The name of Weyley or Weylegh appears in many 13th-century documents and is derived from the
Anglo Saxon weg leah meaning a clearing by the road.
[8] In 1351 the lands of Weyley and Yeardsley were granted to William Joddrell for his faithful service to
Edward, the Black Prince. In the 14th century, it housed the residence of
William Jauderell and his descendants, their name also spelt Jodrell, who gave their name to the modern
Jodrell Bank Observatory in Cheshire. The Jodrells continued to call their lands Yeardsley Whaley for centuries and when the first local government board was formed in 1863 and the area became an
urban district, the town adopted its popular name of Whaley Bridge and the town has been called so ever since. Parish records from the 1820s refer to Horridge rather than Horwich.
[9]
