The Edge itself is a wide band of red sandstone that rises gradually out of the Cheshire Plain. It reaches nearly 215 metres above sea level and stands roughly 110 metres above the farmland below, formed by weathering and faulting that left a sharp drop along its northern face. The shape of that drop, curving like a horseshoe, gives The Hough its name. Owned by the National Trust since 1948, when the Pilkington family donated the woodland that had been theirs, the ridge now draws around 300,000 visitors a year. Hundreds of Scots pines planted by Sir James and Sir Edward Stanley between 1745 and 1755 have blocked much of the 360-degree panorama earlier visitors enjoyed, but on a clear day the view still stretches to Manchester, the Derbyshire peaks, and the Blackstone Edge in Yorkshire.

Mining at Alderley Edge is older than almost anywhere else in Britain. Bronze Age workers pounded the rock with stone hammers to extract copper ore, and the Romans came back for the same green-stained seams. Commercial mining ran from the 1690s into the 1920s, leaving a honeycomb of tunnels through the sandstone. The Derbyshire Caving Club now leases the system from the National Trust and reopened Wood Mine in 1969 after decades of casual exploration had ended in too many accidents. In the 1990s the Edge produced another surprise. A walker on Artists Lane found a small gold bar weighing 97 grams, made of 18-carat alloy. Five more turned up after the publicity, none old enough to be declared treasure trove, and none ever explained.

In 1830 the place was still called Chorley. A few cottages, the De Trafford Arms, a smithy, and a toll bar sat along the Manchester road. Then the Manchester and Birmingham Railway arrived in 1842, and everything changed. The company offered Manchester businessmen a remarkable deal: build a house worth more than £50 within a mile of the station, and you would receive a free 20-year season ticket, a small silver oval to wear on your watch chain. The cotton barons accepted in numbers. By 1850, thirty Victorian villas had risen in a jumble of mock Tudor, Italianate, and Arts and Crafts styles. The population leapt from 561 in 1841 to 2,856 by 1902. In 1876 the station was renamed Alderley Edge, and the old name slipped quietly into the past.

Alan Garner grew up here, on Trafford Road, and the local legend never let him go. A farmer leading a milk-white mare to Macclesfield market is stopped on the Edge by an old man in grey who offers to buy the horse. The farmer refuses, the price seeming too low. By evening the horse is unsold, and the same old man appears again. This time the deal is struck. He leads the farmer to a spot near Stormy Point, waves a wand, and iron gates open in the rock to reveal a cavern of sleeping warriors and white horses waiting for England's hour of need. Garner wove the story into The Weirdstone of Brisingamen and The Moon of Gomrath. Some versions name the wizard Merlin and the sleepers Arthur's army, which would make The Edge one of Britain's many quiet doors into the Arthurian otherworld.

Today Alderley Edge sits inside what the property pages call Cheshire's Golden Triangle, along with neighbouring Wilmslow and Prestbury. Designer shops and cafes line London Road; the residents have included Victoria Beckham, the Joy Division founders Bernard Sumner and Peter Hook, the actress Denise Welch, and a long list of Premier League footballers. Self-employment in the ward sits near 30 percent, more than double the English average. A £56 million bypass opened in 2010 to pull the through-traffic out of the village, leaving the main street to the boutiques and the brunch crowd. Whatever else has changed, the woodland above still belongs to the older story, the one Garner remembered, and the one the wizard tells.