1977 Walking guide to Cocker Hill and beyond.
My husband found the Ridge Hill Trail guide in the library last week. The whole trail is about three miles long and makes a full circuit around the Tame Valley, including a trip up Cocker Hill. Not sure if the whole circuit is passable now as the guide was published in 1977.
I enjoyed reading the section on Cocker Hill, and as it provides such a good introduction to the area, I have copied it out so that everyone can see it. Hopefully it doesn’t breach the copy right as it is a small excerpt from the whole guide and only really here as the guide is no longer generally available.
The trail starts from Stalybridge Bus Station.
“Leave Bus Station via King Street, walk up the steps, and turn right along Stamford Street, crossing the road at the pelican crossing. Walk down the hill and turn left up a cobbled path just before the stone bridge.
On your left are Bohemia Cottages, dated 1721. The name “Bohemia” may have been adopted because the view along the Tame Valley at this point is similar to the views along the Elbe, a river flowing through Bohemia noted for its sheer hillsides. The Germanic style of Old St George’s may have enhanced this association.
Note the lion and sun reliefs on the cottage walls. In Roman times these were symbols of the Persian sun-god Mithras, a favourite of the Roman legionaries. One Roman road to Melandra is thought to have crossed the river below these cottages.
Go up the steps to the Churchyard
Cocker Hill, from a photograph taken about 1910
This is Cocker Hill churchyard, the site of the first church in Stalybridge. Built in 1776, the first St George’s church collapsed only two years later. The foundations of the recently demolished church can be clearly seen. There have been three churches built on this site, all of which have been of an octagonal design known as the Galilee pattern.
At the top of the churchyard, beside the foundations of the old church is the grave of Neddy Hall. In 1776 Neddy Hall built the first cotton mill in Lancashire. It stood in Wood Street, Stalybridge, near the Bus Station. At that time Ashton-Under-Lyne extended as far as the River Tame. Neddy Hall was the first to use steam power in a Lancashire mill. This small 6hp beam engine was probably of the design produced by James Watt, the most reliable at the time. The tall chimney needed to disperse the engine’s flue gases was nicknamed “Sootpoke” and was the first of many which would soon dominate the Stalybridge Skyline.
On your left, overlooking the churchyard, you can see some of the weavers’ cottages. The top floor, with its mullioned windows designed to give an even light, was utilised for weaving and spinning, leaving the first floor free for treating fibres. The ground floor was used for domestic purposes.
A Mullion is a vertical bar dividing lights in a window.
Before the Industrial Revolution the textile industry was worked on a small scale, with the whole family involved in the production of clothes. Mother and daughter would be spinning while younger children and grandparents “carded” the raw material, and father wove the yarn. As weaving was the quickest of the processes, the father would have been left with time to farm a small plot of land. These people were known as yeoman clothiers.”…………………………………….
The trail then continues up Ridge Hill.
Cocker Hill, Stalybridge 