Lees is a town in the Metropolitan Borough of Oldham, Greater Manchester, England, amongst the Pennines east of the River Medlock, 1.8 miles east of Oldham, and 8.2 miles northeast of Manchester. In the 14th century, when John de Leghes was a retainer of the local Lord of the Manor, Lees was a conglomeration of hamlets, ecclesiastically linke…Lees is a town in the Metropolitan Borough of Oldham, Greater Manchester, England, amongst the Pennines east of the River Medlock, 1.8 miles east of Oldham, and 8.2 miles northeast of Manchester. In the 14th century, when John de Leghes was a retainer of the local Lord of the Manor, Lees was a conglomeration of hamlets, ecclesiastically linked with the township of Ashton-under-Lyne. Farming was the main industry of this rural area, with locals supplementing their incomes by hand-loom weaving in the domestic system. At the beginning of the 19th century, Lees had obtained a reputation for its mineral springs; ambitions to develop a spa town were thwarted by an unplanned process of urbanisation caused by the rise of textile manufacture during the Industrial Revolution.
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