Dave Wilcox | |
Glossop and Charlesworth | Cllr Damien Greenhalgh Cllr Ellie Wilcox |
Representation on High Peak Borough Council
Ward | Holder | |
---|---|---|
Hadfield North | Cllr MANN, Victoria Elizabeth | |
Hadfield South | Cllr SIDDALL, Edward | |
Hadfield South | Cllr MCKEOWN, Robert Joseph | |
Hadfield does not have a parish council.
The Member of Parliament for the High Peak constituency, since 2024, has been Jon Pearce MP who represents the Labour Party. His majority in the 2024 general election was 412 over the Conservative candidate Robert Largan.
Constituency | Holder | |
---|---|---|
High Peak | Jon Pearce |
Hadfield lies within close proximity of the county boundary with Greater Manchester and some services are provided with this in mind. Though lying within Derbyshire and the East Midlands, some of Hadfield's transport facilities are managed by Transport for Greater Manchester.
The town is served by Hadfield and Dinting railway stations, on the Glossop line. Hadfield is the terminus, with most trains running first to Glossop and then reversing back through Dinting towards Manchester Piccadilly. Services are operated by Northern Trains. [9]
The railway, formerly known as the Woodhead Line, used to run through to Penistone and Sheffield, via the Woodhead Tunnel, but passenger services were withdrawn in 1970. Goods trains ran until 1981, when Hadfield became the terminus. The track to the east was lifted subsequently and has now been adopted as part of the Longdendale Trail footpath.
The A57, which links Manchester to Sheffield via the Snake Pass, passes to the south of Hadfield, from Woolley Bridge to Dinting Vale. The A628 road, from Manchester to Barnsley and Sheffield over the Woodhead Pass, runs on the other side of the River Etherow through Hollingworth and Tintwistle. These two roads are major freight routes and are often congested, which has created traffic problems both for Hadfield and the neighbouring towns and villages. The proposed Mottram to Tintwistle by-pass is intended to relieve the congestion. [10]
Bus services in the area are operated by Stagecoach Manchester, High Peak Buses and Stotts Tours. The town is served by three main bus routes: [11]
Regional TV news comes from Salford-based BBC North West and ITV Granada. Television signals are received from the Winter Hill, [12] and one of the two local relay transmitters (Glossop [13] and Mottram In Longdendale). [14]
Local radio stations are BBC Radio Manchester on 95.1 FM and Greatest Hits Radio Midlands (formerly High Peak Radio) on 106.4 FM.
The local newspaper is the Glossop Advertiser, owned by Manchester Evening News . [15]
The popular BBC television comedy series The League of Gentlemen was filmed in Hadfield, which doubled as the fictional town of Royston Vasey. [3] In the film spin-off from the original series, The League of Gentlemen's Apocalypse , Hadfield appears as itself when the characters from the TV series enter into the real world through a supposed portal below a church. The statue featured in the series and film's opening credits is the war memorial, commemorating lives lost in the First and Second World Wars.
Glossop is a market town in the borough of High Peak, Derbyshire, England, 15 miles (24 km) east of Manchester, 24 miles (39 km) north-west of Sheffield and 32 miles (51 km) north of Matlock. Near Derbyshire's borders with Cheshire, Greater Manchester, South Yorkshire and West Yorkshire, between 150 and 300 metres above sea level, it is bounded by the Peak District National Park to the south, east and north. In 2021, it had a population of 17,825.
Longdendale is a valley in the Peak District of England, north of Glossop and southwest of Holmfirth. The name means "long wooded valley" and the valley is mostly in the counties of Derbyshire and Greater Manchester.
The River Etherow in northern England is a tributary of the River Goyt. Although now passing through South Yorkshire, Derbyshire and Greater Manchester, it historically formed the ancient county boundary between Cheshire and Derbyshire. The upper valley is known as Longdendale. The river has a watershed of approximately 30 square miles (78 km2), and the area an annual rainfall of 52.5 inches (1,330 mm).
Broadbottom is a village in Tameside, Greater Manchester, England. Historically in Cheshire, it stands on the River Etherow which forms the border with Derbyshire.
Mottram in Longdendale is a village in Tameside, Greater Manchester, England. At the 2011 census, the population for the ward of Longdendale, which includes Mottram and the surrounding area, was 9,950.
The M67 is a 5-mile-long (8 km) urban motorway in Greater Manchester, England, which heads east from the M60 motorway passing through Denton and Hyde before ending near Mottram. The road was originally conceived as the first section of a trans-Pennine motorway between Manchester and Sheffield that would connect the A57(M) motorway with the M1 motorway; however, the motorway became the only part to be built.
High Peak is a local government district with borough status in Derbyshire, England, covering a high moorland plateau in the Dark Peak area of the Peak District National Park. The district stretches from Holme Moss in the north to Sterndale Moor in the south, and from Hague Bar in the west to Bamford in the east. The population of the borough taken at the 2011 Census was 90,892. The borough is unusual in having two administrative centres for its council, High Peak Borough Council; the offices are in Buxton and Glossop. Other towns include Chapel-en-le-Frith, Hadfield, New Mills and Whaley Bridge.
Hollingworth is a village in the Tameside district, in Greater Manchester, England. It is about 11 miles (19 km) east of Manchester on the Derbyshire border near Glossop. Historically part of Cheshire, it gave its name to a family who owned much of the surrounding area from before the time of the Norman conquest.
Tintwistle is a village and civil parish in the High Peak district of Derbyshire, England, which had a population of 1,400 at the 2011 census. The village is just north of Glossop at the lower end of Longdendale Valley. Tintwistle, like nearby Crowden and Woodhead, lies within the historic county boundaries of Cheshire.
Woodhead is a small and scattered settlement at the head of the Longdendale valley in Derbyshire, England. It lies on the trans-Pennine A628 road connecting Greater Manchester and South Yorkshire, 6 miles (10 km) north of Glossop, 19 miles (31 km) east of Manchester and 18 miles (29 km) west of Barnsley. It is close to the River Etherow and the Trans Pennine Trail. Although part of Derbyshire since 1974, like nearby Tintwistle and Crowden the hamlet was in the historic county of Cheshire.
The Woodhead line was a railway line linking Sheffield, Penistone and Manchester in the north of England. A key feature of the route is the passage under the high moorlands of the northern Peak District through the Woodhead Tunnels. The line was electrified in 1953 and closed between Hadfield and Penistone in 1981.
Dinting railway station serves the village of Dinting in Derbyshire, England. It is a stop on the Glossop line and, prior to the Woodhead Line's closure in 1981, Dinting was a station on the Great Central Main Line between Manchester Piccadilly and Sheffield Victoria.
Rhodeswood Reservoir is a man-made lake in Longdendale in north Derbyshire, England. It was constructed by John Frederick Bateman between 1849 and June 1855 as part of the Longdendale Chain of reservoirs to supply water from the River Etherow to the urban areas of Greater Manchester. It is third in the chain, and it is from here that the water is extracted to pass through the Mottram Tunnel to Godley for Manchester.
ValehouseReservoir is a man-made lake in Longdendale in north Derbyshire, England. It was built between 1865 and 1869 as part of the Longdendale Chain of reservoirs, which was built to supply water from the River Etherow to the urban areas of Greater Manchester, while maintaining a constant flow into the river. The upper reservoirs supply the drinking water, while Vale House and Bottoms are compensation reservoirs which guarantee the flow of water to water-powered mills downstream. Valehouse, with a crest elevation of 503 metres (1,650 ft), is too low to supply water under gravity to the Mottram Tunnel, so could not be used as an impounding reservoir. Today 45 megalitres of compensation water are released each day into the River Etherow.
The Longdendale Bypass is a long-planned National Highways road scheme in the Tameside and High Peak districts in England. Its aim is to alleviate traffic congestion on the A57, A628, and A616 routes that presently pass through the villages. There is both support and opposition for this long-planned scheme, which will pass through the valley of Longdendale and part of the Peak District National Park.
The A628 is a major road connecting Greater Manchester and South Yorkshire in northern England. It crosses the Pennine hills by way of Longdendale and the Woodhead Pass in the Peak District National Park. The road's altitude and exposure to bad weather create problems in winter and the road is sometimes closed due to snow or high winds.
Padfield is a small village near Hadfield in High Peak, Derbyshire, England. The village is on the west side of the Peak District National Park, and the nearest town is Glossop, where many local amenities and services are based. It is in a conservation area. The population as of the 2011 census was 2,796.
The Mottram Tunnel is a tunnel carrying drinking water by gravity from Arnfield Reservoir, Tintwistle, Derbyshire, in the valley of the River Etherow, to Godley, Greater Manchester, in the valley of the River Tame. It was essential to the construction of the Longdendale Chain of reservoirs constructed by John Frederick Bateman. The tunnel was built between August 1848 and October 1850, and the Godley Reservoir was finished in 1851 to receive and filter the water.
Dinting Viaduct is a 19th-century railway viaduct in Glossopdale in Derbyshire, England, that carries the Glossop Line over a valley at the village of Dinting. It crosses the Glossop Brook and the A57 road between Manchester and Sheffield.