The origin of the name

The name “STRINES” comes from the Middle English word “strind” meaning a watercourse. Other versions are Frundis, Stryndes, Strindes and Strendes. Since rivers and streams make convenient boundary markers, Strines finds itself spread in four parishes: Marple (Stockport), Mellor (Stockport, but formerly Derbyshire), New Mills (High Peak of Derbyshire) and Disley (Cheshire).

Early history

We do not have any records of Roman activity in Strines, but in view of the discoveries at Mellor, it would be rash to say there were none.

For most of the medieval period the Cheshire side of the river was part of Macclesfield Forest and the Derbyshire side was in the Royal Forest of High Peak. Being a forest did not mean that the land was covered with trees, but that its primary use was for hunting by the King in the Royal Forest and by the Earl of Chester in the County Palatinate of Cheshire. The protected animals were deer and wild boars. The forests were governed by the harsh code of “forest law”. Some of the earliest mentions of Strines are in the forest records. Hugh de Frundis assarted, i.e. cleared for farming, 14 acres in 1216.

From 1157 until the dissolution of the monasteries by Henry VIII, the manor of Glossop, including Strines, belonged to the Abbot of Basingwerk in Wales.

Strines Hall

The original house was built in the late 16th century before the “great rebuilding” in this part of the country when most of the half-timbered houses were replaced with stone. In the 17th century Strines Hall belonged to the Clayton family. They were joined by marriage to a branch of the Stafford family. Three generations later the Staffords were in debt and sold the hall and the estate to Samuel Egerton of Tatton in 1747 for £ 4836:7:10¾. In 1900, the newly formed Calico Printers’ Association bought the Strines Hall Estate of 100 acres from Lord Egerton.

During the 19th century the Hall was divided into seven workers’ cottages. It then fell into disrepair until restored by the present owner.

Peeres

Peeres Cottages bear a stone inscribed “Peeres Swindells purchased this land and built this house 1694”. Peeres is an old form of Peter. There were originally a row of three cottages, but now they have been modernised into two.

Spout Houses and Wood Cottage

Spout Houses are a cluster of houses around a farm which was separate from Strines until the ribbon development of the 19th and 20th centuries. In 1742 John Wood of Spout House owned 15 acres. Wood Cottage was built on land bought from John Wood.

Visits by John Wesley

In the 18th century the main road from Mellor to Whitle (now part of New Mills) passed through Tarden, the Banks and Brook Bottom. This was the road used by John Wesley who wrote in his journal for 28th April 1745 “At nine I preached at Stockport to a large congregation; thence we rode to Bangs in Derbyshire a lone house on the side of a high, steep mountain, whither abundance of people were got before us”. He visited Bangs again every few years for the rest of his life. The chair he used has been preserved at Mellor Parish Church. After John Wesley’s visits, his followers became known as “Methodists”, met in houses and eventually were able to erect their own chapels. The one nearest to Strines was at Brook Bottom. A Sunday School started in 1857 and the Chapel opened in October.1875 and is still in use. The cost was £500.

Textiles

Until near to the end of the 18th century, this part of the country was organised as a “dual economy” i.e. partly farming and partly textile production. Nicholas Wombwell of Strines Hall had three small spinning wheels in the inventory made at his death in 1598. Then most of the processes of textile manufacture were mechanised. The new machinery needed power to drive it, and many water powered mills for both spinning and weaving were erected in the Pennine foothills in the late 18th and 19th centuries. Samuel Oldknow built his five story spinning mill near the river on the Botham estate in 1790-92. Woodend Mill, a few yards upstream from Strines and now demolished, was built about the same time as the first Strines print works, and later became part of it. In the early 19th century there were many small print works all along the Sett and Goyt valleys.

Calico Printing; the First Print Works.

William Wright lived at Strines Hall and is generally credited with founding the Strines Printing Company in or before 1792 The original partnership was Grimshaw, Dodgson, Stott and Wright. Thomas Stott’s share passed via his brother-in-law, John Barton. to the Barton family Several Bartons were partners at Strines, the last being Alfred who left in 1874.

Cloth used to be spread out in the fields to bleach, dyestuffs were extracted from plants, principally indigo and madder, and all printing was done by hand using wooden blocks. Clean water is essential to calico printing, and the best method of cleaning it was to allow it to stand in a reservoir for some time. A good supply of water was needed for several reservoirs and water wheels. Two weirs were built and water brought across the field in a sluice, the remains of which can still be seen. The first print works did block printing. All that remains are the sluice gate near Strines Hall and the stone buildings by Whitecroft Farm.

The Peak Forest Canal.

When Strines works started in 1792, the only roads were what we now call bridleways —suitable for pack horses but not for wheeled transport. As the industrial revolution progressed, better transport was urgently required. Samuel Oldknow was the Chairman of the Peak Forest Canal Company, and members included Henry Barton of Strines. The section from Marple to Whaley Bridge was opened in 1796. Oldknow wanted the canal primarily for the transport of Derbyshire Limestone to his kilns at Marple, and also to transport goods to Manchester. The lower level from Marple to Dukinfield was opened in 1799 and the flight of locks linking the two was completed in 1805. The canal passed through the Strines Hall estate, and it crossed Peeres Road from Strines to Turf Lea, on an aqueduct. Here the Strines Printing Company built a wharf for the loading and unloading of goods. A wharf-keeper’s cottage was built into the embankment with access from both road level and canal level. After the Macclesfield canal was opened in 1831, coal could be brought from Poynton to Strines by water. An additional wharf for coal was built with a loading platform so that coal could be dropped straight on to carts waiting beneath.

The Stockport, Marple and New Mills Turnpike

Before the canal was complete, Oldknow turned his attention to improving road transport. The land in Strines through which it would pass belonged to Wilbrahim Egerton, so Oldknow negotiated with him and Thomas Beard of New Mills. They eventually agreed a route, and the road was opened in 1801. There was a toll bar at Dan Bank and another where the new toll road crossed the old road from Brook Bottom to Disley through Hague Fold. Thus Haigh became Hague Bar

In 1805, James Braddock, the tenant of Spout House, bought a plot of land from John Wood and was granted an ale house licence, so the “Sportsman’s Arms” was ready to serve travellers on the new turnpike. In 1828, his successor as landlord, Joel Sidebotham, bought another plot from John Wood and on it he built a row of seven cottages for his wife and six of his children. For many years these were known as “Joel’s Row” but are now called “Ash Cottages”.

In 1861 George Sumner bought a building on the turnpike comprising three cottages on road level and two cellar dwellings. One cottage became a beer house. The whole block now forms the “Royal Oak” which is fully licensed like the Sportsman’s

The Second Print Works.

Mechanised spinning and weaving made more cloth available and a new mechanised printing technique using rollers had been developed, so the print works needed to expand. The only clue as to when this took place is the date stone on the river bridge which records that “THIS BRIDGE WAS BUILT IN A.D. 1834 BY THE STRINES PRINTING CO.” An earlier bridge is shown there on the 1793 canal plan. The expansion of the works included the construction of the Pigeon Cote Reservoir and more reservoirs at Woodend, and factory buildings on the land between the river and the reservoir. The weather vane on the top of the Pigeon Cote is made of engraved printing plates. In 1841 Strines had 142 block printing tables and six roller printing machines driven by two steam engines and several water wheels. By 1851 there were 13 machines, but only 130 tables.

One of many remarkable Strines people was Joseph Sidebotham who was a partner from 1849 until 1876. His grandfather, John, had been one of the promoters of the Peak Forest Canal. In addition to his business work and some technical innovations, Sidebotham was also a pioneer photographer and he has left two albums of photographs taken between 1850 and 1880, so we know what the works looked like. He gave 700 books to start a library at Strines, and encouraged two of his staff, Joel Wainwright and John M. Gregory to produce a handwritten magazine—“The Strines Journal”, including many contributions from Sidebotham himself. The Journal chronicled the performances of Strines Band. They were photographed by Sidebotham playing on the lawn of “The Cottage”. This was a sizeable house built for the use of partners when visiting the works because most of the partners did not live locally. In 1853 a Christmas party was held for 202 people. Supper was followed by lengthy speeches and dancing until six the following morning. In one speech it was pointed out that there was no church within easy reach of Strines and the Vicar of New Mills promised to help. The result was the appointment of a curate and the holding of regular services in the schoolroom at the works.

The Manchester Sheffield and Lincolnshire Railway

By the time the railway was built, the print works employed several hundred people. Near Strines, the line climbs at a gradient of 1 in 100 along a shelf cut into the hillside, and slices neatly between Greenclough Farm and Brookside cottage. Close to where it crosses the old road from Strines to Brook Bottom, a station was built complete with goods yard, signal box and Station Master’s house and opened in 1866. Coal wagons were shunted into the siding where a team of men shovelled the coal into carts to be carried down the steep, cobbled approach and then round the works to the boiler house. The staff consisted of the Station Master, the signalman, the clerk and a couple of porters. Allowing for shift working, about ten men were employed. The staff dwindled until 1973, when the last clerk-cum-porter retired.

There is good evidence that Strines provided the background to Edith Nesbit’s story “The Railway Children”. In the story one of the children digs into the large heap of coal at the station in the belief that he is “mining” coal and therefore not stealing it. The story also refers to a canal with a flight of locks.

The School

In May 1854 a school was established at the works for children who worked there half time. In 1870, Forster’s Act set up School Boards which had powers to build schools and compel attendance. The New Mills School Board built three new schools including Hague Bar in 1879. The works manager, Joel Wainwright, was a member of the Board and pressed for a school to be built at Hague Bar and not at New Mills in order to serve the children of Strines employees. The works school closed in May 1879, the furniture was moved and the school re-opened with the same headmaster and 102 children at Hague Bar three days later

St. Paul’s Church

By 1880, the works was controlled by Thomas Henry Nevill and his son Charles Henry Nevill. Mr. T. H. Nevill decided that it was time Strines had a church of its own and bought a plot of land from Lord Egerton. On this land he had built four substantial houses called Springfield Villas for his senior employees and a church. At that time prefabricated, corrugated iron churches were manufactured and many were sent to missionaries working all over the Empire. The .church was dedicated to St. Paul on 29th August 1880 and the organ was installed in 1893. Both have been in regular use ever since. Although the works was in Derbyshire, the new church was in Cheshire in the parish of High Lane. It was originally the private property of Mr. Nevill, but he gave it to Chester diocese in 1914. In 1934 the parish boundaries were changed so that Strines became part of All Saints’ parish, Marple.

Calico Printers’ Association

After flourishing in the mid nineteenth century, the industry went into over-production which drove prices down. In 1899 46 printing companies and 13 merchants amalgamated to form the Calico Printers’ Association. The CPA operated 85% of the industry, and Strines became one of the largest firms within the Association. They closed the less efficient works so by 1939 only 11 survived. Although the C.P.A. was controlled by the board of directors, most of the decisions relating to Strines were still taken by the erstwhile partners: Charles H. Nevill, Charles Heape and George H. Norris.

Sports

Before the First World War there was a rifle club with a range in one of the four storey buildings of the first works The club’s rifles were confiscated by the police during the Sinn Fein riots. (Sinn Fein was an Irish republican movement founded in 1905)

Strines Cricket Club was originally founded in 1857. Mr. Heape and Mr. Norris bought a separate plot of 4968 square yards on the south-east of Whitecroft House and adjoining the cricket field for a “recreation ground” i.e. sports ground for their work-people. Cricket, football and lacrosse clubs were already in existence. The new ground was laid out with three tennis courts and a bowling green, and the pavilion straddled the boundary with the cricket field so that it could be used by everybody

The cricket, football, tennis and bowls clubs continued to flourish and to compete in local leagues, but in the late 1920's, the CPA built a new and more modern works on the left bank of the river, but still in Derbyshire. The land occupied by the recreation ground was needed for the new works, and so the original plot was exchanged for a new plot between Whitecroft House and the river. The tennis and bowling clubs were able to continue, but the cricket club had lost its ground. This recreation ground should not be confused with the children's swing park on Strines Road.

The Third Print Works

In spite of closing some of their other works, the CPA decided to rebuild Strines.. A new boiler house and new chimney were built in 1901 on the opposite side of the river from the then works, but the building of the new works was delayed by the First World War, and eventually began in 1925. The first works and the Woodend works were demolished and some of the stone re-used in the third works. By that time total U.K. printing capacity exceeded demand. With 20 printing machines, Strines continued to export world wide, but its trade was severely reduced as the British Empire declined and as third world countries began printing themselves. After the Second World War, trade declined again. Other print works were closed and staff moved to Strines with the result that Strines became uneconomic. In 1964 the CPA merged with English Sewing Cotton to become English Calico, and, in 1973, Tootal Ltd.

In 1982, Tootal announced that they intended to close Strines. Fortunately a group of ex-CPA managers arranged a buy out. The works was closed for a month, then re-opened as “Strines Textiles Ltd.: Commission Printers.” In 1986 it had 180 employees and sales of nearly £6M. The unused space was either rented or sold to several small firms making the beginnings of an industrial estate.

In 1993, Strines Textiles was sold to the Leeds Group, a holding company who already owned several textile companies including (with Strines) three printers. They replaced the roller printing machines with newer, flat-screen printing machines, but, when trade was declining, failed to make enough return on their investment. One by one the textile companies were sold. Strines business was sold to Walker Greenbank plc. The remaining Strines order book was transferred to Standfast, a printing company in Lancaster. Strines ceased printing in 2001, the works was stripped and the machinery sold. The premises and the land were sold to Harrow Estates Ltd., a building development company. They lost no time in putting forward a plan to build 134 houses on the site. The Strines Area Residents Association (SARA) was formed to object to development on this scale. The plan was rejected by the local planning authority, Stockport Metropolitan Borough and by the Inspector at the subsequent public inquiry. With the help of local architects a revised plan for 76 houses and some well separated industrial units was prepared and accepted.

Demolition and Rebuilding

After all the machinery had been removed, the works had to be cleared of asbestos, which was a major task. Then the demolition contractors moved in. Powerful machines pulled the buildings down and the debris was crushed in order to raise the ground level and reduce the risk of flooding in the new estate. The climax came in January 2007, when the century old, 240 ft high chimney was demolished in 7 seconds in front of a large crowd and a brass band.

Firstly two new industrial units were built. Then came the “Credit Crunch” of 2008 when new building almost ceased. Harrow Estates sold the land to Stewart Milne, and the building of houses recommenced.

Rosemary Taylor, Strines, February 2011