Lees was originally a collection of hamlets on the Ashton-under-Lyne boundary and the name of the area traces back to a retainer and bodyguard of its 14th century Lord of the Manor called John de Leghes.

The area has long fought to maintain its own identity against the tide of the Industrial Revolution and the influence of King Cotton. It was this creeping industrialisation which perhaps lost Lees the opportunity of becoming a spa town - Lancashire's very own Harrogate.

In the early 19th century it had become fashionable to drink the waters of Lees Spa. So fashionable that it was bottled and sold around the country as the Lees Foundation of Health and so fashionable that in the month of August 1821 60,000 people visited the mineral springs in the district, first discovered in the late 18th century.

As the 19th century progressed - having begun with Lees being identified as one of the hotbeds of political radicalism - the area ceased to be a village and became a thriving township with urban district status being granted in 1894. Lees's industry by now was based on 11 mills with the local economy prospering while cotton was in its ascendancy and then faltering with cotton's decline.