Saddleworth: The small corner of Lancashire which still proudly celebrates its Yorkshire roots
This corner lies wholly within an area administered by the Metropolitan Borough of Oldham, and is part of the Greater Manchester mayoralty until recently governed by one Andy Burnham.
But as numerous road signs attest, the West Pennine villages of Dobcross, Uppermill, Greenfield and 10 others collectively forming the civil parish of Saddleworth were once proud Yorkshire communities.
Their heritage was celebrated this weekend at Yorkshire Day events organised by the Saddleworth White Rose Society, which is dedicated to preserving the area’s historic identity as part of the West Riding.
These events typically involve a sea of white roses, acres of Yorkshire parkin and mountains of perfectly puffed Yorkshire puddings.
A wreath of white roses will be laid in Uppermill at a statue of Ammon Wrigley, who wrote verse in Yorkshire dialect and is known as “Saddleworth’s poet laureate”.
Back in 1974 the villages were handed over en bloc to Oldham, which - adding insult to injury - lay entirely in Lancashire, although a local referendum at the time found 98 per cent of Saddleworth’s population rejected the move.
The sweeping boundary changes came into effect at midnight on the 1st of April, leading some residents who were being annexed by the Red Rose County to hope it might all be an April Fool joke.
Yorkshire’s North, East and West Ridings had survived more or less unaltered since they were established in the 9th century following the invasion by Danes and the formation of the Viking Kingdom of Jorvik.
The word “Riding” evolved from “thridding”, an Anglo-Norse word meaning “a third”.
Saddleworth appeared as a location in the mostly Yorkshire-set film Brassed Off in which a brass band from the fictional village of Grimley, actually Grimethorpe in South Yorkshire, performed at the famous Saddleworth Whit Friday Band Competition, said to be the “greatest free show on earth”.