Didsbury Didsbury houses the Didsbury Mosque and Islamic Centre. Didsbury Sports Centre, on Wilmslow Road, is a part of the Manchester Metropolitan University campus. It provides a fitness suite and classes and facilities for badminton and tennis. Didsbury has two rugby union clubs, Toc H R.F.C. and Old Bedians. Toc H, founded in 1924, plays at Simons Fields, on Ford Lane. Its first team plays in the North Lancashire and Cumbria league. The club runs four senior teams and a youth section, and has run a 10-a-side competition every May since 1951, as a charity fund raiser for local hospices. Old
Didsbury was variously referred to as Dydesbyre, Dydesbiri, Didsbury or Dodesbury. A charter granted in about 1260 shows that a corn-grinding mill was operating in Didsbury, along the River Mersey, but the earliest reference to Didsbury is in a document dating from 1235, recording a grant of land for the building of a chapel. The church was named St James Church in 1855. It underwent major refurbishment in 1620 and again in the 19th century, although most of the stonework visible today dates from the 17th century. A parsonage was built next to one of the two public houses that flanked