HANDFORTH (or Handforth-cum-Bosden) is a township and village, with a station on the Manchester, Stockport and Crewe branch of the London and North Western railway, 20 ½ miles from Crewe, 10 ½ from Manchester, 5 south-west from Stockport, 15 ¾ from Sandbach and 177 ½ from London. Handforth was formed into a district, chapelry out of Handforth and Bosden, and other parts of Cheadle parish 18 Dec. 1877, and is in the Altrincham division of the county, and in the union, county court district and petty sessional division of Stockport, rural deanery of Stockport, archdeaconry of Macclesfield and diocese of Chester. The church of St. Chad, formerly a chapel of ease to Cheadle, and erected in 1837, is a plain structure of brick, consisting only of nave, with a western turret, containing a clock and one bell: there are 200 sittings. The register dates from the year 1843. The living is a vicarage, net yearly value £145, in the gift of the Rector of Cheadle, and held since 1895 by the Rev. Edgar Rogers Holland M.A. of Pembroke, College, Oxford. There is a Methodist New Connexion chapel, built in 1850, near the railway station, and a Wesleyan chapel in the Wilmslow road. Handforth Hall, formerly a residence of the Breretons of Ashley and Brereton, stands about a quarter of a mile from the church, and is now occupied as a farmhouse; over the doorway, carved on an oak beam, appears the following-" This haulle was buylded in the yeare of Oure Lord God mccccclxii. by Uryan Brereton knight whom maryed Margaret daughter and heare of Wyllyam Handforth of Handforth esq. who had issue 3 sonnes and 2 daughters.” Here are the extensive calico print works of Messrs. William Watson & Co. Limited, Handforth Print Works. Edward Thomas Cunliffe esq. Alexander Brooke esq. of London, and Capt. Street, of Mottram, are the principal landowners, The soil is sand, the subsoil, clay; the chief crops are grass. The area is-township, 1,780 acres; Handforth, 1,303 acres of land and 10 of water; rateable value, £7,529; the population in 1891 was-township, 794; ecclesiastical parish, 897.