Moorside is a
suburb
A suburb (more broadly suburban area) is an area within a metropolitan area. They are oftentimes where most of a metropolitan areas jobs are located with some being predominantly residential. They can either be denser or less densely populated ...
of
Oldham
Oldham is a town in Greater Manchester, England. It lies amongst the Pennines on elevated ground between the rivers River Irk, Irk and River Medlock, Medlock, southeast of Rochdale, and northeast of Manchester. It is the administrative cent ...
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
England is a Countries of the United Kingdom, country that is part of the United Kingdom. It is located on the island of Great Britain, of which it covers about 62%, and List of islands of England, more than 100 smaller adjacent islands. It ...
.
It is located in the north east of the township in a semi-rural locality bordering
Saddleworth
Saddleworth is a civil parishes in England, civil parish of the Metropolitan Borough of Oldham in Greater Manchester, England. It comprises several villages and Hamlet (place), hamlets as well as suburbs of Oldham on the Saddleworth Moor, west ...
, contiguous with
Sholver which lies to the west.
The area has many suburban houses and a few council houses. The centre of Moorside is at Ripponden Road where the Co-op and local businesses are. The biggest church in Moorside is Saint Thomas'.
History
In common with many other districts of Oldham, Moorside saw considerable expansion in the mid-19th century. This was in the main due to the efforts of industrialist Thomas Mellodew & Sons. The Mellodews of Moorside were textile manufacturers (velvet) and had a number of mills in the Moorside area.
Success attended the efforts of Thomas Mellodew and his business soon expanded. He began to purchase property and to erect dwellings until the whole of Moorside village, with the exception of a few houses, became his; the number of houses in his possession varying in estimate between 200 and 300. His interest in industry extended to the quarry at the foot of Besom Hill with its brickworks, which he ran in a partnership with John Clegg and which lasted until 1882.
In the mid-1960s a number of private builders' estates began to appear on Haven Lane, Counthill, Parkfield and Turf Pit Lane. This tremendous increase in population has changed Moorside in its character from a cluster of houses sheltering under the brow of a hill to a large piece of suburbia; the former hill dwellers have given place to a developing suburban community.
[http://www.stthomasmoorside.org.uk/history/local_history.htm, Local history, St Thomas's, Moorside. Retrieved 15 July 2013]
References
Areas of Oldham
{{GreaterManchester-geo-stub