Macclesfield in 50 Buildings

Mediaeval Macclesfield was a small market town in Cheshire but industries, particularly button manufacturing, started to develop in the Tudor era. The town’s later wealth and rapid expansion was built on the silk industry that followed, with its first mill being built in 1743. In the first half of the nineteenth century Macclesfield became one of the largest producers of silk in the world and the population quadrupled in the first 50 years, over half of whom were employed in the silk indust...