Handforth is a town and civil parish in Cheshire, England, 9 miles (14 km) south of Manchester city centre.

In the 1960s and 1970s, two overspill housing estates, Spath Lane in Handforth,[4] and Colshaw Farm nearby in Wilmslow, were built to re-house people from inner city Manchester.

sta[tion]., Cheadle par[ish]., E. Cheshire, 5 miles SW. of Stockport, 1311 ac[res]., pop[ulation].

[7] During the Crusades, Handforth acquired its own coat of arms, which include the 'Honford Star', emblem of Henry de Honeford, a member of the local nobility.

Sir Urian Brereton, the escheator of Cheshire and one of the privy grooms to King Henry VIII, died at Handforth Hall on 19 March 1577, and is thought to be buried in one of the chapels of St Mary's Church, Cheadle.

The site, converted from a disused print works built in 1910 and requisitioned by the War Office in 1914, was designed to hold no more than 3,000 men, and was opened on 6 November 1914 with the arrival of 500 prisoners.

The Manchester Evening News reported on 17 March 1915: "Great excitement prevailed at Handforth and Wilmslow today when it became generally known that about 600 German prisoners taken during heavy fighting in the North of France were expected to arrive for internment at the concentration camp.

The depot's stores spanned every single item required by the RAF in wartime, from utensils and everyday tools to aircraft engines.

The depot also featured its own shunting locomotives, which were stored in an engine shed that stood at the Wilmslow bound exit slip road for the Handforth Dean shopping centre.

The eastern half of Cheshire, in which Handforth is located, is Upper Triassic Mercia Mudstone laid down with large salt deposits, which were mined for hundreds of years around Northwich.

A 55-kilometre (34 mi) footpath,[21] the Sandstone Trail, follows this ridge from Frodsham to Whitchurch, passing Delamere Forest, Beeston Castle and earlier Iron Age forts.

As part of those reforms, the area had been considered for possible inclusion within Greater Manchester, but it was ultimately decided to place it in the borough of Macclesfield.

[35] Handforth Parish Council gained attention in February 2021, after a heated Zoom meeting of its Planning and Environment Committee went viral.

[38][39] After gaining online traction on the evening of 4 February, attendee Jackie Weaver's name was the highest trending topic on Twitter in the United Kingdom that night and the following day.

Regular services are operated by Northern Trains between Manchester Piccadilly and Crewe, via Levenshulme, Stockport, Cheadle Hulme and Wilmslow.

[66] Handforth Dean is a retail park that houses shops such as Tesco, Marks & Spencer, JD Sports and Boots (company) , and is situated by the A34 bypass.

[75] Military and political Science Meriton Road Park, opened in 1935, covers an area of 3.4 hectares (8.4 acres)[76] and is situated to the rear of the Paddock Shopping Centre.

Stanley Hall Park is situated between the Spath Lane Estate and the railway line from Handforth to Cheadle Hulme.