Macclesfield is a former silk town at the foot of the eastern Cheshire hills, its streets rising steeply from the River Bollin toward the moorland above. The prosperity of the silk trade left a substantial built legacy of mills, chapels, and Georgian streets, much of which survives in varying states. It is a town that rewards looking up and looking into corners.

Its haunting accounts are varied and reasonably well-documented. They include the site of a demolished castle, a gallows hill on the edge of town, a Georgian hall, a Victorian pub, and a former garage built over the footprint of an older inn. The range of building types and periods makes Macclesfield one of the more interesting areas in the Cheshire archive.