Glossop has a very rich history. The Romans came and built a fort, Melandra Castle, to guard the valleys of Glossopdale. In 1157 Henry II granted a charter to hold a Court, a Market and a Fair in Glossop. In 1537 Henry VIII gave the whole of Glossopdale to the Earl of Shrewsbury, whose daughter married Thomas Howard and the manor of Glossop passed into the hands of the Howard family. Its head was the Duke of Norfolk, after whom many of the streets, including Norfolk Square in the town centre, are named.

During medieval times Glossop was an agricultural town based on sheep farming but after the Industrial revolution the wealth was based on the cotton industry, which attracted a population boom, requiring houses and shops. With a new road system and the arrival of the railway in the nineteenth century, the new town centre developed around the Town Hall complex with its shops, built by the 12th Duke of Norfolk in 1838. The Market Hall was built six years later by the 13th Duke.

The architecture of the beautiful sandstone buildings around Norfolk Square enhances the noble town centre with its lawns, trees and flower beds. Glossop has ignored the usual shopping mall complex in favour of the retention of its tree-lined High Street, which remains virtually unaltered today, with  a wide variety of individual shops and buildings.
 

Web hosting by Vision Internet Services