Radcliffe, Greater Manchester

Radcliffe is a town in the Metropolitan Borough of Bury, Greater Manchester (historically in Lancashire), England. The town is south-west of Bury proper, and is served by a station on the Manchester Metrolink. The town is also a thoroughfare for people to get from Bolton to Manchester.

There are few places in the northwest of England with a history as long as Radcliffe's, stretching back more than 6,000 years to Mesolithic times, Roman associations and a mention in the Doomsday Book.

It became an urban district in 1894, and received a charter as a municipal borough in 1935. [1] It became part of the Metropolitan Borough of Bury in 1974, under the Local Government Act 1972.

Radcliffe was originally a coal and cotton area, and is Bury's most westerly town and takes its name from 'red cliff' (rock) on the River Irwell. Medieval buildings in Radcliffe include the Parish Church, a Tithe barn and Radcliffe tower, which was a manorial residence in the kingdom in ancient times.

Radcliffe is home to non-football league club Radcliffe Borough Football Club and to Radcliffe Cricket Club who play in the Central Lancashire Cricket League.

The town is currently undergoing a multi-million pound revamp (Reinventing Radcliffe), which will include town centre living, and a new state-of-the-art school which will replace Coney Green High School and Radcliffe High School.

Until the new school is built, the two high school sites have been renamed Radcliffe Riverside East Campus (Coney Green) and Radcliffe Riverside West Campus (Radcliffe High).

The Manchester, Bolton and Bury Canal, which runs through Radcliffe is to be cleaned up as part of a wider scheme across Greater Manchester. Work was started in Salford earlier in 2005, and it is hoped it will reach Radcliffe by 2010.

The town has an Asda Supermarket and up until last year had a Kwik Save store. Work had begun in late 2005 to demolish this, to make way for the new Reinventing Radcliffe development.

Radcliffe was the birthplace of Canadian author Donald Jack and also the home of Olympic medal winning cyclist Harry Hill who took bronze at the 1936 Berlin Olympics.

Radcliffe has two weekly newspapers, the Radcliffe Times, based at the Bury Times offices, in Bury, and Salford-based The Advertiser, which also covers the neighbouring areas of Prestwich and Whitefield.