History of Poynton - Compiled by Poynton Local History Society

After the Norman conquest Poynton developed from very small hamlets. The name Poynington, one of the early variants of the spelling of the name was not recognised until the end of the 13th century when the land was held by the Lordes de Stockeport and then passed by marriage into the Warren family who were to be the Lords of the Manor for some 450 years. Around 1550 Edward Warren built the first Poynton Hall with its imposing towers in what is now Poynton Park. It would have had a chapel but ecclesiastically we were in the large parish of Prestbury which was the mother church of the area. There is a memorial to Edward Warren in Prestbury Church. The first record of an incumbent at Poynton chapel which was dedicated to St Mary, shared with Norbury chapel was William Hornby in 1596.

In the 1600s as the Warrens had Royalist leanings the estate was sequestrated by Parliament but returned to the Warrens on the payment of a fine. The incumbent lost his living and it may have had a Presbyterian minister during the period of the Civil War and afterwards became run down.

When George Warren (1735 – 1801 pictured) was born Poynton was a farming community but he developed the coal mines and was responsible for the building of the turnpike road through Poynton and created cottage housing on what is now London Road North He had a new hall built and pulled down the first hall apart from the towers. He created Poynton Pool and was involved in a scheme to bring a canal through Poynton which did not materialise. He also gave land and bore the expense for a new church to replace St Mary’s Chapel. It was consecrated and dedicated to St George in July 1789. This led to the centre of Poynton being where it is today. In 1791 he bought the Worth estate from the Downes family which meant he held the significant coal measures in the area and we became known as Poynton with Worth. 

George Warren’s daughter married Viscount Bulkeley and so we get the Warren-Bulkeley connection with Poynton. They did not live in Poynton but visited regularly and took a keen interest in the estate. Worth Clough, 1815 was built as industrial housing in their time. There was no direct inheritor so the estate was left to a supposed relative Lady Vernon. The connection proved to be false but it led to the Vernon ownership of Poynton for nearly 100 years. 

In 1831 the Macclesfield canal was opened and in 1845 the railway came to Poynton. Lord Vernon took control of the mines which had been run on leases with an agent responsible for the day to day working. Technological developments meant that deeper mines could be worked and in the 1850s coal production was about 250,000 tons.

A more modern residence was built between the towers of the first hall and the previous hall pulled down about 1850. The Vernon family lived at Sudbury Hall and stayed at the Towers when they came to Poynton. In 1836 the ceiling at St George’s church collapsed and Lord Vernon was instrumental in having a new church built which was consecrated in 1859 and is the present St George’s. Prestbury was still the mother church which from the 1754 marriage act meant that people from Poynton had to go there to marry. But Poynton through its mining was a growing village and there was a feeling that we should be a parish in our own right. This came about in 1871.

In the 1890s the mines were very productive and their extent can be seen by the model of Poynton in 1901 in the Anson Museum. The twentieth century saw the demise of the Vernon family in Poynton and water was to become a problem in the mines. The Vernons had started to sell part of their interests in Poynton before WW1 and all the farms were sold in 1920. The mines closed in 1935. Poynton grew to be a residential area particularly in the 1960s and 70s. The mines have left a legacy of a maze of footpaths for us to explore the area, the Lords of the Manor have left us an uncluttered park and wildlife pool and a redundant railway line and brickworks have produced a conservation area and a managed path for cyclists, horse riders and walkers. These all go to make Poynton a pleasant place to live.