With the development of packhorse routes to emerging woollen markets in Yorkshire, the inhabitants of Milnrow adopted the domestic system, supplementing their income by fellmongering and producing flannel in their weavers' cottages.

[5] John Collier (who wrote under the pseudonym of Tim Bobbin) is acclaimed as an 18th-century caricaturist and satirical poet who produced Lancashire-dialect works during his time as Milnrow's schoolmaster.

[note 1][9][10] Excavations at Piethorne Reservoir in the mid-19th century combined with surveys during the 1990s revealed a spear-head (with a 5-inch (130 mm) blade) and ceramics respectively dated to Bronze Age Britain.

[11][12] During the British Iron Age, this part of Britain was occupied by the Brigantes, but, despite ancient kilns used for dry ironstone smelting found at Tunshill,[14] it is unlikely that the tribe was attracted to the natural resources and landscape of the Milnrow area on a lasting basis.

In 1253, King Henry III granted rights to the Knights Hospitaller to conduct the trials of suspected thieves, regulate the production and sale of food using the Assize of Bread and Ale, and erect a gallows for public executions.

[10][35][36][37] A document dated 20 March 1496 from the reign of Henry VII, proclaims that open land by the River Beal at Milnrow would be the site of the new chapel, distinguishing it as a chapelry,[37] and prompting its development as the principal settlement.

[44][34] This was supported by the development of medieval trans-Pennine packhorse tracks, such as Rapes Highway routed from Milnrow to Marsden,[45][46] allowing access to woollen markets in Yorkshire and enabling commercial prosperity and expansion.

[55] During surveys and excavations by Oxford Archaeology in the Kingsway Business Park, ten yeoman houses were identified dating to the seventeenth and early part of the eighteenth centuries.

[59] The Industrial Revolution introduced the factory system which was adopted by the local inhabitants; the River Beal was the main power source for new woollen weaving mills and technologies.

[34] Nationally, the factory system and the Corn Laws combined to reduce wages and increase food prices in the early-1840s, leading to protests and disorder at Milnrow in August 1842; the Riot Act was read and the 11th Hussars were deployed to restore order and protect burgeoning mills and their owners from harm.

[4] In 1885, municipal buildings were developed for the Milnrow Local Board, while an act of parliament empowered the Oldham Corporation to make further purchases in the Piethorne Valley so as to create additional reservoirs.

[34] An outbreak of smallpox occurred in 1914; an investigation by the Royal Society of Medicine to link the infection with imported cotton bales from Brazil, Mexico, Peru or the United States was inconclusive.

[39] In 1934, Milnrow Council agreed that its publicly displayed World War I tank had become "an eyesore" and "a potential source of danger to children", and consequently sold and removed it for scrap.

[82] Cliffe House at Newhey, formerly occupied by the prominent Heap manufacturing family, was demolished and in 1952 its grounds were opened as the recreational and publicly owned Milnrow Memorial Park.

[85] Milnrow experienced population growth and suburbanisation in the second half of the 20th century, spurred by the construction of the M62 motorway through the area, making Greater Manchester and West Yorkshire commutable.

[92][93] Lying within the historic county boundaries of Lancashire since the early 12th century, Milnrow was a component area of Butterworth, an ancient rural township within the parish of Rochdale and hundred of Salford.

[37] The Knights Hospitaller held powers in Butterworth- by way of a grant from King Henry III of England in the 13th century, they were able to hold legal trials of suspected thieves, exercise the Assize of Bread and Ale, and perform public hangings.

[3] Milnrow's ratepayers rejected a proposal to create a local board of health—a tax-funded regulatory body responsible for standards of hygiene and sanitation—on 14 June 1869,[97] but a vote held on 17 December 1869 ended 546 to 466 in favour.

[65] Farmland typically consists of undulating pastures used for stock rearing and rough grazing,[109][111] interspersed by isolated farmhouses and the Kitcliffe, Ogden and Tunshill hamlets.

[2] Data from 2001 shows that of the residents in the electoral ward of Milnrow, which includes Newhey and the Piethorne Valley, 40.8% were married, 10.3% were cohabiting couples, and 9.5% were lone parent families.

[123] The place of birth of the town's residents recorded in the 2001 census was 97% United Kingdom (including 95.04% from England), 0.6% Republic of Ireland, 0.5% from other European Union countries, and 2.6% from elsewhere in the world.

[34] Prior to deindustrialisation in the late-20th century, Milnrow's economy was linked closely with a spinning and weaving tradition which had origins with domestic workshops but evolved in parallel with developments in textile manufacture during the Industrial Revolution.

Belfield Hall, at Milnrow's western boundary with Rochdale, was occupied by a variety of dignitaries, including two High Sheriffs of Lancashire — Alexander Butterworth and Richard Townley.

When that ruling family moved from Milnrow to another of their homes following the Wars of the Roses, the local population was left without a place of worship and a chapel was constructed by the River Beal in 1496 to serve this community.

[176] The official opening of the motorway on 13 October 1971 was by Queen Elizabeth II, who was welcomed by Ralph Assheton, 1st Baron Clitheroe in his role as Lord Lieutenant of Lancashire, as well as the chairman of Milnrow Urban District Council and his wife.

It was part of the broader Rochdale Corporation Tramways network, with a single route which started initially from Firgrove in the west, and joining Newhey in the south when the line was completed in 1912.

[4] It is one of the towns of northern England that observed the custom of Rushbearing, an annual Anglican religious festival where rushes are brought by rushcart to by strewn in the parish church to refresh the flooring.

Milnrow was identified as a suitable source of drinking water on an industrial scale in the Victorian era, when the Oldham Corporation obtained rights to dam the Piethorne Brook.

[208] Initially overlooked for a site in Saddleworth,[209] in the late-1950s, Windy Hill transmitter station became part of Britain's "backbone network", a series of telecommunications towers in the United Kingdom designed to maintain communications in the event of a Cold War-era nuclear attack.

[226][227] Stuart Bithell, who won a Silver Medal in the Men's 470 class at the 2012 Summer Olympics, was raised in Newhey,[228] and Martin Stapleton, a mixed martial artist who was the 2015 BAMMA World Lightweight Champion resided in Milnrow as of 2019.