Leek and Lowe in 1872

LEEK, a town, a township, a parish, a sub-district, and a district in Stafford. The town occupies the summit and declivities of a pleasant eminence, on the left bank of the river Churnet, nearly in the centre of a deep but spacious valley, adjacent to the North Staffordshire railway and near the Caldon canal, 5 miles from the boundary with Cheshire, and 13 SSE of Macclesfield. It dates from very early times; was held by Algar, the Saxon; passed to the Norman Earls of Chester; and was given by them to Delacres abbey, which they founded near it in 1220, and which has left some remains. A few ancient British weapons have been found at it; Thomas Parker, born in 1666, who became Earl of Macclesfield and Lord Chancellor of England, was a native; and the Pretender passed through in 1745.

The town contains several spacious well-built streets; and is one of the most handsome in the county. The town-hall was built on the site of an ancient market-cross, in 1806, at a cost of £900. The public hall was built in 1862. A literary and mechanics' institute was established in 1837; and a new building for it, at a cost of about £700, was erected in 1862. The parish church, or church of St. Edward the Confessor, is early English; and has a pinnacled tower. The churchyard contains a dilapidated ancient cross, called Danish; and commands a very fine view toward the hills in the N and the W, including a rocky mountain, called the Cloud, which occasions sunset, at the summer solstice, to appear double. St Luke's church was built in 1846. The new Independent chapel was erected in 1864, at a cost of about £4,000; is in the decorated English style, of Laddridge and Hollington stone; has a large five-light window, and a tower and spire 120 feet high; and contains 600 sittings. There are chapels also for Wesleyans, Primitive Methodists, New Connexion Methodists, and Roman Catholics. 

There are a grammar school, national schools, a dispensary, alms-houses for eight widows, and charities, including the alms-houses, £379. The town has a post-office under Stoke-upon-Trent, a railway station with telegraph, two banking offices, four chief inns, and a police-station; and is a seat of petty sessions and county courts, and a polling-place. A weekly market is held on Wednesday; a cattle market, on every alternate Wednesday from 28 July to 25 December; cheese markets, on the second Monday of March and the third Monday of September and November; and fairs, on the Wednesday before 13 February, Easter-Wednesday, 18 May, Whit-Wednesday, 3 and 28 July, the Wednesday after 10 October, 13 November, and the Wednesday after Christmas. The twisting and doubling of silk, the sewing of silk, and the making of twist ferrets, galloons, handkerchiefs, shawls, buttons, ribbons, sarcenets, and broad-silks are largely carried on.

The town's limits include portions of the townships of Leek, Leek-Frith, and Tittesworth; and were defined by a local improvement act of 1855. Pop. in 1851, 8,877; in 1861, 10,045. Houses, 2,219. The township bears the name of Leek and Lowe. Real propertv, £17,640; of which £300 are in gas-works. Pop. in 1851, 8,602; in 1861, 9,057. Houses, 1,983. Pop. of the part within the town, 8,859. Houses, 1,950. The parish contains also the townships of Leek-Frith, Tittesworth, Bradnop, Onecote, Rudyard, Heaton, Rushton-James, Rushton-Spencer, and Endon-with-Longsdon and Stanley. Acres, 34,370. Real property, £54,526; of which £31 are in quarries. Pop. in 1851. 12,301: in 1861, 14,326. Houses, 3,064.

The manor belongs to the Earl of Macclesfield. The chief seats are Highfield, Ashcombe Park, Ashenhurst, Bassford Hall, Westwood Hall, Ballhaye, and Haregate. The parochial living is a vicarage, and that of St. Luke is a perpetual curacy, in the diocese of Lichfield. Value of each, £300. Patron of the vicarage, the Bishop of Lichfield; of the perpetual curacy, alternately the Crown and the Bishop. The chapelries of Endon. Meerbrook, Rushton, and Onecote-cum-Bradnop, also are separate benefices. The sub-district contains only the Leek, Tittesworth, Bradnop, Onecote, and Rudyard townships of Leek parish, but contains also the parish of Horton. Pop., 12,341. Houses, 2,648. The district comprehends also the sub-district of Leek-Frith, containing the townships of Leek-Frith, Heaton, Rushton-James, and Rushton-Spencer; the sub-district of Norton, containing the township of Endon-with-Longsdon and Stanley, and two townships of Norton-in-the-Moors; and the sub-district of Longnor, containing the parishes of Grindon, Wetton, and Sheen, a township of Mayfield, and six townships of Alstonefield. Acres, 72,893.

Poor-rates in 1863, £8,640. Pop. in 1851, 23,031; in 1861, 24,806. Houses, 5,263. Marriages in 1863, 135; births, 854, of which 76 were illegitimate; deaths, 587, of which 218 were at ages under 5 years, and 16 at ages above 85. Marriages in the ten years 1851-60, 1,513; births, 8,270; deaths, 5,733. The places of worship, in 1851, were 22 of the Church of England, with 6,872 sittings; 2 of Independents, with 540 sittings; 25 of Wesleyan Methodists, with 4,039 sittings; 1 of New Connexion Methodists, with 262 sittinga; 7 of Primitive Methodists, with 872 sittings; and 1 of Roman Catholics, with 181 sittings. The schools were 25 public day schools, with 1,593 scholars; 30 private day schools, with 610 scholars; and 44 Sunday schools, with 4,600 scholars. The workhouse is in Leek township, on the London-road; and, at the census of 1861, had 94 inmates. 

An 1872 Gazetteer description of the following places in Leek and Lowe is to be found on a supplementary page.

• Bradnop
• Cawdry
• Dieulacres
• Heaton
• Leek-Frith
• Lowe
• Rudyard
• Tittisworth

[Description(s) from The Imperial Gazetteer of England and Wales (1870-72) - Transcribed by Mike Harbach ©2020]