Springhead, Greater Manchester

Springhead is a suburban area in the civil parish of Saddleworth in the Metropolitan Borough of Oldham, in Greater Manchester, England.

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Grotton and Springhead railway station

Grotton and Springhead railway station served the villages of Grotton and Springhead from 1856 until 1955.

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Lees Urban District

Lees (or Lees Urban District) was from 1894 to 1974, a local government district in the administrative county of Lancashire, England. It was created an urban district in 1894 by the Local Government Act 1894 and included the civil parish of Lees and part of the Crossbank hamlet. It was an exclave of the administrative county of Lancaster, being bordered to the west by the county borough of Oldham, and to the east by the West Riding of Yorkshire. In 1974 Lees Urban District was abolished by the Local Government Act 1972 and its former area transferred to Greater Manchester to form part of the Metropolitan Borough of Oldham.

Grotton

Grotton is a residential area in Saddleworth, a civil parish of the Metropolitan Borough of Oldham, in Greater Manchester, England. Located along the A669 road, it forms a continuous urban area with Austerlands and Springhead, which in turn link to Lees and Oldham, all of which are to Grotton's west. Historically a part of the West Riding of Yorkshire, Grotton was anciently a rural hamlet close to the boundary with Lancashire, and was centred on Grotton Hall, a former manor house. The hall was purchased by Edmund Buckley in the 1840s and inherited by his son Sir Edmund Buckley in 1864. Buckley sold the hall after he was declared bankrupt in 1876. Although some buildings date from the 17th and 18th century, the urbanisation of Grotton broadly took place following the Industrial Revolution; Grotton became a large suburb of Oldham following a residential building boom in the 1930s. The 1930s housing being brick built are in stark contrast to the millstone grit farm houses dotted around the hamlet. Before the inter-war residential development, Grotton was home to light industry, including brickworks and a couple of textile mills. All of these are now closed and demolished. During the 1930s new leisure buildings were constructed. Some still prominently featured, such as the Grade II listed Grotton pub built in 1938 have now been converted to a Co-op along with a lido and tennis courts added in 1935 to serve the leisure needs of the burgeoning community. However, these were closed in 1939. The former railway line to Oldham Mumps railway station closed in 1962, has been converted into a linear country park, providing a largely traffic-free walk for most of the way into Oldham. The old Grotton and Springhead railway station is also preserved. The platforms are visible, and the buildings are now a private house. East of Grotton, the line ran to join the current trans-pennine railway line at Greenfield railway station, but while it is possible to walk east from the station to the western portal of Lydgate Tunnel, the tunnel itself is blocked off and impassable, although it is maintained by the former British Railways Property Board in order to prevent subsidence.

Lees, Greater Manchester

Lees is a town in the Metropolitan Borough of Oldham, Greater Manchester, England, amongst the Pennines east of the River Medlock, 1.8 miles (2.9 km) east of Oldham, and 8.2 miles (13.2 km) northeast of Manchester. In the 14th century, when John de Leghes was a retainer of the local Lord of the Manor, Lees was a conglomeration of hamlets, ecclesiastically linked with the township of Ashton-under-Lyne. Farming was the main industry of this rural area, with locals supplementing their incomes by hand-loom weaving in the domestic system. At the beginning of the 19th century, Lees had obtained a reputation for its mineral springs; ambitions to develop a spa town were thwarted by an unplanned process of urbanisation caused by the rise of textile manufacture during the Industrial Revolution. Lees expanded into a mill town in the late-19th century, on the back of neighbouring Oldham's boom in cotton spinning. Lees Urban District had eleven cotton mills at its manufacturing zenith.