Description:The village of MOW COP is situated in an elevated position on the border of North Staffordshire and South Cheshire, about 2 miles north - east of Kidsgrove, with extensive views across the Cheshire Plain. The village takes its name from the nearby rocky hill, which is nearly 1,100 feet high. The rock itself, which is of Yoredale Rock, is the oldest in the neighbourhood. Stone from the area was used in the past for millstones. The hill was used as a triangulation point, firstly by William Yates for his Map of Staffordshire, drawn in 1775, and secondly, by the Ordnance Survey surveyors for the first Ordnance Survey map of the county.
Mow Cop folly was erected in 1754 as an eye-catcher for the Wilbraham family of nearby Rode Hall, and is a well-known landmark. It is an early example in England of an artificial creation of the ruins of a castle. A dispute over the ownership and upkeep of the folly took place in 1850 between the Sneyds, who by then owned the land on the Staffordshire side on which part of the folly stood and the Wilbrahams, who continued to own the land on the Cheshire side. The dispute was settled amicably with both sides agreeing to share the building.
In his Natural History of Staffordshire, published in 1686, Dr Robert Plot noted that at a smith’s shop at ‘Mole Cop’ he had noted an automated anvil, which he described in detail and illustrated in his book. This is his description: “I found an Engine that managed a large Sledg to so great advantage, that it frequently supplyed the defect of a man ordinarily had elswhere for that purpose, the Sledg being set into an Axis of wood from whence goes a rodd of Iron fastened to a Pallet, that reaches out a little beyond the Anvil, which being drawn down by the foot of the Smith, who keeps time to it with his hand-Hammer, is returned again by three springs of holly that clasp the Axis in a contrary way”.
St Thomas’ Church was built in 1841-42 in the Gothic style at a cost of £1665. The ecclesiastical parish was formed soon afterwards in 1844. The Wesleyan Methodist chapel was built in 1852, although there is some dispute about the date. It is now a museum for Methodism and for the Mow Cop area as well as being a private home.
Mow Cop will always be associated with the birth of Primitive Methodism. This came about as a result of the great Methodist open air camp meeting held in 1807 by Hugh Bourne, a carpenter, and William Clowes, a potter. As a result of this meeting and another like it at Norton in the Moors, Bourne and Clowes were expelled by the Methodist Conference, Methodism’s ruling body, who disapproved of the fervour shown at such meetings. Bourne and his followers were undeterred and it was from this beginning at Mow Cop that Primitive Methodism was formed in 1811.