[4] Historically a part of Lancashire, it lies on the north bank of the River Tame, on undulating land at the foothills of the Pennines.

[5] The factory system, and textile manufacture during the Industrial Revolution triggered a process of unplanned urbanisation in the area, and by the mid-19th century Ashton had emerged as an important mill town at a convergence of newly constructed canals and railways.

Ashton-under-Lyne's transport network allowed for an economic boom in cotton spinning, weaving, and coal mining, which led to the granting of honorific borough status in 1847.

The engine of growth in the second half of the nineteenth century was the joint stock company, whereby capital could be raised for the construction of new mills.

The earliest factory was a weaving shed erected by Thomas Mellor and Sons in 1857, at Sharp's Shrubberies in Whitelands, they already had a combined mill on Gas Street which could not be expanded.

By 1896 both buildings were being operated by Thomas Mellor and Sons, and before the First World War the mills were physically joined.

The Bank of England set up the Lancashire Cotton Corporation in 1929 to attempt to rationalise and save the industry.