Eccles, Greater Manchester along the route of the track linking those two cities. Eccles cakes, first produced and sold in the town in 1796, are now exported across the world. The derivation of the name is uncertain, but several ideas have been proposed. One is that the "Eccles" place-name is derived from the Romano-British "Ecles" or "Eglys", itself derived from the Ancient Greek "Ecclesia". Following the arrival in AD 613 of the invading Anglo-Saxons at Lancashire, many existing British place-names, especially rivers and hills (the River Irwell for example), survived intact. The root "Ecles", found in several village names, is an exception to
Eccles, Greater Manchester Eccles, Greater Manchester Eccles (; pop. 38,756 (2011)) is a town in Greater Manchester, England, west of Salford and west of Manchester city centre, between the M602 motorway to the north and the Manchester Ship Canal to the south. Historically part of Lancashire, Eccles grew up around the 13th-century Parish Church of St Mary. Evidence of pre-historic human settlement has been discovered locally, but the area was predominantly agricultural until the Industrial Revolution, when a textile industry was established in the town. The arrival of the Liverpool and Manchester Railway, the world's first passenger railway, led to the town's expansion