Macclesfield Express

It was founded in 1811 as the Macclesfield Courier, and Stockport Express, or, Cheshire General Advertiser. In 1828 it was renamed the Macclesfield Courier and Herald, Congleton Gazette, Stockport Express, and Cheshire General Advertiser and, almost unbelievably, kept that immense title right up to 1952, when it amalgamated with the Macclesfield Times. Towards the end of the 1950s it became part of a general County Express series of newspapers for southern Manchester and north-eastern Cheshire; it re-emerged as the Macclesfield Express and Times and Courier in 1965 and continued under that title for nearly two decades. From 1981 it became the Macclesfield Express Advertiser and Times and Courier, before adopting its present title in 1997.

It’s published by Greater Manchester Weekly Newspapers Ltd, a division of MEN Media, which in turn has been part of Trinity Mirror since they acquired it from the Guardian Media Group in March 2010. The newsroom moved to Manchester in May 2009 along with all MEN Media’s other newspapers’ newsrooms, and then to Chadderton on the outskirts of Oldham in September 2010. There’s still an office in Macclesfield (in the Market Place), staffed by a reporter between 1000 and 1600 from Monday to Friday.

It had a celebratory facelift in July 2011 to mark its bicentenary. Its two companion weekly freesheet tabloids, the Macclesfield Times and the Poynton Times, closed the following month as part of a shake-up in MEN Media. A further reorganisation in January 2013 saw many of MEN Media’s titles lose their separate web identity in favour of coverage through the Manchester Evening News‘s site; the Express, however, kept its own distinct site.

It comes out on Wednesdays.