In 1851 Leek was described as the largest market town in the hundred of Totmonslow, and one of the handsomest in the county. It has long been extensively engaged in the silk manufacture. It covers the summit and declivities of a pleasant eminence, above the River Churnet, and nearly in the centre of a spacious valley, the acclivities of which rise rapidly on every side to the distance of six or seven miles, and form one of nature's proudest and most stupendous amphitheatres, the foreground of which consists chiefly of fertile pastures, while the more distant hills, are crowned on the north east side by a long range of lofty perpendicular rocks and crags, called the Leek Roaches. Leek has a station on the Churnet Valley Branch of the North Staffordshire Railway, and is the head of a large parish and union, a polling and County Court district, a rural deanery, and a petty sessional division. It is distant ten miles NE by E of Burslem, ten miles SW of Longnor and ten miles N of Cheadle.