and
Grade II listed building in Castleton The most ancient known reference to Castleton is found in the
Domesday Book (1086). The name suggests a link with a fortification; the Castleton area was the site of
Rochdale Castle. The castle is believed to have been located on the south bank of the
River Roch, which runs through Castleton. During the 13th century, Castleton was known as
Castletown, or
Castle Town. Approximately 60 acres of land (four
bovates) were endowed to
Stanlaw Abbey in the late years of
Roger de Lacy (1170–1211) for the benefit of its
Cistercian monastic community. Back around the time the canal was built, Castleton was known as Blue Pits Village, because of the blue clay that was found and mined around the area that the railway is now. This information is on a tourist sign on the entrance to the canal off the Manchester bound side of Manchester Road. The
Rochdale Canal was routed through Castleton around the year 1800 and made Castleton one of the larger industrial areas in
North West England. The canal granted jobs for hundreds of local residents, as it enabled the construction of several
cotton mills. With the mills came the need for engineering and from 1892, Castleton was the home of
Tweedales and Smalley who manufactured looms and textile machinery. Their Globe Works factory no longer exists, being part of the
Woolworths site. The
Manchester and Leeds Railway Company (later the
Lancashire and Yorkshire Railway) arrived in Castleton in 1839, and it was here that the line formerly diverged to
Bury,
Ramsbottom,
Rawtenstall,
Bacup and finally rejoined the main line at
Rochdale. Castleton's railway area was one of the last mainstays of steam, being a huge resource of freight. Castleton Hall was a country house belonging to the Holtes; it was built in the Elizabethan period and enlarged in 1719. It was occupied in the late nineteenth century by the "Joyful News Training Home and Mission", now
Cliff College, which moved from Castleton to its current location at
Calver in
Derbyshire under the direction of the
Wesleyan Methodist Church in 1904. In 1903, Whipp & Bourne Ltd. was founded by Samuel Whipp and Charles Bourne to manufacture electrical switchgear. The company closed its factory in Castleton, in 2007. In 1913, the
Dunlop Rubber company began building a vast
textile mill complex at Castleton. At its peak the mill employed over 3,000 workers. Most of the mill was demolished in 1979. Dunlop Textiles ceased trading in 2005. ==Governance==