Woodford, Greater Manchester

The early part of the war saw a production run of 200 Avro Manchester bombers. The unreliability of their twin Rolls-Royce Vulture engines prompted the development of the Avro Lancaster, powered by four Rolls-Royce Merlins.^[15] Over 4000 Lancasters were assembled at the plant and these formed the backbone of RAF Bomber Command.

The Lancasters were followed by

From 1968 to 2000, an annual air show was held at the Aerodrome, organised by the Royal Air Forces Association. Now, as part of BAE Systems Regional Aircraft, the airfield is the site of the company's Customer Training and Engineering department.

In 1989, 3,000 people were employed on the site.^[17] On 3 April 2008, BAE Systems announced it would be losing 134 jobs from the Woodford site.^[18] On 15 September 2009, BAE announced that the site would close in 2012, with the loss of the final 630 jobs.^[19] The site has now been demolished; however, the old fire station has been repurposed as the Avro Heritage Museum which honours the various Avro aircraft that were built on the site and maintains a collection of artifacts associated with their development.

A large housing estate named Woodford Garden Village is currently being built by

Woodford forms a semi-rural area of mostly ribbon developments. The village has an open level aspect to it, most of the village is between 90 metres (300 ft) and 95 metres (312 ft) above mean sea level. This is due to being 5 kilometres (3.1 mi) west of the

Woodford Christ Church was completed in 1841 as a chapel of ease to Prestbury. It is built of brick with stone used only for windows and other architectural features. A district chapelry was assigned to the church in 1873 which meant that Christ Church became a separate parish.^[27]

Woodford has one primary school, Woodford Primary, that opened in September 2022 on the Woodford Garden Village housing development.^[28] Other nearby schools are in Bramhall (Queensgate Primary and Bramhall High School). There was a Church of England primary school on Chester Road until it closed in 1983. The last headmaster was Mr George Ireland. A private school was then run on the same site until it closed in 2002 and the school buildings were converted to houses.

The nearest railway stations are

There are buses to Stockport and Manchester, from a terminus next to the Davenport Arms public house, provided by Stagecoach Manchester:^[30]

• 42B: runs to Manchester every 30 minutes via Bramhall, Cheadle and Didsbury;
• 877: a school service that runs from Bramhall to Stockport College, via Bramhall High School.

Woodford has been the place of residence for George Best^[31] and Cristiano Ronaldo,^[32][33] both former wingers for Manchester United F.C. Ivan Mauger, Belle Vue Speedway team captain, also lived here.^[34]

• Listed buildings in Hazel Grove and Bramhall

Bibliography

• Arrowsmith, Peter (1997). Stockport : a history. Stockport: Stockport Metropolitan Borough Council.
  ISBN 0-905164-99-7
  .
• Lewis, Samuel (1848), A Topographical Dictionary of England, Institute of Historical Research,
  ISBN 978-0-8063-1508-9 {{citation}}: ISBN / Date incompatibility (help
  )

External links

Wikimedia Commons has media related to Woodford, Greater Manchester.

• Davenports & Early Woodford History