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Origins
From the mists of time ...
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Origin of the 'Happy Valley' nickname
As is often the way with such things there is more than one explanation available.
The original explanation comes from Samuel Greg who acquired Lowerhouse Mill in 1832. He was a forward thinking philanthropic man who actually valued his workers as people rather than just labour for his mill and he developed the Lowerhouse area with a view to improving their living conditions by providing schooling, a library, and allotments to grow their own food. Greg called Bollington Goldenthal, German for Happy Valley.
The second explanation is related to the history of the town. The three Bollington villages were once a very rural Cheshire agricultural community with a small population. Then the mills came, along with the Macclesfield Canal
and, later still, the railway. These created a demand for labour which could only be provided by bringing in outsiders. Some of the Irish employed to build the canal settled here. Many experienced cotton industry workers were enticed from Lancashire mill towns, particularly Bury, as were others, particularly quarry workers, from Derbyshire.
The three different peoples didn't mix particularly well and families tended to develop from within a limited group of people from the same origins. Unfortunately, this led to inbreeding and, in serious cases, this led in turn to mental problems - hence, rather cruelly, the 'happy' part of the name. The fact that they all lived in the valley completed the phrase.
It is said that Bollington provided, in Victorian times, the major contribution to those poor souls living in Macclesfield's West Park mental hospital or, as it was known then, the lunatic asylum.
