THE leafy borough of Macclesfield has emerged at last from the shadow of neighbouring Manchester and Chester — to be named the least cultured place in Britain.

Set in some of the country’s most beautiful landscape, the area is home to scores of Premiership footballers, doctors, lawyers, businessmen and Noddy Holder from the 1970s pop band Slade.

There is a silk museum and the Lovell Telescope, but no professional theatre for a population of more than 150,000. Cinema is restricted to a council building in Knutsford and the “Reels on Wheels” village outreach programme.

According to State of the Nation 2005 by the Local Futures Group, a geography think-tank, Macclesfield is roughly 400 times less cultured than first-placed Westminster. The ratings were based on the density of cultural amenities in each borough. Macclesfield, which is 85 per cent rural, scored about 4 per cent of the national average.

The council dismissed the findings as “spurious”. Wesley Fitzgerald, who took over as leader of the Conservative council in September, said: “It was an amazing shock. I can think of other places where I have lived or worked which are cultural deserts in comparison. This is a little bit of Surrey that seems to have got up to the North West.”

He pointed proudly to the council’s What’s On guide. Spread over three pages of A4 are poetry recitals, morris dancing, brass band concerts, amateur dramatics and “trad jazz at the Dog and Partridge”.

The one-hit wonder Chesney Hawkes is billed to appear at a “Roaring 20s themed evening”. A string quartet called Status Cymbal offers music by Mozart, Dvorak and “best-loved film and TV themes”. A lecture on The Delights I Experience Out of Doors sounds intriguing and anyone keen on the hedge-laying class is advised that booking is essential.

Nova Pointon, 33, runs the borough’s information centres. “We get 100,000 visitors a year,” she said. “A lot come from Australia or America to trace their ancestry or visit family. The Germans and the Japanese want to see where Ian Curtis was cremated.” The lead singer of the cult band Joy Division hanged himself in his home town in 1980.

The Macc Lads, who also hail from Macclesfield, regaled their fans with songs extolling the virtues of drinking real ale and meeting women. The trio gained a cult following with their punk-influenced music although their controversial lyrics and bad language saw them shunned by record companies and live venues across the country.

Macclesfield was once used to adversity. It was flattened by the Normans: the Domesday Book describes it as “a waste”. Bonnie Prince Charlie sacked the town again in 1745. Prosperity arrived with the silk trade in the 18th century. By the 1820s there were 10,000 people working in the industry. Today, the big employers are multinational companies such as the pharmaceutical giant AstraZeneca, which has 7,500 staff at its Silk Road business park site.

Macclesfield is now one of the 38 most “well-off” boroughs in Britain. The town boasts cobbled streets, imposing Victorian architecture and slightly too many estate agents.

Surrounding hills are dotted with oak trees and neat stone cottages. Ferraris and 4x4s patrol the roads. Wayne Rooney is building a £3½ million mansion in the village of Prestbury, close to Sir Alex Ferguson, his Manchester United manager.

House prices in Wilmslow and Alderley Edge are among the highest in the country. “It’s a working-class area that pretends to be middle class,” Sharon Hibert, 28, said. “It’s very insular, very gossipy and there’s a lot of snobbery.” She and her husband, Sib, ran the George Hotel and The Underground club before the premises were turned into luxury flats. They live in Manchester, but return to Macclesfield “reluctantly, once a month ”.

John Howarth, a retired builder, who lives in the village of Bollington, said: “It’s gone upmarket, but lost a lot of atmosphere. I’m 60, but when I were courting my wife Delia there were five cinemas in Macc.” The Majestic, the last to close, is now a chain pub.

Not everybody feels so dissatisfied. Mike Hunter, 51, a taxi driver from the Midlands, said: “The countryside is beautiful and the people are very warm. They are cultured, there’s just nothing for them to do.”

Perhaps after a careful reading of the Local Futures survey, the people of Macclesfield might prefer things to stay that way. It concludes that “for the best of all worlds one would choose to live in . . . Basingstoke”.

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