Rochdale sits in the foothills of the Pennines north of Manchester, a mill town whose past is woven into the history of the Industrial Revolution and the labour movement simultaneously. It is best known internationally as the birthplace of the modern cooperative movement — the Rochdale Pioneers opened their store on Toad Lane in 1844, establishing the principles of democratic consumer ownership that spread across the world. The original shop is now a museum.
The Victorian town hall, modelled on the great medieval cloth halls of Flanders and completed in 1871, is one of the finest civic buildings in the north of England — genuinely surprising in a town of Rochdale's size, and worth the visit on its own. Touchstones, the town's combined art gallery and local museum, occupies a handsome building nearby. The hill above town is crowned by St Chad's Church, one of the older parish churches in the region. Rochdale was also the birthplace of Gracie Fields (1898–1979), the entertainer and singer who was one of the most famous British performers of the 1930s and 1940s.