There are more than a dozen aerial images of Marple in Marple Local History Society Archives that were taken between 1955 and the early 1960s. These are shared on the Marple Website's Virtual History Tour in the album Marple from the Air, which was migrated to the 3rd Generation Virtual Tour site in July 2025.
Special images of Marple from the air in 1929
The four fascinating images below from the Aerofilms Collection on the Historic England web site were taken in October 1929. They are certainly a bit special and, thanks to Historic England providing the means to embed them in other web sites, although they can't be added to the Virtual Tour directly, they can be shared here using Smartframe.
The right hand menu is excluded to make more space for the images to be displayed but the best way to view them closely is on a large screen and to expand them to full-screen.
There is lots to see in each of these images. Whatever device you're using, you should be able to zoom-in and view some fantastic detail!
Some of the highlights are noted below but it's not possible to list everything, so take a good look.
Highlights to look out for:
- Old Coop building, Trinity Chapel and the Bull's Head Cottages on Market Street.
- The rarely photographed Park Lodge and garden at the Stockport Road entrance to the park.
- Hollins Mill and Chimney, obviously.
- The War Memorial, the Bowling Green and four Tennis Courts plus club building (where the skatepark is now).
- Amazingly, in the first image you can also clearly see the WWI tank that is sited where the round flowerbed is today.
- Beyond the park and canal, St Martin's Road is bare and there are virtually no houses on Arkwright Road.
Hollins Cotton Mill and the Memorial Park
Church Street and Environs
Market Street, Hollins Mill and Environs
Hollins Cotton Mill and Memorial Park
Thank you to Historic England for making these images available to embed.
