Looking Back at Northenden (Looking back series)

Northenden was mentioned as Norwordine in the Domesday Book of 1086; its name came from Anglo-Saxon Norþ-worþign = "north enclosure". It was then a small farming community with a manor house and woodland. Another theory is that the name means "northern dale or valley", presumably because it was near the River Mersey.[4] In later times Northenden was sometimes called Northen. There was a weir on the Mersey there in the 14th century (where Mill Lane stands now) and a mill was set up to grind corn. The mill belonged to the Tatton family of Wythenshawe Hall, but was demolished in the 1960s. As Northenden is on a major (and very old) crossing place of the Mersey on the "Salt Road" from Cheshire to Manchester, it prospered in medieval times. The ford was an important way into and out of and into Manchester (now Ford Lane), as there was no bridge over the Mersey between Sale and Stockport, until in 1745 Bonnie Prince Charlie's army built a troop-bridge out of big poplar tree trunks where the B5095 (Manchester Road, Didsbury) now crosses the Mersey, south of Didsbury, in his abortive attempt to seize the crown of England. The Northenden ford was unusual because its northern and southern ends were not opposite each other, but people using the ford had to wade about 500 feet along the riverbed. The Simon's Bridge was built at the ford in 1901 to help access to Poor's Field, and the rent from this field was used by the church to buy blankets and clothes for the needy. Distance from Manchester enabled Northenden to avoid the Industrial Revolution in the 19th century. The nearest it came to industrialisation was a cottage industry in flax spinning.