Heywood

The Anglo-Saxons cleared the densely wooded area, dividing it into heys or fenced clearings. In the Middle Ages, Heywood formed a chapelry in the township, around Heywood Hall, a manor house owned by a family with that surname. Farming was the main industry of a sparsely populated rural area. The population supplemented their incomes by hand-loom woollen weaving in the domestic system.

The factory system in the town can be traced to a spinning mill in the late 18th century. Following the introduction of textile manufacture during the Industrial Revolution, Heywood developed into a mill town and coal mining district. A period of "extraordinary growth of the cotton-trade" in the mid 19th century was so quick and profound that there was "an influx of strangers causing a very dense population". The town became a municipal borough in 1881. Imports of foreign cotton goods in the mid-20th century precipitated the decline of Heywood's textile and mining industries, resulting in a more diverse industrial base.