Another clue from modern-day map (page 10) clearly shows a dried up ‘riverbed’ meandering through the field behind, to the west of 288 London Road North. On investigation this is a deep cut meander. The ‘riverbed’ was not a previous course of the Norbury Brook and appears to spring from the falling ground, the bank, to ‘meander’ to the brook. So what is the story? I think this was the race from ‘Old Norbury’ wheel, running underground until the race culvert bursts from the ‘bank’ and water is allowed to ‘meander’ to Poynton Brook, below Barlow Fold. We can draw a line between the pond/lade area and the ‘meandering race’/ ‘culvert’, and somewhere along it was the water wheel, at a level probably eight feet below the present ground level of 288 London Road. This would give a wheel size around 16ft undershot, at 288 London Road. The manse was ‘rebuilt of Wood and Plaster’ in 1559 but I think the stone building, demolished in the fifties and replaced by the present building of 288 London Road, is the location of the ancient Norbury mill, the half-timbered ‘hall’ being demolished later. There is a record because the 1793 Poynton terrier (right) clearly shows the mill/manse with outbuildings mentioned in the 1696 deed, a whole ‘farmyard’. The canal would have cut the thin ‘peninsula’ of Norbury land on which the mill stood. The two estates seem to have adjusted and tidied their borders at this time of the canal and thus the significant Norbury building becomes a non-descript Poynton one.
Old Norbury mill had to be moved for the canal, because it was the ‘low’ system. When its water discharged, via the meandering race into Poynton Brook, it was lost to the canal headwater, the high system at the level of Poynton Pool. So, the Lyme estate built the new mill at Old Mill Lane where water was returned to the brook above the level of the ‘high system’ of Poynton Pool. Thus by 1793 (the time of Terrier Map), the Norbury Mill manse complex becomes a part of Poynton, and the ‘folk’ memory of where the mill and manse was is lost. The loss of the canal structure was a huge humiliation for all sponsoring it, particularly Sir George Warren. But others like the Leighs of Lyme and Aldington and Davenport of Bramhall were all involved. Charles Roe of Macclesfield, a self-made industrialist, acted as ‘salesman’ in the parliamentary presentation. His main interest was getting copper and zinc ore to his great smelter on Macclesfield Common. He was mortified particularly by Wedgewood’s duplicity. His operations gradually shifted to Toxteth in Liverpool, ultimately saving a fortune in transport, and as a direct consequence of the fate of this canal. The great baggage trains of ore ceased to flow through the heart of Cheshire to Macclesfield, while Macclesfield lost an embryonic giant and never became a Wolverhampton. Twenty-five years later when the gloss had gone from Bridgewater’s Manchester achievement, and his monopolistic
tendencies with the Trent and Mersey Canal were questioned, Roe’s son spoilt Bridgewater’s plans for a canal in Liverpool, building the Sankey canal instead. The consequences of the humiliation thus ran down the generations, but the squires quickly covered their humiliation. The financial and physical effort Warren expended on the canal scheme is still visible today. The physical evidence I have revealed here is only part of what can be seen and is the most significant part of Poynton’s eighteenthcentury history, still available to us, and previously to this article unknown. The two mills were peripheral but their water, the Norbury brook, was vital for Poynton Pool as headwater. The first lock (below) was very close to the site of the old Norbury mill/manse, to carry the canal under the turnpike, over the Norbury Brook to Norbury ‘Moor’, Bramhall ‘Moor’, Woods ‘Moor’/ Great ‘Moor’, ‘Heath’ Road Davenport, Cale ‘Green’ and into Shaw ‘Heath’ – Warrens land again – where at least two warehouses were built and plenty of land was grabbed in the process. Both mills were re-sited to the locations we know today because of the canal, when the greater prize was shelved permanently, thus saving villages like Mottram St Andrew, Alderley Edge or, shudder to think, Anglesey Drive, becoming a Rochdale or Ancoats. BELOW: Fragment of Canal Map 1793 This map was made when Nat Wright was taking over operational control of Gees Mine from Warren and Norbury collery from the Lyme estate but I am certain the route is the same as for the 1765 parliamentary submission. . Note the first Lock at Towers Farm Pond heading North West to Norbury Moor and the ‘canal section to Poynton Pool. The ‘old’ Norbury mill has been closed for 30 years, I think the front part, the half timbered hall, is already gone probably because of road widening for the canal Bridge over the Turnpike. From the estate terrier we know Norbury Mill/Manse is part of the Poynton estate. Note that Towers road and the North Lodge are not there. This map uniquely ignores Estate boundaries.
References: Shercliff, William H, D A. Kitching, and J M. Ryan. Poynton, a Coalmining Village: Social History, Transport and Industry, 1700-1939. Stockport (Cheshire: Shercliff, 1983) ; Smith, Dorothy B. A Georgian Gent & Co: The Life and Times of Charles Roe.
(Ashbourne: Landmark Publishing, 2005); Trowsdale, David H. The History of Hazel Grove and Bramhall: (Hazel Grove, Stockport, Cheshire, 1976); Poynton: A Coalmining Village www.brocross.com/poynton/conten. htm 12