Glossop, a market town and municipal borough, in the High Peak parliamentary division of Derbyshire, England, on the extreme northern border of the county; 13 m. E. by S. of Manchester by the Great Central railway. Pop. (1901) 21,526. It is the chief seat of the cotton manufacture in Derbyshire, and it has also woollen and paper mills, dye and print works, and bleaching greens. The town consists of three main divisions, the Old Town (or Glossop proper), Howard Town (or Glossop Dale) and Mill Town. An older parish church was replaced by that of All Saints in 1830; there is also a very fine Roman Catholic church. In the immediate neighbourhood is Glossop Hall, the seat of Lord Howard, lord of the manor, a picturesque old building with extensive terraced gardens. On a hill near the town is Melandra Castle, the site of a Roman fort guarding Longdendale and the way into the hills of the Peak District. In the neighbourhood also a great railway viaduct spans the Dinting valley with sixteen arches. To the north, in Longdendale, there are five lakes belonging to the water-supply system of Manchester, formed by damming the Etherow, a stream which descends from the high moors north-east of Glossop. The town is governed by a mayor, 6 aldermen and 18 councillors. Area, 3052 acres.
Glossop was granted by Henry I. to William Peverel, on the attainder of whose son it reverted to the crown. In 1157 it was gifted by Henry II. to the abbey of Basingwerk. Henry VIII. bestowed it on the earl of Shrewsbury. It was made a municipal borough in 1866.
