Saddleworth - Photography by Christine Widdall

Landscape, moorland, villages and hamlets

Extract about Saddleworth from Baines’s Directory of the County of York (1823) : “This place (Saddleworth) gives name to a large valley, about seven miles long, and five broad, in the broadest part, situated in an angle of the county (Yorkshire), between Lancaster and the north eastern projection of Cheshire. It is a bleak region, of which a part only is under cultivation; but industry has accumulated in it a large number of inhabitants, who gain a comfortable subsistence by the manufacture of woollen cloth, for which the place is peculiarly famous.”
In the local government re-organisation of 1974, Saddleworth became part of the Metropolitan Borough of Oldham, causing much confusion – how could Saddleworth be part of a Lancashire Borough and remain in Yorkshire? However, local and national government have confirmed that Saddleworth is still in Yorkshire and that the county boundaries have not changed. County loyalties are very important to local people, who proudly retain their traditional Yorkshire character and customs and try to conserve as much as they can, the beauty of their landscape.

Also see Christine’s Saddleworth Book