Handforth is a town and civil parish in Cheshire, England, south of Manchester city centre. The population of the parish was 6,715 at the 2021 census. In the 1960s and 1970s, two overspill housing estates, Spath Lane in Handforth,Google Maps: Handforth (Retrieved 29 November 2014) and Colshaw Farm nearby in Wilmslow, were built to re-house people from inner city Manchester.Google Maps: Colshaw Farm (Retrieved 29 November 2014) It lies between Wilmslow, Heald Green, and Styal, and forms part of the Greater Manchester Built-up Area.
History
The name "Handforth" is believed to originate from the Saxon name for a crossing on the River Dean, "Hanna's Ford". The first mention of Handforth is found in a charter dated between 1233 and 1236, with a later mention found in a deed of transfer between Lord Edmund Phitoun and Henry de Honeford, dated to 1291. The settlement is not mentioned in the Domesday Book of 1086, though it may have, at that time, been recorded as a component part of the parish of Cheadle.
During the Crusades, Handforth acquired its own coat of arms, which include the 'Honford Star', emblem of Henry de Honeford, a member of the local nobility.Graham Rollason, Handforth (Retrieved 4 December 2014) The town was referred to as "Honford" in John Speede's map of the area in 1611,Map of Cheshire, by John Speed, Published By Basset & Chiswell, 1676 (Retrieved 29 November 2014) also named after the de Honford family.
The oldest building in Handforth is Handforth Hall, a typical Tudor-styled black and white timber building built by Sir Urian Brereton in 1562, also originally named "Honford Hall" after the de Honfords. Sir Urian Brereton, the escheator of Cheshire and one of the privy grooms to King Henry VIII, died at Handforth Hall on 19 March 1577, and is thought to be buried in one of the chapels of St Mary's Church, Cheadle. In the church's south chapel, two recumbent effigies depicted in alabaster are thought to represent members of the Hondford family; Sir John, who died in 1461, and his son, also named John. A third, depicted in sandstone, represents Sir Thomas Brereton, who died in 1673. The most famous resident of Handforth is Sir Urian's great-grandson, the Parliamentary General Sir William Brereton, 1st Baronet, who fought in the English Civil War.
During the First World War, an internment camp was set up in Handforth, for both civilian and military prisoners. The site, converted from a disused print works built in 1910 and requisitioned by the War Office in 1914, was designed to hold no more than 3,000 men, and was opened on 6 November 1914 with the arrival of 500 prisoners. From May 1915, following the aftermath of a number of Anti-German riots which swept a number of cities in England, the camp's civilian population increased, following decisions to intern 'enemy aliens', with a number of men sent to Handforth from Liverpool. The camp was inspected by an attaché to the American Embassy in London on 1 April 1916, at which a time there were 2,713 prisoners living in the camp.
At the height of the camp's operations, the interned population of the camp was greater than that of the village of Handforth itself; later in the war, when German soldiers captured from the front lines began to arrive, the local population started to take a greater interest in the camp, and would watch the new arrivals, with crowds gathering at the nearby railway station. The Manchester Evening News reported on 17 March 1915: "Great excitement prevailed at Handforth and Wilmslow today when it became generally known that about 600 German prisoners taken during heavy fighting in the North of France were expected to arrive for internment at the concentration camp."'Handforth, Cheshire East: German Takeover of a Sleepy Village', BBC World War One at Home https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/p023084q'Handforth Concentration Prison', Diverse Narratives of WWI, http://diversenarratives.com/2015/02/05/handforth-concentration-prison/'Prisoners of War and Internees (Great Britain)', International Encyclopaedia of the First World War, http://encyclopedia.1914-1918-online.net/article/prisoners_of_war_and_internees_great_britain
During the Second World War, Handforth, along with Cheadle Hulme, became home to large parts of RAF Handforth, a maintenance unit classed as a universal stores depot, with the official Royal Air Force name 'RAF Handforth No 61 M.U. (Maintenance unit)'. The depot, which covered large areas of land in both Handforth and neighbouring Cheadle Hulme, opened in 1939 and closed in 1959. The depot's stores spanned every single item required by the RAF in wartime, from utensils and everyday tools to aircraft engines. The site was served by a large, internal railway system, which left the Manchester to Crewe mainline near Handforth railway station; the site of the exchange sidings and junction is now found on the modern-day Epsom Avenue. The depot also featured its own shunting locomotives, which were stored in an engine shed that stood at the Wilmslow bound exit slip road for the Handforth Dean shopping centre. The only surviving buildings of RAF Handforth are the government pay offices, now found on Dairyhouse Lane; these buildings, used as the headquarters of the depot, have survived in Ministry of Defence use to this day.
In January 2017, government plans were announced to build a garden village on the eastern margin of Handforth village, to include 2,000 houses with facilities including a nursery and care home.
Geography Handforth borders Heald Green to the north and Wilmslow to the south, between the Cheshire Plain and the Pennines.Macchi, L. (1990). "A Field Guide to the Continental Permo-Triassic Rocks of Cumbria and Northwest Cheshire". Liverpool Geological Society, Liverpool: 88 pages. The area lies near the River Dean, a tributary of the River Bollin that flows north–west and eventually joins the River Mersey near Lymm. The local geology is mostly glacial clay, as well as glacial sands and gravel.Taylor, B.; Price R., and Trotter F. (1963). "The geology of the Country around Stockport and Knutsford". Memoir of the Geological Survey GB: pp 20–22.British Geological Survey 1:50K map series sheets 96-98, 108-110, 122,123 and accompanying memoirs
The majority of buildings in the area are houses dating to the 20th and 21st centuries, with a small number of buildings - such as that of Handforth Hall - dating to before this time.
Climate Handforth experiences a temperate maritime climate, like much of the British Isles, with relatively cool summers and mild winters.
Physical geography
The eastern half of Cheshire, in which Handforth is located, is Upper Triassic Mercia Mudstone laid down with large salt deposits, which were mined for hundreds of years around Northwich. Separating this area from Lower Triassic Sherwood Sandstone to the west is a prominent sandstone ridge known as the Mid Cheshire Ridge. A footpath, the Sandstone Trail, follows this ridge from Frodsham to Whitchurch, passing Delamere Forest, Beeston Castle and earlier Iron Age forts.
Governance There are two tiers of local government covering Handforth, at parish (town) and unitary authority level: Handforth Town Council and Cheshire East Council. The town council is based at the Community Centre on Old Road.
Handforth forms part of the Tatton constituency, represented by Esther McVey, a Conservative.
Administrative history Handforth was historically a township in the ancient parish of Cheadle, which formed part of the Macclesfield Hundred of Cheshire. From the 13th century the township also included a detached area to the north-east called Bosden, which included the eastern side of Hazel Grove. The township was thereafter sometimes known as 'Handforth-cum-Bosden'.
From the 17th century onwards, parishes were gradually given various civil functions under the poor laws, in addition to their original ecclesiastical functions. In some cases, including Cheadle, the civil functions were exercised by each township 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 Handforth-cum-Bosden became a civil parish, which therefore diverged from the ecclesiastical parish. In 1878, Handforth and Bosden were made separate civil parishes.
When elected parish and district councils were established in 1894, Handforth was given a parish council and included in the Stockport Rural District. In 1904, the parish was converted into an urban district. Handforth Urban District was abolished in 1936. Most of the area, including the village, was then absorbed into the Wilmslow Urban District, whilst a smaller area to the north was added to the Cheadle and Gatley Urban District.
Wilmslow Urban District was abolished in 1974 under the Local Government Act 1972. As part of those reforms, the area had been considered for possible inclusion within Greater Manchester, but it was ultimately decided to place it in the borough of Macclesfield. No successor parish was created for the former urban district, and so it became unparished, being directly administered by Macclesfield Borough Council. In 2009, Cheshire East Council was created, taking over the functions of the borough council and Cheshire County Council, which were both abolished.
In 2011, the area of the former Wilmslow Urban District was split into three new parishes called Wilmslow, Handforth, and Styal.
Handforth Parish Council received international attention in February 2021 after a heated Zoom meeting of its Planning and Environment Committee went viral. This event spawned a number of memes and mainstream media coverage. After gaining online traction on the evening of 4 February, attendee Jackie Weaver's name was the highest trending topic on Twitter in the United Kingdom that night and the following day.
In August 2021 the parish council exercised its power under the Local Government Act 1972 to declare the parish to be a town, allowing the council to change its name to Handforth Town Council.
Demography Population The historic population of Handforth was 650 in 1851, and 911 in 1901. According to the United Kingdom Census 2021, the population of the Handforth Ward was 9,784. This compares to the United Kingdom Census 2011, where the Handforth Ward has a population of 9,139 people.Office for National Statistics (Retrieved 29 November 2014) This is an increase from the data in the 2001 Census, when the Handforth Ward had a population of 8,014 people. The gender composition of Handforth is made up of 50.8% (4,640) females and 49.2% (4,499) males.Office for National Statistics (Retrieved 30 November 2014)Office for National Statistics, Neighbourhood Statistics (Retrieved 30 November 2014)Office for National Statistics, Neighbourhood Statistics: Lead View Table (Retrieved 30 November 2014)
Ethnicity +Handforth Compared2011 UK CensusHandforthCheshire EastEnglandTotal population9,138370,12753,012,456White91.6%96.7%85.5%Asian4.7%1.6%7.7%Black0.8%0.4%3.4%
According to the 2011 Census, ethnic white groups (British, Irish, other) account for 91.6% (8,375) of the population, against 96.8% in the previous 2001 census, with 8.4% (764 people) being in ethnic groups other than white.
Of the 8.4% (764 people) in non-white ethnic groups:
21.6% (165) belonged to mixed ethnic groups 56.4% (431) were Asian or Asian British 11.9% (91) belonged to other ethnic groups 10.1% (77) were Black or Black BritishOffice For National Statistics, Neighbourhood Statistics - Ethnic Group, 2011 (Retrieved 2014-08-11)
Religion