Mobberley
Mobberley maps (2 available)
Map of Cheshire
Beautifully hand-drawn and coloured, dating from around 1840
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Mobberley books (10 available)
- 7 photos on Mobberley appear in 2 Frith books - View photos of Mobberley
- Read extracts and see photos from these books on Mobberley and Cheshire
Mobberley memories
Read and share memories of Mobberley and Cheshire inspired by Frith photos
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Cheshire memories
The old laundry
I have always heard that my gran's sister started the laundry. Prior to this she was a wardress at the prison. Her name was Maria Stanley. I know that family stories get distorted and maybe she just worked at the laundry. She was definitely a wardress in 1901 and I would be interested to know when the laundry came into being. Later in life my great aunt started a laundry in Liverpool which survived till after the second world war. Maybe someone could solve this little mystery for me.
Audrey Frost
A memory of Knutsford contributed by First name Last name
An exotic world, for young Canadians
We arrived in Knutsford in September 1955: two bewildered parents and four children, the youngest only 10 months old.
My father, a major, had been sent by the Canadian Army to take a year-long course in Manchester. Why he ever sought or consented to this is unknown -- but I suspect he was keen to return to England, since he had so enjoyed his four years there 1942-46.
It was a little less jolly for my longsuffering mother, encumbered with four of the most precocious, heedless children ever born -- of which I was surely the worst.
We settled into a rented house ("Beech House, Toft Road, Knutsford, Cheshire, England" as we were taught to recite to ...read more here
A memory of Knutsford contributed by Ted Gale
Childhood memories
Knutsford holds a special place in my heart as I was born there in 1956 and spent nearly eight years of my childhood growing up in this then safe and close community. I have very strong memories of family, home, school and friends and the environment during these years up until late 1963 when we emigrated to Western Australia as "10 pound poms". Our family home was 65 Mobberley Rd., Crosstown right next door to the pub (Lee Arms?). My memories of my school days are especially vivid and the now demolished Crosstown school will always have a place in my heart. My elderly aunt still lives across the road from where the school used to be -in the family home ...read more here
A memory of Knutsford contributed by julie nunn
Life on the Edge
I arrived in Alderley Edge in 1950, after spending my early years at Clockhouse Farm in Mottram St Andrew. I came to live in the Coachman’s House to Croston Towers, a large castellated residence torn down at the end of World War II, due to damage by American troops billeted there. It had been the home of the Schill Family, but Melland Schill had died in 1916, when a Lieutenant in the Lancashire Fusiliers. His name is engraved on the village War Memorial.
Croston Towers comprised the plot bounded by Tempest Road, Woodbrook Road, and Macclesfield Road; in the region of 6 to 8 acres. In 1950, the only buildings on the site were the Coachman’s House with its stables, ...read more here
A memory of Alderley Edge contributed by Graham Dilliway
Extracts From Mobberley & Cheshire books
TO THE modern visitor, Mobberley appears to
be strung out along Town Lane between Alderley
and Knutsford, with at least three centres to the
village. There is the modern settlement by the
Ilford Works, two communities either side of the
Mobberley Brook, and a cluster of houses by the
Bird in Hand.
It is only when one looks at the history of the
place that one gets a clue as to what is going on.
Since the Middle Ages, Mobberley has not had a
dominant landowner resident in the village.
Instead, in the early 17th century there was a
tenants` buyout from a couple of non-resident
landowners. There is nothing like multiple
land ownership to set the landscape as it is
virtually impossible to effect any large-scale
rearrangement on which everyone will agree. It
helps to explain that, except for the post war
development, Mobberley is a village of many
pubs, as each little settlement knot has at least
one place of refreshment.
The other factor, which again is not
immediately apparent, is the influence of Lindow
Moss on the village. Every freeholder in Mobberley
had rights to cut peat from the Moss, usually in
their designated `moss rooms` or narrow strips of
peaty land. This means that even in the
20th century each smallholding was
divided between the meadow land
around the main farmstead and the
moss room on Lindow.
Nowadays, one of the main features
of the village is the air traffic overhead.
Not long ago, no house was complete
without a sign against building a
second runway at Manchester Airport,
and respectable matrons made
common cause with dreadlocked eco-
warriors. All was unavailing, the
runway was built and the planes roar
above the village.
An extract from from"Wilmslow and Alderley Edge Photographic Memories".
Built after the First World
War as part of the
village's memorial to the
men who fought in the
conflict, standing above
the Mobberley Brook
and the main road
through the village, the
hall is still very much the
centre of village life.
An extract from from"Wilmslow and Alderley Edge Photographic Memories".
The creeper-covered wall between the iron fence and the cottage gable is in fact the dam wall for the mill. Now a silted up boggy
patch, the mill pond can still be made out. To the right, Spout Lane goes round to the other side of the village; as the name
suggests it is another watery place and there is still a spring that can be reached down some steps from beside the roadway.
An extract from from"Wilmslow and Alderley Edge Photographic Memories".
Because of its history of divided land ownership, it is difficult to determine the real centre of
Mobberley village, but each nucleus has at least one inn. The Bird in Hand is the most
easterly of four old public houses serving the community. Out of sight to the right is an old
chapel so people feeling the need to repent, or to drown their sorrows, did not have far to go.
An extract from from"Wilmslow and Alderley Edge Photographic Memories".
In the 1950s and early
1960S, Mobberley saw an
increase in housing, this
time by a mixture of local
authority and private
development. This is a
typical parade of local
shops intended to give the
housewife access to all that
she might need for her
family, before the days of
deep freezers and universal
motor transport. The
corner shop, selling
groceries, sweets and
tobacco would provide for
most of her wants.
An extract from from"Wilmslow and Alderley Edge Photographic Memories".