A Greater Manchester hamlet is the 'quintessential English village'
manchestereveningnews.co.ukJohn Goose casts an eye over an immaculately-kept flower box on the village green, put in place in memory of those who lost their lives during the covid pandemic. "I'll have to come down later with a bucket and give it a wipe," he says looking disapprovingly at a small streak of dirt on the planter.
Hawk Green is that kind of place. With its communal green, reading rooms, historic pub, centuries-old farmhouses, cricket club and folk dancing troupe, it's a quintessential English village surrounded by the affluent commuting suburbs of Stockport. "It's a village within a town," says John, a retired rent officer and now chair of the local residents association. "It's a part of Marple, but we definitely have our own sense of identity." READ MORE: 'You turn the corner and it's like turning the clock back': Stockport's hidden idyll Today Hawk Green might be a throwback to a bygone time.
But in the 19th Century it was at the forefront of the Industrial Revolution. Originally a rural hamlet made up of scattered farmhouses and known as Half Green, it was transformed by the opening of the Macclesfield Canal in 1831.
Soon after local businessman Robert Shepley built Shepley Mill, a steam-powered cotton spinning and weaving mill, on the east bank of the canal.
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