Descriptive Gazetteer Entry for GLOSSOP

GLOSSOP, a town, a township, and a sub-district in Hayfield district, and a parish partly also in Chapel-en-le-Frith district, Derby. The town stands at the terminus of a short branch of the Manchester and Sheffield railway, in the High Peak region, 2 miles from the river Ethrow and the boundary with Cheshire, 9 N by W of Chapel-en-le-Frith, and 13 SE of Manchester. Its site is an eminence in one of the deepest valleys of the Peak; and its environs include scenes of much beauty and romance. The town is of modern growth; owes its rise mainly to great extension of the cotton manufacture; ranks now in the county, as a seat of trade, next to Derby; has a post office‡ under Manchester, a railway station with telegraph, a banking office, four chief inns, a town hall and market-house, a parish church, several dissenting chapels, a Roman Catholic chapel, a work-house, a British school, national schools, an endowed school with £37, and other charities with £246; and is a polling-place. The town hall and market house are a fine suite of buildings, enlarged in 1854; and the former is used, once a fortnight, as a court-house. The church superseded an ancient one; was built in 1836; has a handsome tower and spire, added in 1855; and contains a tablet and bust, by Bacon, to the memory of Joseph Hague, Esq. of Park Hall. The Roman Catholic chapel is an ornamental edifice of 1831, in the Tuscan style; and in the grounds connected with it is a memorial cross of 1861. The British school stands in the vicinity of the church; and is a handsome edifice, built and endowed by the late Duke of Norfolk. A lofty viaduct of sixteen arches, not far from the town, takes the Manchester and Sheffield railway across Dinting Vale. Markets are held on Saturdays; and fairs on 6 May, and the Wednesday on or after 10 Oct. Cotton mills and calico-printing works, on an extensive scale, some of them built in 1855, are in the town and its neighbourhood. Manufactures in woollens, paper, and stone are also carried on; and two weekly newspapers are published. The town is regarded as co-extensive with the townships of Glossop-Dale, Hadfield, Padfield, Simmondley, Whitfield, Charlesworth, Chunall, and Dinting; but that extent of it is assumed only on the footing of a common rate for poor assessments and for the burial board, and includes very much rural ground. Pop., 19, 126. Houses, 3, 745.-The chief township is Glossop-Dale. Pop. in 1851, 5, 467; in 1861, 6, 130. Houses, 1, 184.-The parish, in addition to the townships of the town, contains the townships of Chisworth, Ludworth, Chinley, Bugsworth, Brownside, Hayfield, Mellor and Beard, Thornsett, Ollersett, and Whittle. Acres, 49, 960. Real property, £61, 206;-of which £3, 087 are in mines, £78 in quarries, £30 in iron-works, and £80 in gas-works. Pop. in 1851, 28, 625; in 1861, 31, 140. Houses, 6, 154. The surface, from its great extent, and from its lying in so picturesque a region, presents much variety of soil, contour., and scenery. Glossop Hall, the seat of Lord Edward G. F. Howard, was formerly a place of no attraction, but was enlarged and adorned by the late Duke of Norfolk; it is now a noble edifice in the French chateau style of the 18th century; it commands a rich view of the tumulated landscape and lofty hills which surround the town; and it has fine grounds, with beautiful shrubberies, walks, and other ornature. Several coal mines in the townships of Simmondley, Charlesworth, and Chisworth, have ceased to be worked. Several hundred workmen were employed in 1851, in the township of Padfield, in constructing water-works there for Manchester. A Roman road, popularly called the Doctor s gate, within a short distance of the town, leads to a Roman camp, now called Melandra castle, situated on an eminence near the confluence of two mountain streams. The ditch, the ramparts, the prætorinm, and some interior foundations of the camp, are still distinct, but present a gloomy appearance. The living is a vicarage in the diocese of Lichfield. Value £350.* Patron, Lord Foley. The chapelries of Charlesworth, Whitfield, Hayfield, Mellor, and New Mills, are separate benefices. -The sub-district contains the eight townships of the town, and the townships of Chisworth and Ludworth; and it forms a poor-law union which, with the Hayfield union, constitutes the Hayfield district. Pop. of the sub-district, 21, 200. Houses, 4, 180.


(John Marius Wilson, Imperial Gazetteer of England and Wales (1870-72))

Linked entities:
Feature Description: "a town, a township, and a sub-district"   (ADL Feature Type: "cities")
Administrative units: Glossop AP/CP       Glossop RegD/PLU       Derbyshire AncC
Place: Glossop

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