England & Wales Hardwicke Marriage Index
Marriages 1754 - 1837
Macclesfield St Michael

The Parish

The chapelry of Macclesfield lies in eastern Cheshire within the broad and extensive parish of Prestbury. For thos expecting a lengthy transcript for such an important industrial town there will be disappointment as the chapelry was not licensed for marriages until late 1835 with all marriages between 1754 and that date taking place at the mother church. Macclesfield is located 36 miles east of the county town of Chester and sits where the A523 road (connecting Leek with Stockport) crosses the A537 (Buxton to Knutsford) road. Macclesfield's history begins in the 13th century, prior to that a remote rural area, when a charter was granted by the future King Edward I was granted in 1261. For much of its existence Macclesfield was a small market town for eastern Cheshire, all changed in 1743 when Charles Roe built the first silk mill and Macclesfield became irretrievably linked to manufacture of products based upon that resource. By the end of this transcript period the population had risen to over 23,000 folk with 10,000 employed in the silk trade. Despite this growing population Macclesfield still deferred ecclesiastically to Prestbury some 3 miles further north. Modern developments soon connected Macclesfield with the wider northwestern industrial towns, firstly the Macclesfield Canal and then the Stoke on Trent to Manchester railway aided Macclesfield's development into a substantial town. Today the silk mills have disappeared but Macclesfield remains a major town of its region serving as an employment and commercial hub for much of this area. Macclesfield is drained northwards by the River Bollin which reaches the Mersey to the east of Warrington before the Irish Sea through the port of Liverpool. Macclesfield is sited at around 150 metres above the sea but sits on the western edge of the Peak District hills which rises immediately east of the town to heights of over 450 metres within a few miles. The chapelries acreage would have formed only a small section of the vast tracts of Prestbury parish, little more than the town limits would have been segregated to St Michael but within that area a population grew from fewer than 6,000 to over 23,000 during the period of this transcript. In Domesday times Macclesfield is a holding of Earl Hugh of Chester offering a single plough, some woodland but there was a mill.

The Church