Population
Housing
Scattered hamlets
This was the original settlement pattern around Marsden. Indeed, Marsden itself would have been just one of a number of homesteads scattered across the area. It would have been no more or less important than any other. Because of the landscape, this was frontier country, and it was never like the arable lands of the Midlands. As a result, settlements did not cluster in a central, convenient village, nor was it excluded from field systems or estates.
Dates of buildings in Marsden
- pre-1650 Building in Towngate (13) is claimed to be the oldest.
- 1610 - Higher Green Owlers. Verified by datestone. It was once a local brewery on the packhorse road to Rochdale.
- 1616 - The Manor House. John Wesley stayed here when he preached in Marsden in 1746.
- 1671 - Green Top
- 1674 - Clark Hill
- 1670 - White Hall Farm, rebuilt 1855
- 1685 - Berry Greave. This was the original centre of the Baptist movement in Marsden, till it became too small.
- 1744 - Planks
- 1745 - The Two Dutchmen Inn, Towngate
- 1770 - The Traveller's Rest, Chain Road
- 1772 - Stubbins
- 1773 - Steep Farm
- 1775 - Mellors Bridge, at Clough Lee
- 1782 - Clough Lee cottages
- 1797 - Idle Row
- 1798 - Snailhorn Bridge, at the bottom of Peel Street. The present bridge was built in 1891.
- 1798 - Kaye's Bridge at the bottom of Towngate. Replaced in 1876.
- 1860 - Robinson's Mill built in Clough Lee
- 1861 - Marsden Mechanics Institute
- 1867 - Bank Bottom Mills built by John Crowther
- 1889 - 1 Clough Lea, by William Holroyd of Smithy Holme