Lyme Handley, sometimes known as ''Lyme'', is a small

civil parish In England, a civil parish is a type of administrative parish used for local government. It is a territorial designation which is the lowest tier of local government below districts and counties, or their combined form, the unitary authorit ...

in between

Disley Disley is a village and civil parish in Cheshire, England. It is located on the edge of the Peak District in the Goyt valley, south of Stockport and close to the county boundary with Derbyshire at New Mills. The population at the 2011 Census ...

and Stockport, in the unitary authority of Cheshire East and the ceremonial county of Cheshire, England.Macclesfield Borough Website.
Accessed 21 April 2007. According to the 2001 census, it had a population of 151.Official 2001 Census Figures.
Accessed: 20 August 2007. It is also

greenbelt A green belt is a policy and land-use zone designation used in land-use planning to retain areas of largely undeveloped, wild, or agricultural land surrounding or neighboring urban areas. Similar concepts are greenways or green wedges, which h ...

area on the suburbs of

Greater Manchester Greater Manchester is a metropolitan county and combined authority area in North West England, with a population of 2.8 million; comprising ten metropolitan boroughs: Manchester, Salford, Bolton, Bury, Oldham, Rochdale, Stockport, Tam ...

, attracting many visitors in the summer months for walking and picnics and in winter for sledging. The most famous feature of Lyme is

Lyme Park Lyme Park is a large estate south of Disley, Cheshire, England, managed by the National Trust and consisting of a mansion house surrounded by formal gardens and a deer park in the Peak District National Park. The house is the largest in Ches ...

, a Tudor house with gardens created in the 1720s. This was made most famous when it featured as

Mr Darcy Fitzwilliam Darcy Esquire, generally referred to as Mr. Darcy, is one of the two central characters in Jane Austen's 1813 novel '' Pride and Prejudice''. He is an archetype of the aloof romantic hero, and a romantic interest of Elizabeth Benn ...

's house in the BBC dramatisation of '' Pride and Prejudice''. The three-storey house has of well-maintained

Victorian era In the history of the United Kingdom and the British Empire, the Victorian era was the period of Queen Victoria's reign, from 20 June 1837 until her death on 22 January 1901. The era followed the Georgian period and preceded the Edwardia ...

gardens and is also open to visitors for guided tours of the house, which contains a large collection of English clocks. The rest of the area consists of small farms which were all once part of the Handley estate but parcelled off at the turn of the 20th century. These mostly farm sheep with some cattle. In the past Lyme Handley had its own flax mill, providing a use for a crop other than grass that could be grown on a relatively infertile soil type; although the mill remains, it is no longer functional.

References

Civil parishes in Cheshire Towns and villages of the Peak District {{Cheshire-geo-stub

See also

References