Buckley is a suburban area within the Metropolitan Borough of Rochdale, in Greater Manchester, England.

[1] It lies at the northern fringe of Rochdale, along the course of Buckley Brook, "upon an eminence of ground" by the South Pennines.

Although the name Buckley is of Old English derivation, the settlement's medieval history is tied closely to a Norman family who were granted the estate as a gift for their services given in the Norman conquest of England; they subsequently adopted the surname 'de Buckley'.

Throughout the Late Middle Ages and the Early Modern Period, Buckley was the principal estate of the township of Wardleworth.

The name Buckley is derived from the Old English term æblæc hlæw, which translates as "bleak hill".

[3][4] This Old English term became corrupted to "Blakelow",[3] and then into the variants of "Bucklegh", "Bulkey", "Bukklegh", and "Bucley" before settling on "Buckley".

[4] The medieval hamlet of Buckley lay within the Anglo-Saxon manor of Hundersfield, in the parish of Rochdale.

[9] When the manor of Hundersfield was abolished and its territory subdivided amongst new townships,[10] Buckley Hall and its surrounding area fell within the bounds of Wardleworth.

[1] Buckley appears to have been the "principal estate" of Wardleworth and encompassed land in the outlying areas of Foxholes and Fieldhouse.

[17] Buckley Wood Reservoir was completed in December 1841 and held 24,271,312 imperial gallons (110,339,570 L; 29,148,630 US gal) of water.

[21] Buckley Hall was found to be suitable for conversion into an orphanage and Poor Law School operated by the Brothers of Charity, a Catholic institute from Ghent in Belgium.

[22] Buckley lies along the northern edge of both Rochdale,[23] and the Greater Manchester Urban Area,[24] "upon an eminence of ground" at the foothills of the South Pennines.

[25] There is a mixture of suburbs, semi-rural and rural locations in Buckley—which has no formal boundary—and is fringed by Great Howarth (to the northeast), Low Hill and Smallbridge (to the east), Howarth Cross (to the southeast), Fieldhouse and Wardleworth (to the south), Cronkeyshaw and Foxholes (to the southwest), Nook Farm (to the west), Healey (to the north east), and Birchin Head and rural land (to the north).

[2] In the Early Middle Ages, Buckley was governed as a part of the Anglo-Saxon manor of Hundersfield in the Rochdale ecclesiastical parish and hundred of Salford.

[27] Buckley falls within the Rochdale county constituency, which is represented by Simon Danczuk MP, a member of the Labour Party.

It first makes an appearance in record in a written description dated 1626, but was at that time noted as being an ancient hall.