[4] The tribes living in the Longdendale valley were pagans until around 627AD when the surrounding districts started converting to Christianity.

[8][9] In 1059 when the Saxons ruled Cheshire, Hollingworth was held by a freeman who owed his rights to his senior lord; Edwin the Earl of Chester.

[5] Paul Howson and William Booth wrote that 'No population is recorded for the area covered by the later forest of Macclesfield or the Lordship of Longdendale ...'.

[13] The wholesale ejectment of the Saxons from manors in Longdendale appears to have specific to those lands under the control of Hugh Lupus, Earl of Chester.

The Domesday Book shows that Hollingworth was held by the Earl of Chester with no local lord in control of the manor.

[14] Heavily wooded and dangerous because of wolves in the forests, Hollingworth and the manors of Mottram, Matley, Tintwistle and Stayley appear to have been wilderness until 1211.

Sometime before 1211, Sir William De Neville (De NovaVilla), took up residence at Bucton Castle in Tintwistle,[15] and was installed as over-lord to manage the local lords in possession of Hollingworth, Wolley, Broadbottom, Hattersley, Wernet, Matley, Stayley, Mottram-in-Longdendale and Tintwistle.

[19] The ancient family of Hollingworth migrated to Devon, London, Lincoln, Maidstone in Kent and Dale Abbey in Derbyshire.

A pedigree for the family shows they descended in a continuous male line from the Lords of Hollingworth to the present day.

[20] Hollingworth was historically a township in the ancient parish of Mottram-in-Longdendale, which formed part of the Macclesfield Hundred of Cheshire.

In 1866, the legal definition of 'parish' was changed to be the areas used for administering the poor laws, and so Hollingworth became a civil parish.

[30] Hollingworth lies in the valley of Longdendale, on the north bank of the River Etherow, which forms the county boundary with Derbyshire.

Hollingworth is classed as part of the built-up area of Hadfield, on the south bank of the Etherow, by the Office for National Statistics.