Cheadle Hulme

History - Early

• Homepage
• Introduction
• History
  • Overview
  • Early
  • 500-1540
  • 1540-1840
  • 1840-1930
  • 1930-1999
  • 2000-now
• Maps & Pictures
• Interviews & People
• Topics
• Modern
  • News / Events
  • Weather & Travel
  • Directory
  • Feedback
• Quiz
• Web Links
• Sources & References

"In prehistoric times our forefathers, clad in skins, roamed over the marshes, the moors, and the woods, where Cheadle now stands, and the only traces of them that are left to tell the tale are their weapons of war .."
(Fletcher Moss, 1894)

8000-3500 BC (Mesolithic)
It is suggested that the earliest human activity in the area dates from the Mesolithic period or Middle Stone Age when hunter-gatherers migrated northwards as the climate warmed (the ice sheets began to retreat about 12,000 years ago) and woodland began to replace the barren tundra. Pedunculate Oak became the dominant flora.

A possible microlith was unearthed in Cheadle Hulme in the 1990s.

Timeline

3500-2000 BC (Neolithic)
2000-1200 BC (Bronze)
Stone axes found about 3 miles north of Cheadle Hulme around the Mersey valley and tributaries show clear evidence of population in the Neolithic (New Stone Age) period. Settlements and farming would be expected above the river banks.

Prehistoric Sites & Finds

Further archaeological finds in Cheadle village, including an axe-hammer and urn confirm settlement in the early Bronze Age. Burial sites have been located elsewhere in the borough.

Prehistoric Cheadle Hulme
Unearthing of a number of Bronze axes (palstaves) along the Lady Brook (Micker Brook) south of Cheadle and in Adswood and Bramhall (Seal Road & Ack Lane) point to the very first beginnings of Cheadle Hulme as a settlement area. At this time much of the nearby land would be peat bog or mossland (eg Kitt's Moss).

1200 BC-70 AD
(Late Bronze Age & Iron Age)
There is practically no evidence from this period and even suggestions that an unfavourable climate may have deterred dwellers! (Editor's note: What's New!!)

70-500 AD (Roman Rule)
Roman forts at Manchester (Mamucium) and Glossop (Melandra) are thought to have had only limited influence on the early British dwellers of this area.

However, in addition to a Roman road from Manchester to Buxton (similar to the A6) there is some suggestion of a Roman road from Cheadle (or possibly Manchester) to Buxton running along Cheadle Road (Street Road) through modern Cheadle Hulme, along Ack Lane East and through Bramhall, Woodford (Walnut Tree Farm), and Pott Shrigley. Roman artefacts (coins, bracelets) discovered at Millington Hall, and Hulme Hall support this.

Roman Coins from the mound facing Hulme Hall (Moss, 1894)

Presence of a Roman military site at Castle Hill in Stockport is still debatable, however numerous finds of Roman coins in the Cheadle area and a quernstone at Bramhall Green & Siddal House suggest some Roman activity along the Lady Brook valley and edge of Kitt's Moss.

Sound