Portal:Cheshire/Selected settlement/5

Poynton is a town on the easternmost edge of the Cheshire Plain, near Macclesfield and Stockport. The manor was first recorded in 1289. The town straddles the Red Rock Fault, which brings the Permo–Triassic sandstones and mudstones of the Cheshire Plain up against the Millstone Grit and shales of the Peak District. To the immediate east of the fault are the coal measures of the Carboniferous period. Coal was mined at Poynton from the 16th century, and its collieries were the largest in Cheshire. Anson Engine Museum, on the site of a former colliery, has a collection of stationary engines.

Consequent urbanisation and socioeconomic development necessitated better transport links; these came with the completion of the Macclesfield Canal through the town in 1831, and the arrival of the Manchester and Birmingham Railway in 1845 and the Macclesfield, Bollington and Marple Railway in 1869. The collieries closed in 1935. The population has nearly trebled since 1945, to over 14,000 in 2011. In the late 20th century, Poynton became a commuter town for Manchester.

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