Rochdale
Rochdale is a town in Greater Manchester, England, and the administrative centre of the Metropolitan Borough of Rochdale. In the 2021 Census, the town had a population of 111,261, compared to 223,773 for the wider borough. Rochdale is in the foothills of the South Pennines and lies in the dale of the River Roch, north-west of Oldham and north-east of Manchester.
Rochdale's recorded history begins with an entry in the Domesday Book of 1086 as Recedham Manor, but can be traced back to the 9th century. The ancient parish of Rochdale was a division of the Salford Hundred and one of the larger ecclesiastical parishes in England, comprising several townships. By 1251, the town had become of such importance that it was granted a royal charter.
The town became a centre of northern England's woollen trade and, by the early 18th century, was described as being "remarkable for its many wealthy merchants." In the 19th century, it became a mill town and centre for textile manufacture during the Industrial Revolution. The town lies within the historic county of Lancashire and was a county borough within it before 1974.
History
Toponymy
The town is recorded as Recedham in the Domesday Book and Rachetham in 1193. Variations of Rechedham continue into the 13th century when the first element's termination is dropped as Rachedam became Racheham. This change was soon followed with the suffix -ham changing to -dale.Rachdale is recorded as a name for the town in 1242, but may have been used earlier as a name for the valley, Hundred and Parish. The Domesday Book's rendering of the name led Eilert Ekwall to suggest a derivation from reced, an obscure Old English element meaning "hall".
Although the name of the river is still pronounced , Rochdale is pronounced .
Early history
A Roman road, leading from Mamucium to Eboracum, crossed the moors at Blackstone Edge.Rochdale was subjected to incursions by the Danes; the castle that Castleton is named after, and of which no trace remains, was one of twelve Saxon forts possibly destroyed in frequent conflicts that occurred between the Saxons and Danes during the 10th and 11th centuries. At the time of the Norman Conquest, the manor was held by a Saxon thegn, Gamel. Rochdale appears in the Domesday Book of 1086 as Recedham and was described as lying within the hundred of Salford and the county of Cheshire. At that time, Rochdale was under the lordship of Roger the Poitevin. Before 1212, Henry II granted the manor to Roger de Lacy, whose family retained it as part of the Honour of Clitheroe until it passed to the Dukes of Lancaster by marriage and then to the Crown by 1399. In medieval times, weekly markets were held from 1250 when Edmund de Lacy obtained a grant for a market and an annual fair.
John Byron bought the manor in 1638 and it was sold by the poet, Lord Byron, to the Deardens in 1823, who hold the title. Rochdale did not have a manor house but the Orchard, built in 1702 and acquired in 1745 by Simon Dearden, was the home of the lords of the manor after 1823. It was described as "a red-brick building of no architectural distinction, on the north side of the river opposite the town hall" and sometimes referred to as the Manor House. It was demolished in 1922.
Industrial Revolution
Rochdale is a product of the Industrial Revolution, though the manufacture of woollen cloth, particularly baize, kerseys and flannels, was locally important as far back as the 1500s. At that time, the textile industry was rooted in the domestic system but, towards the end of the 18th century, mills powered by water started to appear.Water power was replaced by steam power in the 19th century and local coal became important. The Deardens who were lords of the manor were among the local coal mine owners. By the mid-1800s, the woollen trade was declining and the cotton trade was rapidly growing in importance. Cotton manufacturing took advantage of new technological developments in spinning and weaving. In 1804, the Rochdale Canal opened, providing the first link over the Pennines between Lancashire and Yorkshire.
During the 19th century, Rochdale became one of the world's most prominent cotton processing towns rising to prominence and becoming a major centre for textile manufacture during the Industrial Revolution. It was a boomtown of the Industrial Revolution and was amongst the first ever industrialised towns. By the end of the 19th century, Rochdale had woollen mills, silk manufacturers, bleachers and dyers, though cotton spinning and weaving were the dominant industries in the community. Turner & Newall was founded in Rochdale in 1871 to produce cotton-based mechanical packing, and in 1879 it became the first business in the United Kingdom to weave asbestos cloth with power-driven machinery.
The socioeconomic change brought by the success of Rochdale's textile industry in the 19th century led to its rise to borough status and it became an important regional town based upon this economic success.
The Rochdale Pioneers opened the first Co-operative shop in Toad Lane in 1844. The reformer and Member of Parliament, John Bright, was born in Rochdale and gained a reputation as a leader of political dissent and supporter of the Anti-Corn Law League.
Decline of textile manufacturing
By the middle of the 20th century, Rochdale's economy was in decline, reflecting the broader economic situation in other textile manufacturing towns in North West England. This decline was largely driven by the global availability of cheaper textile product offerings from abroad.During the 1950s and 1960s, Rochdale's lack of a diverse economic base became very apparent, with the closure of numerous textile manufacturing facilities. Textile manufacturing did remain a major contributor to the local economy, even into the 1970s. Regionally, numerous companies still have some connection to the textile industry.
Governance
Lying within the historic county boundaries of Lancashire since the early 12th century, Rochdale was recorded in 1066 as held by Gamel, one of the twenty-one thegns of the Hundred of Salfordshire.The ancient ecclesiastical parish of Rochdale was divided into four townships: Butterworth, Castleton, Hundersfield and Spotland. Hundersfield was later divided into four townships: Blatchinworth, Calderbrook, Wardleworth and Wuerdle & Wardle.
Excluding the large chapelry of Saddleworth, which lay entirely in Yorkshire, the parish of Rochdale had an area of.
In 1825, commissioners for the social and economic improvement of the town were established. The town became part of a parliamentary borough in 1832. As there were no existing township boundaries, the commissioners and later the parliamentary constituency were deemed to cover a circular area extending three-quarters of a mile from the old market-place.
Under the terms of the Poor Law Amendment Act 1834, the town became the head of Rochdale Poor Law Union, which was established on 15 February 1837, despite considerable local opposition. In 1856, Rochdale was incorporated as a municipal borough, giving it borough status in the United Kingdom, and it obtained the powers of the improvement commissioners after 1858.
In 1872, the remaining area of Wardleworth township and parts of Castleton, Wuerdle and Wardle, Spotland and Butterworth townships were added to the borough.
When the administrative county of Lancashire was created by the Local Government Act 1888, Rochdale was elevated to become the County Borough of Rochdale and was, in modern terms, a unitary authority area exempt from the administration of Lancashire County Council. In 1900, most of Castleton Urban District was added to the borough; this urban district included parts of Castleton, Hopwood and Thornham townships. In 1933, parts of Norden Urban District and Birtle with Bamford civil parish were added to the borough.
Under the Local Government Act 1972, the town's autonomous county borough status was abolished. The municipal boroughs of Middleton and Heywood and Littleborough, Milnrow and Wardle urban districts are now part of the Metropolitan Borough of Rochdale, one of the ten metropolitan boroughs in Greater Manchester.
Parliamentary representation
The Rochdale constituency was created by the Reform Act of 1832. The constituency was held for two decades during the 20th century by Cyril Smith, first of the Liberal Party and then of the Liberal Democrats.Following the 2010 general election, the town was represented by Simon Danczuk, who was elected as a Labour MP but was subsequently suspended and placed under investigation by the Labour Party.
Tony Lloyd was elected as MP for the Rochdale constituency in the 2017 general election and represented the constituency until his death on 17 January 2024. The seat was subsequently won by George Galloway, leader and founder of the Workers Party of Britain, in the 2024 Rochdale by-election on 29 February; the campaign was dominated by opposition to British involvement in the Gaza war. Six months later, Galloway was defeated in the 2024 election by Labour's Paul Waugh.
Geography
Rochdale is approximately above sea level, north-north-east of Manchester city centre, in the valley of the River Roch. Blackstone Edge, Saddleworth Moor and the South Pennines are close to the east; on all other sides, Rochdale is bound by other towns including Whitworth, Littleborough, Milnrow, Royton, Heywood and Shaw and Crompton, with little or no green space between them.Rochdale's built environment consists of a mixture of infrastructure, housing types and commercial buildings from a number of periods. Its housing stock is mixed, but has a significant amount of stone or red-brick terraced houses from the late 19th and early 20th centuries.
The Town Hall, seven large tower blocks and a number of former cotton mills mark the town's skyline. The urban structure of Rochdale is regular when compared to most towns in England; its form is restricted in places by its hilly upland terrain.
Much of Rochdale's built environment is centred around a central business district in the town centre, which is the local centre of both the town and borough.
There are a mixture of high-density urban areas, suburbs, semi-rural and rural locations in Rochdale, but overwhelmingly the land use in the town is urban.
For purposes of the Office for National Statistics, the Borough of Rochdale forms the fifth-largest settlement of the Greater Manchester Urban Area, the United Kingdom's second-largest conurbation.