Butterworth Hall Brook is a water course in

Greater Manchester Greater Manchester is a ceremonial county in North West England. It borders Lancashire to the north, Derbyshire and West Yorkshire to the east, Cheshire to the south, and Merseyside to the west. Its largest settlement is the city of Manchester. ...

, North-West England, which flows through the village of

Milnrow Milnrow is a town within the Metropolitan Borough of Rochdale, in Greater Manchester, England. It lies on the River Beal at the foothills of the South Pennines, and forms a continuous urban area with Rochdale. It is east of Rochdale town centre, ...

and is a tributary of the

River Beal The Beal is a small river in Greater Manchester, England, and is a tributary of the River Roch. It rises in the Beal Valley in green space between Sholver and Royton, before continuing northwards through Shaw and Crompton, Newhey, Milnrow an ...

Course

Rising at Tunshill, just south of Tunshill Farm, where it is almost immediately fed by a small streamlet, the brook flows in a south-westerly direction towards Milnrow, is culverted under the

M62 Motorway The M62 is a west–east Pennines, trans-Pennine motorway in Northern England, connecting Liverpool and Kingston upon Hull, Hull via Manchester, Bradford, Leeds and Wakefield; of the route Concurrency (road), is shared with the M60 motorway, ...

, then runs along the eastern boundary of Tunshill Golf Course, then down a clough through Claylands Head, to the hamlet of Butterworth Hall. Flowing past Good Intent, it is again culverted beneath Church Terrace before passing under Bilson Bridge on Newhey Road, joining the

, behind Milnrow Precinct. The brook falls 55m.(180 ft.) and barely exceeds 2 km.(1 1/4m.) in length.

History

Butterworth Hall Brook is named after the hamlet of Butterworth Hall, which surrounded the original manorial hall of the ancient township of Butterworth. In 1867 three men were drowned in Tunshill Colliery, close to the source of the brook, when underground waters feeding the brook broke through old mine workings. Part of the stream bed below Claylands Head, paved with setts, once formed a bridleway called Water Lane. This was the start of two packhorse routes over the Pennines via Tunshill - the Rapes Highway and the Readycon Gap route over Bleakedgate Moor. After serious flooding, the brook was channeled alongside the road, which retains the name of Water Lane.

Gallery

File:Butterworth Hall Brook.JPG, Upstream from the M62 File:Butterworth Hall Brook Claylands Head.JPG, Downstream from Claylands Head File:Butterworth Hall Brook 1.JPG, Water Lane upstream File:Butterworth Hall Brook Milnrow.jpg, Milnrow Precinct File:Butterworth Hall Brook River Beal.JPG, Confluence with River Beal

References

Rivers of Milnrow and Newhey Rivers of the Metropolitan Borough of Rochdale Rivers of Greater Manchester 2 {{England-river-stub