Bosley is a village and

civil parish In England, a civil parish is a type of administrative parish used for local government. It is a territorial designation which is the lowest tier of local government. Civil parishes can trace their origin to the ancient system of parishes, w ...

Cheshire Cheshire ( ) is a Ceremonial counties of England, ceremonial county in North West England. It is bordered by Merseyside to the north-west, Greater Manchester to the north-east, Derbyshire to the east, Staffordshire to the south-east, and Shrop ...

, England. At the 2001 census, it had a population of 406.Official 2001 Census Figures.
Retrieval Date: 14 August 2007. The village is on the A523 road near to where it intersects the A54, about six miles south of

Macclesfield Macclesfield () is a market town and civil parish in the unitary authority of Cheshire East, Cheshire, England. It is sited on the River Bollin and the edge of the Cheshire Plain, with Macclesfield Forest to its east; the town lies south of Ma ...

. It is the site of Bosley Reservoir. The

Macclesfield Canal The Macclesfield Canal is a canal in east Cheshire, England. There were various proposals for a canal to connect the town of Macclesfield to the national network from 1765 onwards, but it was not until 1824 that a scheme came to fruition. There ...

runs through the parish. All its locks are in this section, including the noted Bosley Lock Flight. The village is immediately to the north of the

Staffordshire Staffordshire (; postal abbreviation ''Staffs''.) is a Ceremonial counties of England, ceremonial county in the West Midlands (region), West Midlands of England. It borders Cheshire to the north-west, Derbyshire and Leicestershire to the east, ...

border, close to the

Peak District The Peak District is an Highland, upland area in central-northern England, at the southern end of the Pennines. Mostly in Derbyshire, it extends into Cheshire, Greater Manchester, Staffordshire, West Yorkshire and South Yorkshire. It is subdivi ...

National Park.

Arthur Herbert Procter Arthur Herbert Procter VC (11 August 1890 – 27 January 1973) was an English recipient of the Victoria Cross, the highest and most prestigious award for gallantry in the face of the enemy that can be awarded to British and Commonwealth for ...

Victoria Cross The Victoria Cross (VC) is the highest and most prestigious decoration of the Orders, decorations, and medals of the United Kingdom, British decorations system. It is awarded for valour "in the presence of the enemy" to members of the British ...

recipient, was parish vicar of Bosley from 1931 to 1933. The village's

tug of war Tug of war (also known as tug o' war, tug war, rope war, rope pulling, or tugging war) is a sport in which two teams compete by pulling on opposite ends of a rope, with the goal of bringing the rope a certain distance in one direction against ...

team, formed in 1947, were world champions in 1975 and 1976.

July 2015 explosions

Wood Treatment Ltd were manufacturers of a variety of wood fibre and wood powder products. At 9:10 am on Friday 17 July 2015, a number of people were injured, four killed or missing, and the mill destroyed, by at least three explosions at the Wood Treatment site. The local Member of Parliament (MP),

David Rutley David Henry Rutley (born 7 March 1961) is a British former politician who served as the Member of Parliament (MP) for Macclesfield from 2010 until 2024. A member of the Conservative Party, he was Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Ame ...

, spent time at the site. He said it was "like a war zone" and described the day as his "darkest day" so far in his time as MP. The following Sunday the

Methodist Methodism, also called the Methodist movement, is a Protestant Christianity, Christian Christian tradition, tradition whose origins, doctrine and practice derive from the life and teachings of John Wesley. George Whitefield and John's brother ...

minister (Rev. Pam Butler) and

Vicar A vicar (; Latin: '' vicarius'') is a representative, deputy or substitute; anyone acting "in the person of" or agent for a superior (compare "vicarious" in the sense of "at second hand"). Linguistically, ''vicar'' is cognate with the English p ...

(Rev. John Harries) held a joint service of remembrance. It was in the

Anglican Anglicanism, also known as Episcopalianism in some countries, is a Western Christianity, Western Christian tradition which developed from the practices, liturgy, and identity of the Church of England following the English Reformation, in the ...

church Church may refer to: Religion * Church (building), a place/building for Christian religious activities and praying * Church (congregation), a local congregation of a Christian denomination * Church service, a formalized period of Christian comm ...

because the Methodist church was inside the cordon set up to protect the site. On the Friday they had both expressed publicly the trauma and anger felt by the whole village. A fund for the victims was set up by a local councillor.'' Macclesfield Express'', 22 July 2015, pp. 1–7 By 23 July, three of the four bodies had been recovered, and the fire chief was “very confident” that they knew the location of the last one. Fires were still burning and very little of the structure was identifiable. Paul Hitchen, of the Urban Search and Rescue team, said, "The scale of the incident...is unprecedented in this country in the last 10 years." Firefighters finally left the scene over a month after the tragedy. Even then the Urban Search and Rescue Team from

Merseyside Fire and Rescue Service Merseyside Fire and Rescue Service is the statute, statutory Fire service in the UK, fire and rescue service covering the county of Merseyside in north-west England and is the statutory Fire and Rescue Authority responsible for all 999 fire br ...

remained to continue looking for the body of the one person who was, officially, still only missing. After an extensive investigation by Cheshire Constabulary and the national Health and Safety Executive, Wood Treatment Ltd was charged with corporate manslaughter in November 2019. The company's managing director was charged with manslaughter owing to negligence and two other managers with breaches in health and safety laws; their trial commenced in December 2019. Following a 12-week trial, both the firm and its managing director were acquitted of manslaughter but convicted of lesser health and safety offences. The works had a long history. Two water-mills were built on the

River Dane The River Dane is a tributary of the River Weaver that originates in the Peak District area of England. The name of the river (earlier ''Daven'') is probably from the Old Welsh ''dafn'', meaning a "drop or trickle", implying a slow-moving river. ...

around 1760 by

Charles Roe Charles Roe (7 May 1715 – 3 May 1781) was an English industrialist. He played an important part in establishing the silk industry in Macclesfield, Cheshire and later became involved in the mining and metal industries. Early life and career ...

to process copper and brass. They were called "Higherworks Mill" and "Lowerworks Mill". Later, both mills were converted to process silk and cotton and later still to grind corn. They closed in the 1920s but reopened in the 1930s for their final task of grinding wood into a fine flour to make

Linoleum Linoleum is a floor covering made from materials such as solidified linseed oil (linoxyn), Pine Resin, pine resin, ground Cork (material), cork dust, sawdust, and mineral fillers such as calcium carbonate, most commonly on a Hessian fabric, hes ...

Bakelite Bakelite ( ), formally , is a thermosetting polymer, thermosetting phenol formaldehyde resin, formed from a condensation reaction of phenol with formaldehyde. The first plastic made from synthetic components, it was developed by Belgian chemist ...

and explosives.

July 2015 explosions

See also

References

External links