the town has got a regular kine market for hundreds of years, reflecting its role as a centre of local farming. In the period of the industrial revolution it became a major producer of cloth. Though this industry has declined somewhat, it has continued through a prominent total of article of clothing manufacturers in the town, & the prominence of dyeing & allied trades.

Leek was a personal of James Brindley, the 18th century engineer who built most of the canal network. He built the a river-powered corn mill within 1752. This watermill is now a Brindley Mill museum.

William Morris, founder of the Arts and Crafts movement, lived & worked within Leek between 1875 and 1878.

Nearby Rudyard Lake is the popular tourist attraction & page to a narrow gauge steam railway line its eastern shores. More local attractions come Alton Towers and the hills of the Peak District.