Handforth

Handforth is a town and civil parish in Cheshire, England, south of Manchester city centre. The population at the 2011 census was 6,266. In the 1960s and 1970s, two overspill housing estates, Spath Lane in Handforth, and Colshaw Farm nearby in Wilmslow, were built to re-house people from inner city Manchester. It lies between Wilmslow, Heald Green, Stanley Green and Styal and forms part of the Greater Manchester Built-up Area.

History

Handforth's original name was Handforth-cum-Bosden, having resided in the parish of Cheadle in some of its earliest mentions. The name "Handforth" is believed to originate from the Saxon name for a crossing on the River Dean, "Hanna's Ford". The first mention of Handforth is found in a charter dated between 1233 and 1236 CE, with a later mention found in a deed of transfer between Lord Edmund Phitoun and Henry de Honeford, dated to 1291. The settlement is not mentioned in the Domesday Book of 1086, though it may have, at that time, been recorded as a component part of the parish of Cheadle.

During the Crusades, Handforth acquired its own Coat of Arms, displaying the Honford Star emblem of Henry de Honeford, a member of the local nobility. The town was referred to as "Honford" in John Speede's map of the area in 1611, also named after the de Honford family.

The oldest building in Handforth is Handforth Hall, a typical Tudor-styled black and white timber building built by Sir Urian Brereton in 1562, also originally named "Honford Hall" after the de Honfords. Sir Urian Brereton, the escheator of Cheshire and one of the privy grooms to King Henry VIII, died at Handforth Hall on 19 March 1577, and is thought to be buried in one of the chapels of St Mary's Church, Cheadle. In the church's south chapel, two recumbent effigies depicted in alabaster are thought to represent members of the Hondford family; Sir John, who died in 1461, and his son, also named John. A third, depicted in sandstone, represents Sir Thomas Brereton, who died in 1673. The most famous resident of Handforth is Sir Urian's great grandson, the Parliamentary General Sir William Brereton, 1st Baronet, who fought in the English Civil War.

During the First World War, an internment camp was set up in Handforth, for both civilian and military prisoners. The site, converted from a disused print works built in 1910 and requisitioned by the War Office in 1914, was designed to hold no more than 3,000 men, and was opened on 6 November 1914 with the arrival of 500 prisoners. From May 1915, following the aftermath of a number of Anti-German riots which swept a number of cities in England, the camp's civilian population increased, following decisions to intern 'enemy aliens', with a number of men sent to Handforth from Liverpool. The camp was inspected by an attaché to the American Embassy in London on 1 April 1916, at which a time there were 2,713 prisoners living in the camp.

At the height of the camp's operations, the interned population of the camp was greater than that of the village of Handforth itself; later in the war, when German soldiers captured from the front lines began to arrive, the local population started to take a greater interest in the camp, and would watch the new arrivals, with crowds gathering at the nearby railway station. The ''Manchester Evening News'' reported on 17 March 1915: "Great excitement prevailed at Handforth and Wilmslow today when it became generally known that about 600 German prisoners taken during heavy fighting in the North of France were expected to arrive for internment at the concentration camp."

During the Second World War, Handforth, along with Cheadle Hulme, became home to large parts of RAF Handforth, a maintenance unit classed as a universal stores depot, with the official Royal Air Force name 'RAF Handforth No 61 M.U. (Maintenance unit)'. The depot, which covered large areas of land in both Handforth and neighbouring Cheadle Hulme, opened in 1939 and closed in 1959. The depot's stores spanned every single item required by the RAF in wartime, from utensils and everyday tools to aircraft engines. The site was served by a large, internal railway system, which left the Manchester to Crewe mainline near Handforth railway station; the site of the exchange sidings and junction is now found on the modern-day Epsom Avenue. The depot also featured its own shunting locomotives, which were stored in an engine shed that stood at the Wilmslow bound exit slip road for the Handforth Dean shopping centre. The only surviving buildings of RAF Handforth are the government pay offices, now found on Dairyhouse Lane; these buildings, used as the headquarters of the depot, have survived in Ministry of Defence use to this day.

In January 2017, government plans were announced to build a garden village on the eastern margin of Handforth village, to include 2,000 houses with facilities including a nursery and care home.

Administrative history

Handforth-cum-Bosden was part of the Stockport Registration District between 1837 and 1877, until it was divided onto the separate parishes of Handforth and Bosden. Handforth continued to be part of the Stockport Registration District from 1877 to 1936, when it was then incorporated into the parishes of Wilmslow and Cheadle and Gatley. The parish of Bosden was abolished in 1900, and incorporated into the parish of Hazel Grove and Bramhall.

Handforth, along with other towns such as Whitworth, Poynton and Alderley Edge, successfully objected to being part of the metropolitan county of Greater Manchester when it was formed in 1974, as a result of plans laid out in the Local Government Act 1972. From 1974 until the changes in local government, which occurred in 2009, Handforth was administered by both the Macclesfield Borough Council and the Cheshire County Council. On 1 April 2009, it became part of the Cheshire East unitary authority.

Geography

Handforth borders Heald Green to the north and Wilmslow to the south, between the Cheshire Plain and the Pennines. The area lies near the River Dean, a tributary of the River Bollin that flows north–west and eventually joins the River Mersey near Lymm. The local geology is mostly glacial clay, as well as glacial sands and gravel.

The majority of buildings in the area are houses dating to the 20th and 21st centuries, with a small number of buildings - such as that of Handforth Hall - dating to before this time.

Climate

Handforth experiences a temperate maritime climate, like much of the British Isles, with relatively cool summers and mild winters.

Physical geography

The eastern half of Cheshire, in which Handforth is located, is Upper Triassic Mercia Mudstone laid down with large salt deposits, which were mined for hundreds of years around Northwich. Separating this area from Lower Triassic Sherwood Sandstone to the west is a prominent sandstone ridge known as the Mid Cheshire Ridge. A footpath, the Sandstone Trail, follows this ridge from Frodsham to Whitchurch, passing Delamere Forest, Beeston Castle and earlier Iron Age forts.

The highest point in Cheshire is Shining Tor on the Derbyshire/Cheshire border between Macclesfield and Buxton

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