The Four Meres of Saddleworth in the South

Patrons Baroness Mallalieu QC Mr Roger Tanner MBE Mr Phil Woolas MP Newsletter 45 Winter/Spring 2009/10 Saddleworth White Rose Society Annual General Meeting Our Chairman Mr Geoff Bayley introduced the evening by commenting on the numerous site visits and meetings between Borough officers and SWRS to identify possible positions for our County Boundary signs. These were generally agreed and the first pair, one Yorkshire and one Lancashire are due to appear in position in the new year.. L to R Michael Hall, Geoff Bayley and Mike However, we were disappointed and very Buckley respectivly SWRS Vice Chairman, concerned that Mrs Glenys Atherton, wife Chairman and previous Chairman displaySWRS’s of Dr David Atherton of Greenfield, Yorkshire and Lancashire boundary signs at the himself recovering from illness, had to be AGM.. taken into hospital suddenly and so would After the formal part of the meeting and be unable to give her intended talk at the following Christine’s talk, the first of our AGM. We wish her a speedy and full County Boundary signs were displayed, to recovery. the great pleasure of the members. This pair of signs will be the first to appear but We were fortunate in that the ever are to be followed by similar ones sited all resourceful SWRS committee member, around the Yorkshire/Lancashire boundary and retired nurse, Christine Barrow, of the Saddleworth area stepped in at the last moment to fill the gap and give a really interesting talk, with Membership Subscriptions slides about her time spent in the Annual subs are due on 1st Nov. Please townships outside Port Elizabeth, South remember these are of vital importance to Africa nursing at Mission Vale Day Centre the ever increasing costs of running the for Aids and HIV. And generally helping society. Sending out reminders not only the children at Emmefini School for a takes up valuable time but incurs additional month during 2008. Here a container had costs. Payment can be made by cash, cheque been adapted as a classroom in this very or standing order if preferred. Whilst we are fortunate that several of the ladies, both poor community. Christine helped fifty six committee members and others contribute 4 to 5 year old Xhosa speaking children to considerably to financing the society by learn English through singing songs taking part in events such as Yorkshire Day, containing the alphabet or number delivering Newsletters and manning stalls at counting as with songs such as Five Little events etc., subscriptions are still essential. Ducks etc. In the New Year Christine Please send these to Mrs N Gregory, 10 expects to be off again, this time to Goa to Court Street, Uppermill, Saddleworth, help in a Safe House for slum children. Yorkshire OL3 6HD The Four Meres of Saddleworth in the South. Its boundaries were Wharmton and Grasscroft on the West By Mike Buckley and Dobcross, Uppermill and Part one: Shawmere & Quickmere Friezland Lane on the East. The rest of Saddleworth, was Lordsmere, a large area, essentially the whole of the east of the township which included the present day villages of Dobcross, Diggle, Uppermill and Greenfield as well as the whole of Saddleworth Moor. As we have seen, up to the end of the nineteenth century, the four meres were the administrative sub-divisions of Saddleworth. They formed the basis of poor law administration, highway maintenance and law and order. At the vestry meetings, the predecessors of present day local government, constables, highway assessors and overseers of the poor An inscription on an old boundary were elected for each of the meres. stone, the name of a Saddleworth Local rates and national taxes were School house, the title of a cricket also assessed and collected on the club; these are all that remain to same basis. This administrative remind us of the once four ancient arrangement seems to have emerged divisions of Saddleworth. Today, we hand in hand with the emergence of look upon Saddleworth as made up of local government and had its roots in its Pennine villages; but before these the sixteenth century. During the next post-industrial revolution creations the two hundred years an increasingly four meres were the important sub- elaborate arrangement of divisions; units rooted in history and administrative divisions and sub- providing an administrative basis for divisions emerged based around the linking together the scattered meres. Friarmere was divided into settlements that then made up this Lightside (Castleshaw) and Darkside Pennine Township. (Denshaw), Quickmere into Upper, Friarmere was to the North, the “top Middle and Lower Divisions, the latter end” as it was known in earlier days, being ceded to Mossley, first partially its boundaries stretched from Grains in 1864 with the formation of a Bar along Hilltop Lane, Knotty Lane, Mossley Local Board and finally in through Delph along King Street, the 1885 with the creation of the Mossley back of High Street and Delph Lane, Municipal Borough. Lordsmere and then through the Castleshaw valley via Shawmere were similarly sub-divided. Causeway Sett, Waters Gate, The first series Ordnance Survey Map Bleakhey Nook and up to Stanedge. of 1850 marks these sub-divisions at Quickmere was to the West, and the height of their elaboration and just includes the present day districts of a few years before their abandonment Grasscroft, Springhead, Grotton, as a result of the changes brought Austerlands, Scouthead, Highmoor about by the local government Acts of and Strinesdale. Shawmere, was less Parliament of 1858 and 1894. clearly defined, but was essentially The four meres may have been the land on either side of the River seventeenth century administrative Tame from Delph in the North to the creations but their existence as distinct boundary of Saddleworth with Mossley units dates back to a much earlier time. In fact recent research has A family bearing the same name were revealed that their origins may be as well established here during the early as the origins of Saddleworth thirteenth century. A Gilbert de Quick itself. Each has now been shown to witnesses Stapleton charters in the be a separate medieval estate, in fact early thirteenth century. Quickmere a separate manor, with its own lord, appears to have been the extent of the manorial court system, and tenants. landholding of this family. Quick was Friarmere as the name implies was regarded as a separate Manor from once monastic land. That it was Saddleworth during the middle ages. granted to Roche Abbey by Robert de A document dated 1461 refers to Stapleton, Lord of the Manor of Robert Trafford having purchased the Saddleworth in the thirteenth century. Manor of Whyke from Robert of the Whyke. By the end of the fourteenth Contrary to popular opinion, and as century the Trafford family were the been stated elsewhere, there never major landowners with a number of was a monastery in Friarmere; there other farms in the hands of the was however at Grange, an Staveley family, Lords of Staley. administrative centre from which the monks could farm and manage the The boundary of Quickmere to the district. The tax of 1297 mentions the west is puzzling. From Waterhead to Grange of Ildbrictop paid tax for 10 Grains Bar it follows a natural feature, cows, 6 oxen and other animals. the River Medlock and from Grotton to During the fourteenth century though County End another logical course the monks must have decided that it along Thornley Brook. Its boundary was simpler to farm the land out to with Lees however is clearly a man tenants than trying to do this directly made estate boundary. The Lees themselves. boundary to the west and south however again is a natural feature and With the dissolution of the monastery follows the course of the two rivers. by Henry VIII in 1539 Friarmere fell The logical conclusion is that into the hands of Crown and was sold Quickmere once included Lees. In in 1543 to two Rochdale men, Arthur fact the earliest definition of the Assheton and Roger Gartside. During boundaries of Saddleworth which the seventeenth century, their occur in a deed of 1468 describes the descendants sold the land to the Saddleworth boundary as following the tenants. two rivers and thus including Lees. If The origins of Quickmere as a unit are this was the case Lees’s separation less well defined. The name Quick from Saddleworth must have taken throughout the middle ages was used place at a very early date for it to have administratively to refer to the whole become part of Ashton Parish and for area or Township of Saddleworth. An the Yorkshire/Lancashire border to attempt at accommodating this have divided the two. This article is an confusing situation was a renaming of abridged version of a recent account the Township as “Saddleworth with of the early history of Saddleworth Quick” or “Saddleworth cum Quick” published in the Summer 2009 from the seventeenth century Saddleworth Historical Society onwards. To add to the confusion Bulletin. Quick as a place was clearly defined The second part of this article is to appear in as the area between Lydgate and Newsletter 46 Brookbottom in Mossley, and apparently centred on two large estates at Quickwood and Roughtown, now ironically no longer regarded as part of Saddleworth but part of Mossley. The Metropolitan Borough of Oldham whole’[Hemisphere Rebranding Consultants By Michael Lawson, Report 2008]. The Metropolitan Borough of Oldham is a The Metropolita Borough of Oldham is local authority area in the North West of situated across the boundary of two great and England, constituted on the 1st April 1974, Historic Counties of England – Lancashire and following the implementation of the local Yorkshire, for reorganisation in 1974 did not government reorganisation of the country.

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