The name of Weylegh or Weyley appears in many documents from the early thirteenthcentury. It is of Anglo-Saxon derivation and means a clearing by a road. At that time the area was covered by the Macclesfield Forest, so settlement would have been formed by clearing a space in the forest. By 1284 it was well established as a village as were nearby Hokerlegh and Urdislegh. In 1351 the lands of Wayley and Yeardsley were granted to William Jodrell for faithful service to the Black Prince.The Jodrells continued for centuries to call their lands Yeardsley, Whaley and the first local government board was formed in 1863 however, the township had been known as Whaley Bridge for at least a hundred years before this time and the more popular name was finally adopted.

Pictured here is " The Murder Stone" dedicated to William Wood a Weaver July 16th 1823 who had travelled to Manchester to sell some of his cloth. However on his return to Eyam (on foot) he called at an inn in Disley, from which he was followed and attacked by three men, and murdered. The murder weapon was a large stone which succeeded in smashing his skull into two. When his body was discovered, it was noted by those who found him that there was a large hole in the ground where the skull had landed. The body was buried, but the hole remained,it is said to this day stubbornly refusing to be filled in or to allow anything to grow in it. One of the murderers, Charles Taylor, was arrested in Macclesfield on July 18th when he tried to pass one of the stolen notes. He confessed to the crime and named the other two men as Dale and Platt. Dale was arrested on August 8th,and was executed on 21 April 1824 at Chester City Gaol. Taylor tried to commit suicide and so badly injured himself that he died later. Platt was never caught.

The River Goyt is the historical boundary between Derbyshire and Cheshire. What is now Whaley bridge was divided into smaller townships in both counties. In 1316 it is recorded that on the Cheshire side there were three townships, 'Taxal', 'Yeardsley' and 'Whaley' with the last two being combined into one district of 'Yeardsley-cum-Whaley'. The Derbyshire side consisted of only the one township of 'Fernilee' which included 'Shallcross' and 'Horwich'. This side was in the Parish of Hope (with its church 30 miles away) and was part of the Forest of High Peak. The Cheshire side was part of the Forest of Macclesfield. From 1796 Taxal and Yeardsley were effectively joined in that the Jodrell family was the main landowner in both townships, the administration of these however remained separate.Soon after the local government act of 1894 the situation was that there was a single Urban District of Yeardsley-cum-Whaley which was in Cheshire, Taxal was part of the Rural District of Macclesfield also in Cheshire whilst east of the river was in Chapel-en-le-Frith Rural District and was in Derbyshire.