Godley is a suburb of Hyde, in

Greater Manchester Greater Manchester is a ceremonial county in North West England. It borders Lancashire to the north, Derbyshire and West Yorkshire to the east, Cheshire to the south, and Merseyside to the west. Its largest settlement is the city of Manchester. ...

, England, lying to the east of the town centre.

History

The earliest recorded agriculture in Tameside east of the River Tame was in Godley, from 1211–1249.Nevell (1991), p. 52. In 1851, Godley Reservoir was completed. In 2023, Tameside Council granted planning permission for Godley Green Garden Village which includes 2,150 dwellings on land between the A560 road and the Manchester-Glossop railway line. This will be developed by MADE Partnership, a consortium of Barratt Redrow, Homes England and

Lloyds Banking Group Lloyds Banking Group plc is a British financial institution formed through the acquisition of HBOS by Lloyds TSB in 2009. It is one of the UK's largest financial services organisations, with 30 million customers and 65,000 employees. Lloyds B ...

Governance

There is one main tier of local government covering Godley, at

metropolitan borough A metropolitan borough (or metropolitan district) is a type of districts of England, local government district in England. Created in 1974 by the Local Government Act 1972, metropolitan boroughs are defined in English law as metropolitan distr ...

level: Tameside Metropolitan Borough Council. The council is a member of the

Greater Manchester Combined Authority The Greater Manchester Combined Authority (GMCA) is a combined authority for Greater Manchester, England. It was established on 1 April 2011 and consists of 11 members: 10 indirectly elected members, each a directly elected councillor from one ...

, which is led by the directly-elected

Mayor of Greater Manchester The mayor of Greater Manchester is the directly elected metro mayor, mayor of Greater Manchester, responsible for strategic governance in the region that includes health, transport, housing, strategic planning, waste management, policing, the G ...

. The Hyde Godley electoral ward is named after Godley. For national elections, the Hyde Godley ward is part of the

Stalybridge and Hyde Stalybridge and Hyde is a constituency in Greater Manchester that was created in 1918. The seat has been represented in the House of Commons of the Parliament of the United Kingdom by Jonathan Reynolds of the Labour and Co-operative Party since ...

constituency.

Administrative history

Godley was historically a

township A township is a form of human settlement or administrative subdivision. Its exact definition varies among countries. Although the term is occasionally associated with an urban area, this tends to be an exception to the rule. In Australia, Canad ...

in the

ancient 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. Civil parishes can trace their origin to the ancient system of parishes, w ...

of Mottram-in-Longdendale, which formed part of the Macclesfield Hundred of Cheshire. From the 17th century onwards, parishes were gradually given various civil functions under the

poor laws The English Poor Laws were a system of poor relief in England and Wales that developed out of the codification of late-medieval and Tudor-era laws in 1587–1598. The system continued until the modern welfare state emerged in the late 1940s. E ...

, in addition to their original ecclesiastical functions. In some cases, including Mottram-in-Longdendale, the civil functions were exercised by each township separately rather than the parish as a whole. In 1866, the legal definition of 'parish' was changed to be the areas used for administering the poor laws, and so Godley became a

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. Civil parishes can trace their origin to the ancient system of parishes, w ...

. In terms of

ecclesiastical parish A parish is a territorial entity in many Christianity, Christian denominations, constituting a division within a diocese. A parish is under the pastoral care and clerical jurisdiction of a priest#Christianity, priest, often termed a parish pries ...

es, Godley was separated from Mottram-in-Longdendale in 1847, and a church dedicated to St John the Baptist was completed in 1850. In 1877, the township or civil parish of Godley was absorbed into the Hyde

local government district Local may refer to: Geography and transportation * Local (train), a train serving local traffic demand * Local, Missouri, a community in the United States Arts, entertainment, and media * ''Local'' (comics), a limited series comic book by Bria ...

. The Hyde local government district was raised to the status of a

municipal borough A municipal borough was a type of local government Local government is a generic term for the lowest tiers of governance or public administration within a particular sovereign state. Local governments typically constitute a subdivision of ...

in 1881. Godley continued to exist as an

urban 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. Civil parishes can trace their origin to the ancient system of parishes, w ...

within the borough of Hyde until 1923, when all the parishes within the borough were merged into a single civil parish called Hyde. The borough of Hyde was abolished in 1974 under the

Local Government Act 1972 The Local Government Act 1972 (c. 70) is an act of the Parliament of the United Kingdom that reformed local government in England and Wales on 1 April 1974. It was one of the most significant acts of Parliament to be passed by the Heath Gov ...

. The area became part of the Metropolitan Borough of Tameside in

Industry

In the early 1880s, John Broomer developed an early form of margarine called Butterine. He established a factory in the Olive Tree works, a former hat factory on Mottram Road previously occupied by Henry Taylor Wrigley. In 1888, the Danish margarine manufacturer Otto Monsted acquired the Olive Tree works.IST Journal
, Summer 2012 The factory was sold to Maypole Dairies in 1902 and later used by

Walls Walls may refer to: *The plural of wall, a structure * Walls (surname), a list of notable people with the surname Places * Walls, Louisiana, United States * Walls, Mississippi, United States *Walls, Ontario Perry is a township (Canada), ...

to manufacture ice cream and meat products.

Transport

Godley is served by Godley railway station, which replaced the nearby Godley East railway station.

References

;Notes ;Bibliography * Areas of Greater Manchester Geography of Tameside Hyde, Greater Manchester {{GreaterManchester-geo-stub