Mount Pleasant Village is an isolated and important example of a "factory" village, and illustrates an important aspect of early industrial growth in the Upper Pennine area. The village is situated on the exposed shoulder of Snape Hill below Harden Moor, 2 miles north of Bury and 1 mile north of the village of Walmersley on Walmersley Old Road. Walmersley Old Road was once the turnpike road from Bury to Burnley with the tollhouse being at Walmersley post office.

In 1790 the road was improved by the famous road builder John Metcalf of Knaresborough who was known as "Blind Jack" due to him losing his sight as a child from smallpox. A wax effigy of him can be seen in the museum of Knaresborough together with a plaque, which states that he was a smuggler before he became a road builder. Click here to find out more.

The area of Nangreaves acquired its name from Richard Nangreaves who had an estate there as well as owning surrounding properties such as Higher Sedger Hey, Top of the Hough, Bent House and Gollinrod. The Nangreaves family was important in Lancashire in the 18th century and owned estates in Lancashire, Chester and Stafford. Richard Nangreaves died in 1800. He had a brother Samuel Wareing Nangreaves who was a Lieutenant-Colonel in the British army and who is buried in the Abbey Church in Bath.

The name of Nangreaves is pure Saxon and is probably derived from the goat breeding that was an important part of farming. The 'greve' refers to the chief goatherd and the 'nan' to the female goat (the nanny goat). Thus it is very similar to the surname 'Shepherd' which refers to sheep farming. Farmers said of the area of Nangreaves "If you can farm up there you can farm anywhere".

The house where Richard Nangreaves lived had a tree lined drive leading up to it through an archway formed from the jaw bone of a whale resting on two pillars. Unfortunately the house was demolished many years ago but old maps show it to have been near the area of the present bus turnaround, and the stables can still be seen forming part of the gatehouse to the south end of the village.

The history of the present settlement dates from early in the 19th century. The village of Nangreaves was sold to John Hall and his two brothers in 1819. These 3 brothers had established a mill at Gorsey Brow in Bury in 1803 and started up with over 100 handloom weavers who worked mainly from home. John Hall was born in 1780 on 12th December and died on 13th September 1870.. His memorial tablet can be found in the West Wall of the choir vestry at Walmersley Church and the beautiful stained glass window was given in his memory by his workpeople. Many generations of families worked for John Hall, and many individuals worked in his mill at Mount Pleasant for up to 50 or 60 years. His employees considered John Hall to be a good employer who worked as hard or harder than those he employed. When he died in 1870 at the age of 90, the business passed to John (Jack) Hall of Baldingstone.

John Hall established a mill at Mount Pleasant in 1820 by moving his business from the Gorsey Brow site. At first the business acted as a collecting point for the cottage weaving industry, and weavers from Holcombe, Tottington, Affetside, Bradshaw, Harwood and Bolton would bring their cloth to Nangreaves and would return home with the warp and weft. At this time the business employed well over 1,000 weavers. Many of his weavers worked from their cottages, but the coming of the steam age and the power loom put an end to the cottage industry.

John Hall began building a new mill, incorporating weaving sheds, power looms and later a spinning shed, and applied himself to improving methods of producing quilting cloth for which he was well known. As the prosperity of the business increased, further additions were made to the mill building, and terraced cottages were built around the mill to provide homes for the spinners and weavers. The earliest terrace cottages date from 1819, and were part of the mill building immediately adjoining Walmersley Old Road. Other terraces are later but are pre-1851, while the two terraces to the extreme west (the lower village) are post-1850, and numbers 1 to 6 were built in 1903. (It appears from looking at the area that these numbers may have been taken from the earlier 1819 terraces). The Lord Raglan pub dates from 1825. (the fact that the Raglan is still flourishing proves, it seems, that the demand for beer is greater than the demand for textiles). The mill was one of the earliest to be illuminated by electric light in 1888. The last alterations to the mill were made in 1893 with the addition to the weaving shed, while the last workers' houses were built in 1903.

Nangreaves had its own football team which played matches from the turn of the century until the great war. The village also had its own co-operative shop which operated from No.14 Mount Pleasant from 1880 until it closed in 1906. In the quarter ended June 8th 1901 the profit was £37, which meant that every one of its 45 members received 3s (three shillings) dividend with £1 2s 11d left to be carried over to the next quarter. Wages for the shopkeeper were £13 per quarter, carriage charges 10s per quarter, coal for heating the shop 2s. For all you youngsters, one shilling is the equivalent of 5p today and there were 12d (twelve pennies) in a shilling. The maths is now up to you!

The mill produced the waistcoat and shirt front materials which were worn by Fred Astaire and the rest of the cast in the film 'Top Hat' in 1935. In fact the mill was nicknamed Top Hat Mill. It was also the only place to make the white material which covered naval officers' caps.

Early in the second world war the mill was closed along with other mills but was allowed to open some 12 months later on account of the exceptional clothes that it made. The business which had started selling goods in Manchester had now expanded into London and home markets as well as abroad.

With the decline in the cotton industry the mill was forced to close after 150 years in November 1965 (the manager at the time was Mr Bernard Lilley). The mill was later sold and used for the production of plastics until it was closed for the final time in 1983.

The village became a conservation area in 1974, and the cottages are Grade II listed buildings. It was one of the few surviving examples of the "factory village" in Greater Manchester.

The mill was finally closed in 1983 and in the late 80's the now neglected mill suffered a fire so severe that it was finally demolished The stones from the mill buildings were re-faced and used to build new houses on the site of the once famous mill. Alas, this meant the end of the mill chimney, which was a local landmark, and the filling in of the lodge to become a village green. Village residents turned out with buckets and bowls to help rescue fish and other wildlife from the lodge before it was filled in.

Some further interesting details about Nangreaves are that in 1962 drill tests were done for oil, which was found but not in amounts economical to extract. A bus service first ran to the village in 1950 and operated 3 days a week. The first residents to use the bus were Mrs Mary Alice Haworth from No.4, Mrs C Mills from No.26, George Newby from No.2 and Mrs M H Graham, the 80 year old mother of the licensee of the Lord Raglan pub.