Northenden

Northenden
Church Road junction, in central Northenden
OS grid reference	SJ828901
• London	159 mi (256 km) SE
Metropolitan borough	Manchester
Metropolitan county	Greater Manchester
Region	North West
Country	England
Sovereign state	United Kingdom
Post town	MANCHESTER
Postcode district	M22
Dialling code	0161
Police	Greater Manchester
Fire	Greater Manchester
Ambulance	North West
UK Parliament	Wythenshawe and Sale East

Northenden is a suburban area and electoral ward of the city of Manchester in North West England. It lies on the south side of both the River Mersey and the M60 motorway, 4.2 miles (6.8 km) west of Stockport and 5.2 miles (8.4 km) south of Manchester city centre. Northenden is bounded by the districts of Didsbury, Gatley and Wythenshawe on the north, east and southwest respectively. Northenden is within the postal area code and electoral boundaries of the Wythenshawe district.

Anciently a part of Cheshire, Northenden was formerly a rural township and parish within the hundred of Bucklow. Despite a process of unplanned urbanisation and population growth in its neighbours during the 19th century, Northenden remained a comparatively rural and unpopulated area which spanned the hamlets of Lawton Moor, Northern Moor, Rose Hill and a part of what is now Wythenshawe. By 1866 Northenden had coalesced and became a civil parish. The industrialisation of neighbouring Manchester resulted in overpopulation, and so in the early 20th century Manchester City Council used the Local Government Act 1929 to extend its boundaries to encompass Northenden in 1931.

Throughout the mid-20th century Northenden was redeveloped as an overspill estate in southern Manchester.

History

Further information: History of Manchester

Northenden was mentioned as Norwordine in the Domesday Book of 1086; its name came from Anglo-Saxon Norþ-worþign = "north enclosure". It was then a small farming community with a manor house and woodland. Another theory is that the name means "northern dale or valley", presumably a reference to its close proximity to the River Mersey. In later times Northenden was sometimes called Northen.

There was a weir on the Mersey there in the 14th century (where Mill Lane stands now) and a mill was set up to grind corn. The mill belonged to the Tatton family of Wythenshawe Hall, but was demolished in the 1960s.

As Northenden is on a major (and very old) crossing place of the Mersey on the "Salt Road" from Cheshire to Manchester, it prospered in medieval times. The ford was an important passageway north out of and into Manchester (now Ford Lane), as there was no bridge over the Mersey between Sale and Stockport, until in 1745 Bonnie Prince Charlie's army built a troop-bridge out of big poplar tree trunks where the B5095 (Manchester Road, Didsbury) now crosses the Mersey, south of Didsbury, in his abortive attempt to seize the crown of England. The Northenden ford was unusual because its northern and southern ends were not opposite each other, but people using the ford had to wade approximately 500 feet along the riverbed. The Simon's Bridge was built at the ford in 1901 to help access to Poor's Field, and the rent from this field was used by the church to buy blankets and clothes for the needy.

Distance from Manchester enabled Northenden to avoid the Industrial Revolution in the 19th century. The nearest it came to industrialisation was a cottage industry in flax spinning. In the 1980s the area became part of the Mersey Valley Park, and the banks of the river form part of the Mersey Valley Trail.

Northenden began to develop as an attractive riverside township for Manchester's more affluent managers, clerks and tradesmen and it is the Victorian and Edwardian development that gives the village much of its present character. In the wake of Manchester's acquisition of Wythenshawe for a new Garden City. Northenden became an official district of Manchester in 1931.

Northenden is often referred to as a village by the locals, but was engulfed in suburban housing as the very large Wythenshawe housing estate was built during the first half of the 20th century. Northenden rapidly developed a shopping centre along Palatine Road to service the new neighbourhood with shops, schools, a cinema (closed 1974), hotels, churches, small businesses and service industries. Eventually, a larger shopping centre and various amenities were built in the centre of Wythenshawe in the late 1960s, though Northenden still remains a busy locality.

Northenden railway station served the locality between 1866 and 1964, being situated between Sharston Road and Longley Lane. Passenger trains from Stockport Tiviot Dale to Warrington and Liverpool stopped here.

Governance

Northenden was one of the eight ancient parishes of the Macclesfield Hundred of Cheshire and included the township of Northen Etchells. Under the Poor Law Amendment Act 1886 the parish was split in two as Northen Etchells became a civil parish in its own right. In 1931 both parishes were incorporated into the civil parish and city of Manchester, along with the civil parish of Baguley, which was part of the Bucklow Hundred of Cheshire.

Geography

Northenden is located in the southern end of the city of Manchester, 5.2 miles (8.4 km) from the city centre, and literally on the south bank of the River Mersey.

Northenden is now situated within a small triangle between two motorways (the M56 and M60) and a main dual carriageway (Princess Parkway). Manchester Airport is approximately 4 miles away southwards by road. Regeneration and expansion of the Sharston Industrial Estate (next to Northenden to the south) has attracted many new businesses and employment.

Places of interest

Saint Wilfrid's Church (Church of England) is the oldest building in the neighbourhood. It partly dates from the late Middle Ages and, for the most part Victorian times. The architectural style being Gothic. The tower, although low, offers some fine views over the area. The church is built from red sandstone. The building be listed grade 2*.

Northenden has the largest Jehovah's Witness Kingdom Hall in the area, a former cinema dating from the 1930s called The Forum.

The area also has places of worship for Methodists, Anglicans, Roman Catholics, Mormons and Quakers.

Northenden Social Club is unique, in that rather than build a new social club after World War One, it's first premises, like those of many village clubs was a converted army hut. The hut was used by the medical officer at Heaton Park. To buy it cost 114 pounds, the club had to find another 412 pounds to pay for it's removal and erection, into a new social club; in front of the club is the Northenden War Memorial. The idea of the club was one of the good things to come out of the first world war and had it's origin in the minds of ex-servicemen in 1919 with four years of war behind them. In such a club they could meet and continue the comradeship of the trenches and the camps.

Public services

Northenden is covered by the South Manchester Division of Greater Manchester Police. The local Neighbourhood Policing Team is the Northenden Neighbourhood Policing Team, which covers Northenden, Brooklands, and Baguley.

External links

• Northenden Civic Society
• Northenden Past
• Northenden Railway Station
• Northenden Riverside Park
• Northenden Mill
• Northenden Social Club history