Coal was mined in Poynton from the 16th century and the collieries, under the ownership of the Lords Vernon from 1832 until their closure in 1935, were the largest in Cheshire.

The first mention of the manor of Poynton occurred in the 13th century when it was held under the Earl of Chester by the Poutrells family and then by the de Stockeports, lords of Stockport.

[5][6] This family held the manor until 1801, when Sir George Warren, the last surviving male, died.

[8] Coal was found outcropping to the east of Towers Road, which corresponds to the line of the Red Rock Fault at the surface.

The earliest record to be found is a lease dated 28 February 1589, which talks of the "Coal pit at Wourthe lately occupied by George Finche".

In the late 18th century, the Warrens of Poynton co-operated with the Leghs of Lyme to work the Cannel and Sheepwash seams at Norbury Hollow.

[10] The Poynton Collieries were substantial, and the coal rights were held by the Warren family who leased them the Wrights and the Claytons.

With the Lancashire Cotton Famine in 1861, and the subsequent recession, the price of coal collapsed, and the output dropped 112,840 tons, leading to worker redundancies.

The 1926 General strike lasted for 17 weeks in Poynton and the men went back to work as the collieries would have closed because of the cost of pumping.

From the 1870s, private house-building gathered pace and gradually Poynton became a commuter town for workers in the Manchester conurbation.

The west of the parish is predominantly residential, buffered from Hazel Grove and Bramhall by the North Cheshire Green Belt.

Its 200-metre (660 ft) downthrow to the west brings the Permo–Triassic sandstones and mudstones of the Cheshire Plain up against the Millstone Grit and shales of the Peak District.

To the immediate east of the fault are the coal measures of the Carboniferous period which, unlike those in the Lancashire Coalfield, are missing the top layers.

Woodford Aerodrome was to the west and was owned by BAE Systems and had a Met Office weather station.

Woodford's weather station recorded a temperature of −17.6 °C (0.3 °F) on 8 January 2010, during the Winter of 2009–10 in Great Britain and Ireland.

Lord Vernon opened the first school in 1838 which was extended as the number of children attending it grew, and this building is now used as the Poynton Youth and Community Centre.

It has sung in Helsinki, Tallinn, Kraków, Budapest and Érd; more locally the choir's annual Singing Day regularly attracts over 200 singers to learn and perform choral music.

[32] Other landmarks include St George's Church,[33] with the town's war memorial in its churchyard,[34] Park Colliery and Anson Pit.

[35] The route was chosen so it could pass close to the Poynton Colleries to transport coal to Macclesfield for the steam engines and c5,000 houses.

It shortened the canal journey from Manchester to London by 25 miles (40 km) and allowed easy carriage of coal to the cotton mills at Dukinfield.

[15] Poynton railway station is served by northbound trains to Stockport and Manchester Piccadilly, and southbound to Macclesfield and Stoke-on-Trent.

This line was closed in January 1970 and was later converted into a shared-use path called the Middlewood Way, which was opened in 1985 by David Bellamy.

This was the favoured London to Manchester route in the Late Middle Ages, as it avoided the wetter land of the Cheshire Plain.

In 1760, Sir George Warren, the Leghs of Adlington and James Pickford promoted a new turnpike through Poynton with Worth from Hazel Grove to Sandon in Staffordshire on the A51 road; this provided a link to Macclesfield.

The 391/392 bus services, operated by Belle Vue Coaches, run between Stockport and Macclesfield every two hours in each direction on Mondays to Saturdays.

[40] Local news and television programmes are provided by BBC North West and ITV Granada.