Butterworth was a township occupying the southeastern part of the parish of Rochdale, in the hundred of Salford, Lancashire, England.

It encompassed 12.1 square miles (31 km2) of land in the South Pennines which spanned the settlements of Belfield, Bleaked-gate-cum-Roughbank, Butterworth Hall, Clegg, Haughs, Hollingworth, Kitcliffe, Lowhouse, Milnrow, Newhey, Ogden, Rakewood, Smithy Bridge, Tunshill and Wildhouse.

In 1851, an old half-timbered house in the hamlet of Butterworth Hall was destroyed by fire, revealing an iron cross on its gable, indicating that it was owned by the order until the dissolution of the monasteries in 1536–1539 by Henry VIII.

A charter of about 1280 transferred rents amounting to twopence in silver and four barbed arrows of iron for lands in Butterworth to the Abbot of Stanlow Abbey.

[10] A courthouse for hearings of petty sessions before justices of the peace was built in 1656 on Dale Street, Milnrow.

[15] A Parliamentary Inquisition of 1650 concluded that "Butterworth was fit to be made a parish" on account of its population and the income of its chapel.

[16] By the 19th century Milnrow had become the dominant settlement in the township and was created a separate parish by the Rochdale Vicarage Act 1866.