Bollington, the Happy Valley! – Best place to live in northwest England! (Sunday Times)
Source: https://happyvalley.org.uk
Archived: 2026-04-23 15:29
Bollington, the Happy Valley! – Best place to live in northwest England! (Sunday Times)
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Bollington, the Happy Valley!
Best place to live in northwest England! (Sunday Times)
MENU
MENU
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Wallpaper
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Years of Happiness!
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Drink, Eat, Sleep
Drinking
Bull’s Head
Church House Inn
Cock & Pheasant Inn
Cotton Tree Inn
Coupe!
Dog & Partridge Inn
Holly Bush Inn
Lime Tree Wine Bar
Lord Clyde Pub
Poacher’s Inn
Robin Hood Inn
Spinner’s Arms
Springwood Park
The Turners
Vale Inn
Windmill Inn
Eating
Aroma Bar & Ristorante
Bayleaf Lounge Bar & Restaurant
Bull's Head
Chopsticks Chinese Takeaway
Cock & Pheasant Inn
Coupe!
Holly Bush Inn
Lime Tree Wine Bar
Lord Clyde Inn
Poacher's Inn
Robin Hood Inn
Springwood Park
Casa – Italian Restaurant
Vale Inn
Viceroy (Indian)
Windmill Inn
Cafés
Café Waterside
Coupe!
Kickback Coffee™
Pappa’s Café
The Green Café
The Mulberry Leaf
Coffee Tavern
Sleeping
Cheshire Hunt Holiday Cottages
Common Barn Farm
Hollin House Hotel
Kerridge End Holiday Cottages
Oakenbank Barn
Premier Inn
Shrigley Hall Hotel
Organisations
Bollington Town Council
Churches
Classes
Drama & Music
Medical
First responders
Miscellaneous Groups
Out of school clubs
Politics
Pre-school
Public services
Schools
Senior citizens
Sport & leisure
Veterans
Youth organisations
The Town
Many parts of …
Essence of ...
War Memorials
Destination Bollington
Short history
White Nancy
Recreation ground
Conservation
Listed buildings
Historic Triangle
Tinkers Clough
Books
Streets
Street Index
Area map
Street map
Recreation Ground
Friends of the Rec.
Green Flag award
Recreation Ground – History
Bollington Outdoors
Bollington Live!
Online editions
Live! editorial group
Advertising rate card
Civic Society
Discovery centre
Conservation
BTC Working Groups
Books available
Dr John Coope MBE
Discovery Centre
Discovery Centre
Books & Maps
Historical Picture Collection
The Essence of Bollington
Short history
Conservation areas
History
Origins of the name
Short history
Bollington Families (family trees)
Bollington People (index)
Bollington Houses (index)
Extractive
Quarrying, Mining
Rally Road
Kerridge Wharf & Stone Saw Mill
Industry
Brewers & bottlers
Fine Spinners & Doublers
Gasworks
Paper industries
Radions Ltd
Smaller industries
Mill Ponds
Mill workers
Industry Unions
Mills
A Short History
Adelphi Mill
Beehive Mill
Bobbin mills
Bollington Corn Mill
Clarence Mill
Cow Lane Mill
Defiance Mill
Industrial variety
Higher mills
Hough Hole Mill
Ingersley Clough Mill
Kerridge Windmill
Lower mills
Lowerhouse Mill
Oak Bank Mill
Owlhurst
Rainow Mill
Sowcar Mill
Waterhouse Mill
Churches
St Oswald’s
St John’s
Holy Trinity Church
St Gregory’s
Methodists
Wesleyan Chapel, Kerridge
New Connexion
Schools
Lowther Street School
St John’s
St Gregory’s
Water Street Secondary
Big/Large Sunday School
Methodist Sunday School
Obituaries
Miscellaneous
1928 Recipe & Quotation Book
Boundary Stones
Bridewell
Brows
Bollington Festival History
Macclesfield Canal
‘Bollington burst’ canal breach
Old Pubs and Breweries
Railway
Rediffusion Service Station
Recreation Ground
Shops & Businesses
War Memorials
WWI Soldier’s Goblet
Kerridge
Industrial history
Kerridge Residents’ Association
Kerridge War Memorial
Kerridge Wharf 1870
Pott Shrigley
Pott Shrigley
Rose Queen Fete
Canalside Radio
Initiative Trust (BIT)
Bollington, the Happy Valley!
The hills are alive! Our beautiful hills welcome everyone!
These are difficult times for many people, so it’s nice to know that Bollington is a place with ‘community’ at its heart. There have always been groups with community fun chief among their objectives, but we also now have many organisations and groups whose principal objective is care – care for those who are struggling, those who are elderly and needing help with everyday things, including modern technology, those with health problems of one kind or another. A good place to start is the
Bridgend Centre
, if they can’t help then they will know someone who can!
Drink, Eat, Sleep
We honour
Sir Terry Waite
KCMG CBE
, born in the Happy Valley!
One of
Cheshire’s Market Towns
,
Bollington never stands still, with a constant stream of artistic and volunteer endeavour from the championship
Bollington Brass Band
(
North West 1st section
), the
Festival Choir
,
Bollington Musical Theatre Group (BMTG [was BLOG])
, the
Festival Players
, and so many other gifted groups. The festival groups were borne out of
Bollington’s famous Festivals
which are now held every two to four years, and have been running since 1964, organised and run entirely by volunteers but including performances from both local amateurs and professional performers. The last one was in 2024, so it is time for another in 2026! Festival 2024 was a mini-Festival held in the open air without the usual big top tent – Bollington Festival Diamond Jubilee Jamboree 2024
!
– held over the end-May Bank Holiday weekend. The weather was largely good to us and the whole event was a massive success! As a result, the Festival Committee have decided to plan future festivals without the big top tent because the cost made the festivals financially unviable. Roll on May 2026
!
At
Clarence Mill
you will find
Bollington Civic Society’s
Discovery Centre
. It continues to be very popular with those wishing to discover more about the town and its history and view their amazing collection of historic pictures, many of which appear in these pages.
Canalside Radio on 102.8fm
has firmly established its popularity throughout the east Cheshire area. A wide range of sporting activity and achievement compliments all this fun.
For details of What’s On check your copy of
Bollington Live!
, or look at
Bollington Arts Centre
pages. A monthly What’s On leaflet is available at the Town Hall and also available
online here
.
The small town of Bollington is located about three miles north of
Macclesfield
, 18 miles south east of Manchester, in north east Cheshire, in the north west of England – find us on the
map
. It nestles in the western most foothills of the Pennine range of hills above the Cheshire plain, adjacent to the Peak District National Park; the boundary just enters the parish, an area known as the
Cheshire Peak District
.
It is a town borne of its rural origins with the industrialisation of the area beginning in the mid 18th century and rapidly developing in the 19th when several large cotton mills were built, coal mines were opened and stone quarried. The opening of the
Macclesfield canal
in 1831 provided important incentive for industrial development as did
the railway
that followed in the late 1860’s. In modern times the mills have been replaced by, usually, smaller businesses although there remain two large paper coating mills, our biggest industry today. We also have one of the UK’s leading silk weavers.
Tourism is increasingly important, the town providing an easy base for those interested in walking the hills (we hold an annual
Walking Festival in September
) with the Peak District National Park on our doorstep, walking or boating the canal or walking or riding (bikes and horses) on the converted railway track, now known as the
Middlewood Way
.
Bollington Rooftops – Peter Etherington
Known to its residents as the
Happy Valley
, this town is a village is a town! What do I mean? Well, it’s a town of 8,300 population (as of 2011) strung out over a distance of about two miles, never very wide, giving the feeling of one long village. Present day Bollington is really based around three villages that became merged together –
Bollington Cross
,
West Bollington
and
Bollington
, and on the edges you will find
Kerridge
on the high ground and
Lowerhouse
in the valley of the river Dean.
Market Place in High Street, Bollington
There was a significant increase in the population during the 1970’s, 80’s and 90’s turning the town into a dormitory for Macclesfield and Manchester. Bollington is regarded as a very desirable place to live and work. This has to do with the advantages of its beautiful location amongst the hills, known as the
Cheshire Peak District
, and the fact that the main street is, for all practical purposes, a no through road; the road does go through but leads mainly to places that can be reached more directly by other routes.
This page provides a range of links to other pages giving an in-depth view of the town and the interests of its population. Have fun! Note that Wednesday is traditionally half day (or early) closing day for shops in Bollington and many still follow this tradition by closing at lunch time – usually 1.00pm – but not the Post Office, Pharmacy, Tesco, or the Co-op, all at
West Bollington
, or Belfield’s Bakery (3pm) in
Palmerston Street
. The Chinese chippy in Palmerston Street is open every day except Tuesday, from 5pm to 11pm.
Some major projects have been completed or are under way –
A
Neighbourhood Plan
has been developed and adopted by Cheshire East Borough Council. This will guide the planners, particularly where housing is concerned, up to 2030. There was considerable community involvement which culminated in 2018 with a referendum, open to all residents, on its acceptance or otherwise. This resulted in a substantial majority in favour of the Plan. The plan is being updated in 2024.
The 2009 Local Government reorganisation led to the need for
Cheshire East Council (CEC)
to dispose of large numbers of assets – particularly buildings and open spaces.
Bollington Town Council (BTC)
took over a number of these assets and run them locally, mainly by use of volunteer groups such as that already running the
Recreation Ground
(although that remains in the hands of CEC who continue to undertake a range of maintenance activities). The Civic Hall was taken over in April 2013 and has subsequently been given a good overhaul. The Town Hall and the redundant
Water Street school
have also changed hands.
Friends of the Recreation Ground
was established to look after this important green space in the centre of town. They have made a significant improvement to the facilities which accommodate cricket, football, tennis and bowls. They have won a Green Flag for quality open space every year since their formation! The Macclesfield Canal also has a Green Flag – the first canal in the country to be so recognised.
The
Bridgend Centre
opened in 1990 and continues to provide support in many ways to those who need a helping hand. Open for coffee most days, it also has a fantastic range of useful second hand things for sale, including clothes, books and all kinds of household utensils. The premises have, in 2019, been acquired into their own ownership and significant improvements have been made during 2020.
The
Civic Society
have a
Discovery Centre
at Clarence mill. This was opened by cousins John & Terry Waite, at the start of the 2005 Festival. It provides an insight into Bollington’s heritage. Do come and join us there! Normally open Wed 1.30-4, Sat-Sun 11-4, but not in December, please check the webpage before travelling. Check out the
Civic Society pages now
!
Oak Bank mill pond, Bollington
Guides and Walks
Many footpath maps and walks guides are available from the
Bridgend Centre
and from the
Discovery Centre
– see the
Bollington Outdoors
page for more details. There is also our annual
Walking Festival in September
, Next
Walking Festival
: 4-13 September 2026.
Bollington on Social Media
There are several very active pages on
Facebook
. Many members of the community have Facebook, X and WhatsApp pages.
Bollington on YouTube
There are now dozens, possibly hundreds of videos of Bollington and Bollington events saved on
YouTube
! Go and make a search and see what you can find!
Welcome to the Happy Valley Website!
Bollington groups are able to have and manage their own pages on the site! Are you running a group – sport, arts, social – that would benefit from having a couple (or a couple of dozen) pages but doesn’t want to develop a complete web site? If so, this is your big opportunity – free pages on the Happy Valley website – you decide what you want on your page, what pictures, and you can set it up and maintain it, it’s really very easy, absolutely no IT knowledge required, you can do it on a PC, Mac, tablet, or even a smartphone (not so easy), anything with a web browser.
Do message the Webmaster to discuss
.
Many photographs in the Happy Valley website may be enlarged by selecting them (hover mouse over image and left-click), or tap the picture on a touch device.
Links marked
open a new tab or window. On a PC use Ctrl/Tab to change tabs, Alt/Tab to change windows.
There are several links to send an email on this website – these will only work if you have a mail server running on your PC (eg. Windows Mail, Outlook), tablet or phone.
Skip to main content
Bollington, the Happy Valley!
Best place to live in northwest England! (Sunday Times)
MENU
MENU
Home Page
Wallpaper
Website management
Years of Happiness!
Sitemap
Online security
Drink, Eat, Sleep
Drinking
Bull’s Head
Church House Inn
Cock & Pheasant Inn
Cotton Tree Inn
Coupe!
Dog & Partridge Inn
Holly Bush Inn
Lime Tree Wine Bar
Lord Clyde Pub
Poacher’s Inn
Robin Hood Inn
Spinner’s Arms
Springwood Park
The Turners
Vale Inn
Windmill Inn
Eating
Aroma Bar & Ristorante
Bayleaf Lounge Bar & Restaurant
Bull's Head
Chopsticks Chinese Takeaway
Cock & Pheasant Inn
Coupe!
Holly Bush Inn
Lime Tree Wine Bar
Lord Clyde Inn
Poacher's Inn
Robin Hood Inn
Springwood Park
Casa – Italian Restaurant
Vale Inn
Viceroy (Indian)
Windmill Inn
Cafés
Café Waterside
Coupe!
Kickback Coffee™
Pappa’s Café
The Green Café
The Mulberry Leaf
Coffee Tavern
Sleeping
Cheshire Hunt Holiday Cottages
Common Barn Farm
Hollin House Hotel
Kerridge End Holiday Cottages
Oakenbank Barn
Premier Inn
Shrigley Hall Hotel
Organisations
Bollington Town Council
Churches
Classes
Drama & Music
Medical
First responders
Miscellaneous Groups
Out of school clubs
Politics
Pre-school
Public services
Schools
Senior citizens
Sport & leisure
Veterans
Youth organisations
The Town
Many parts of …
Essence of ...
War Memorials
Destination Bollington
Short history
White Nancy
Recreation ground
Conservation
Listed buildings
Historic Triangle
Tinkers Clough
Books
Streets
Street Index
Area map
Street map
Recreation Ground
Friends of the Rec.
Green Flag award
Recreation Ground – History
Bollington Outdoors
Bollington Live!
Online editions
Live! editorial group
Advertising rate card
Civic Society
Discovery centre
Conservation
BTC Working Groups
Books available
Dr John Coope MBE
Discovery Centre
Discovery Centre
Books & Maps
Historical Picture Collection
The Essence of Bollington
Short history
Conservation areas
History
Origins of the name
Short history
Bollington Families (family trees)
Bollington People (index)
Bollington Houses (index)
Extractive
Quarrying, Mining
Rally Road
Kerridge Wharf & Stone Saw Mill
Industry
Brewers & bottlers
Fine Spinners & Doublers
Gasworks
Paper industries
Radions Ltd
Smaller industries
Mill Ponds
Mill workers
Industry Unions
Mills
A Short History
Adelphi Mill
Beehive Mill
Bobbin mills
Bollington Corn Mill
Clarence Mill
Cow Lane Mill
Defiance Mill
Industrial variety
Higher mills
Hough Hole Mill
Ingersley Clough Mill
Kerridge Windmill
Lower mills
Lowerhouse Mill
Oak Bank Mill
Owlhurst
Rainow Mill
Sowcar Mill
Waterhouse Mill
Churches
St Oswald’s
St John’s
Holy Trinity Church
St Gregory’s
Methodists
Wesleyan Chapel, Kerridge
New Connexion
Schools
Lowther Street School
St John’s
St Gregory’s
Water Street Secondary
Big/Large Sunday School
Methodist Sunday School
Obituaries
Miscellaneous
1928 Recipe & Quotation Book
Boundary Stones
Bridewell
Brows
Bollington Festival History
Macclesfield Canal
‘Bollington burst’ canal breach
Old Pubs and Breweries
Railway
Rediffusion Service Station
Recreation Ground
Shops & Businesses
War Memorials
WWI Soldier’s Goblet
Kerridge
Industrial history
Kerridge Residents’ Association
Kerridge War Memorial
Kerridge Wharf 1870
Pott Shrigley
Pott Shrigley
Rose Queen Fete
Canalside Radio
Initiative Trust (BIT)
Bollington, the Happy Valley!
The hills are alive! Our beautiful hills welcome everyone!
These are difficult times for many people, so it’s nice to know that Bollington is a place with ‘community’ at its heart. There have always been groups with community fun chief among their objectives, but we also now have many organisations and groups whose principal objective is care – care for those who are struggling, those who are elderly and needing help with everyday things, including modern technology, those with health problems of one kind or another. A good place to start is the
Bridgend Centre
, if they can’t help then they will know someone who can!
Drink, Eat, Sleep
We honour
Sir Terry Waite
KCMG CBE
, born in the Happy Valley!
One of
Cheshire’s Market Towns
,
Bollington never stands still, with a constant stream of artistic and volunteer endeavour from the championship
Bollington Brass Band
(
North West 1st section
), the
Festival Choir
,
Bollington Musical Theatre Group (BMTG [was BLOG])
, the
Festival Players
, and so many other gifted groups. The festival groups were borne out of
Bollington’s famous Festivals
which are now held every two to four years, and have been running since 1964, organised and run entirely by volunteers but including performances from both local amateurs and professional performers. The last one was in 2024, so it is time for another in 2026! Festival 2024 was a mini-Festival held in the open air without the usual big top tent – Bollington Festival Diamond Jubilee Jamboree 2024
!
– held over the end-May Bank Holiday weekend. The weather was largely good to us and the whole event was a massive success! As a result, the Festival Committee have decided to plan future festivals without the big top tent because the cost made the festivals financially unviable. Roll on May 2026
!
At
Clarence Mill
you will find
Bollington Civic Society’s
Discovery Centre
. It continues to be very popular with those wishing to discover more about the town and its history and view their amazing collection of historic pictures, many of which appear in these pages.
Canalside Radio on 102.8fm
has firmly established its popularity throughout the east Cheshire area. A wide range of sporting activity and achievement compliments all this fun.
For details of What’s On check your copy of
Bollington Live!
, or look at
Bollington Arts Centre
pages. A monthly What’s On leaflet is available at the Town Hall and also available
online here
.
The small town of Bollington is located about three miles north of
Macclesfield
, 18 miles south east of Manchester, in north east Cheshire, in the north west of England – find us on the
map
. It nestles in the western most foothills of the Pennine range of hills above the Cheshire plain, adjacent to the Peak District National Park; the boundary just enters the parish, an area known as the
Cheshire Peak District
.
It is a town borne of its rural origins with the industrialisation of the area beginning in the mid 18th century and rapidly developing in the 19th when several large cotton mills were built, coal mines were opened and stone quarried. The opening of the
Macclesfield canal
in 1831 provided important incentive for industrial development as did
the railway
that followed in the late 1860’s. In modern times the mills have been replaced by, usually, smaller businesses although there remain two large paper coating mills, our biggest industry today. We also have one of the UK’s leading silk weavers.
Tourism is increasingly important, the town providing an easy base for those interested in walking the hills (we hold an annual
Walking Festival in September
) with the Peak District National Park on our doorstep, walking or boating the canal or walking or riding (bikes and horses) on the converted railway track, now known as the
Middlewood Way
.
Bollington Rooftops – Peter Etherington
Known to its residents as the
Happy Valley
, this town is a village is a town! What do I mean? Well, it’s a town of 8,300 population (as of 2011) strung out over a distance of about two miles, never very wide, giving the feeling of one long village. Present day Bollington is really based around three villages that became merged together –
Bollington Cross
,
West Bollington
and
Bollington
, and on the edges you will find
Kerridge
on the high ground and
Lowerhouse
in the valley of the river Dean.
Market Place in High Street, Bollington
There was a significant increase in the population during the 1970’s, 80’s and 90’s turning the town into a dormitory for Macclesfield and Manchester. Bollington is regarded as a very desirable place to live and work. This has to do with the advantages of its beautiful location amongst the hills, known as the
Cheshire Peak District
, and the fact that the main street is, for all practical purposes, a no through road; the road does go through but leads mainly to places that can be reached more directly by other routes.
This page provides a range of links to other pages giving an in-depth view of the town and the interests of its population. Have fun! Note that Wednesday is traditionally half day (or early) closing day for shops in Bollington and many still follow this tradition by closing at lunch time – usually 1.00pm – but not the Post Office, Pharmacy, Tesco, or the Co-op, all at
West Bollington
, or Belfield’s Bakery (3pm) in
Palmerston Street
. The Chinese chippy in Palmerston Street is open every day except Tuesday, from 5pm to 11pm.
Some major projects have been completed or are under way –
A
Neighbourhood Plan
has been developed and adopted by Cheshire East Borough Council. This will guide the planners, particularly where housing is concerned, up to 2030. There was considerable community involvement which culminated in 2018 with a referendum, open to all residents, on its acceptance or otherwise. This resulted in a substantial majority in favour of the Plan. The plan is being updated in 2024.
The 2009 Local Government reorganisation led to the need for
Cheshire East Council (CEC)
to dispose of large numbers of assets – particularly buildings and open spaces.
Bollington Town Council (BTC)
took over a number of these assets and run them locally, mainly by use of volunteer groups such as that already running the
Recreation Ground
(although that remains in the hands of CEC who continue to undertake a range of maintenance activities). The Civic Hall was taken over in April 2013 and has subsequently been given a good overhaul. The Town Hall and the redundant
Water Street school
have also changed hands.
Friends of the Recreation Ground
was established to look after this important green space in the centre of town. They have made a significant improvement to the facilities which accommodate cricket, football, tennis and bowls. They have won a Green Flag for quality open space every year since their formation! The Macclesfield Canal also has a Green Flag – the first canal in the country to be so recognised.
The
Bridgend Centre
opened in 1990 and continues to provide support in many ways to those who need a helping hand. Open for coffee most days, it also has a fantastic range of useful second hand things for sale, including clothes, books and all kinds of household utensils. The premises have, in 2019, been acquired into their own ownership and significant improvements have been made during 2020.
The
Civic Society
have a
Discovery Centre
at Clarence mill. This was opened by cousins John & Terry Waite, at the start of the 2005 Festival. It provides an insight into Bollington’s heritage. Do come and join us there! Normally open Wed 1.30-4, Sat-Sun 11-4, but not in December, please check the webpage before travelling. Check out the
Civic Society pages now
!
Oak Bank mill pond, Bollington
Guides and Walks
Many footpath maps and walks guides are available from the
Bridgend Centre
and from the
Discovery Centre
– see the
Bollington Outdoors
page for more details. There is also our annual
Walking Festival in September
, Next
Walking Festival
: 4-13 September 2026.
Bollington on Social Media
There are several very active pages on
. Many members of the community have Facebook, X and WhatsApp pages.
Bollington on YouTube
There are now dozens, possibly hundreds of videos of Bollington and Bollington events saved on
YouTube
! Go and make a search and see what you can find!
Welcome to the Happy Valley Website!
Bollington groups are able to have and manage their own pages on the site! Are you running a group – sport, arts, social – that would benefit from having a couple (or a couple of dozen) pages but doesn’t want to develop a complete web site? If so, this is your big opportunity – free pages on the Happy Valley website – you decide what you want on your page, what pictures, and you can set it up and maintain it, it’s really very easy, absolutely no IT knowledge required, you can do it on a PC, Mac, tablet, or even a smartphone (not so easy), anything with a web browser.
Do message the Webmaster to discuss
.
Many photographs in the Happy Valley website may be enlarged by selecting them (hover mouse over image and left-click), or tap the picture on a touch device.
Links marked
open a new tab or window. On a PC use Ctrl/Tab to change tabs, Alt/Tab to change windows.
There are several links to send an email on this website – these will only work if you have a mail server running on your PC (eg. Windows Mail, Outlook), tablet or phone.