Notables Places in Lancashire, 1839
Besides the towns above described there are many places in this county which have acquired such importance from their population as to demand a brief notice.
Newchurch, in Rossendale (population 9,136), has considerable woollen and cotton manufactories, and quarries of freestone, coal, and slate. It contains a chapelry of the clear yearly value of £231. It has a large chapel capable of containing 1,300 persons, and two or three dissenting meeting-houses. There is an endowed school with 35 scholars, and several national and other day and Sunday schools.
Padiham (pop. 3,529) has also considerable cotton manufactories, an episcopal chapel, two dissenting meeting-houses, one endowed day and Sunday school, and several other schools. The clear value of the curacy is £131 a year, with a glebe-house.
At Old and New Accrington (joint pop. 6,283), Higher and Lower Booths (joint pop. 6,525), Habergham Eaves (pop.5,817), and Oswaldtwistle (pop. 5,897), the cotton manufacture is carried Accrington is a separate chapelry, of the clear yearly value of £158, with a glebe-house.
The above-mentioned places are all in the hundred of Blackburn, and in the parish of Whalley, one of the most extensive parishes in England. It is chiefly in Blackburn hundred, but extends into the West Riding of Yorkshire, and has a detached portion in the county of Chester. It comprehends an area of 108,140 acres, with a population of 97,868. There are in it fifteen or sixteen chapelries with parochial rights. Before the dissolution this parish was under the jurisdiction of the ancient abbey of Whalley. This abbey was built in 1296 for the White or Cistertian Monks of Stanlaw in the Wirral in Cheshire, by Henry Lacy, or Laci, earl of Lincoln. The abbey flourished till the dissolution, when its yearly revenue was £551, 4 shillings and 6 pence gross, or £321, 9 shillings and 1 penny clear. Encouraged by Aske's rebellion, the monks resumed possession of the abbey, for which act the abbot and one of his monks were executed for treason. Of this abbey there are considerable remains, including two stately gateways, a building conjectured to have been the abbot's private oratory or chapel, and other parts less perfect. Some portions of the ruins are very good specimens of decorated and perpendicular English architecture. The parish church of Whalley is large, and mostly of early English character, of which style the chancel is a fine specimen. The east window and the windows of the nave are later insertions in the perpendicular style. There are in the chancel three plain stalls and some good wood screen-work, supposed to have been brought from the abbey. The living of Whalley is a vicarage, in the archdeaconry and diocese of Chester, of the clear yearly value of £137, with a glebe-house : the vicar has the right of presentation to several of the chapelries in the parish.
Leyland township (pop. 3,404), in the parish and hundred of Leyland (17,950 acres, 13,951 inhabitants), has also some cotton manufactories. It had in 1833 an endowed grammar-school, with 20 children, and another endowed school with nearly 60 children.
The chapelries of Heap (pop. 10,429) and Tottington (pop. 9,280), and the township of Walmersley (pop. 3,456), are all in the parish of Bury, and in the neighbourhood of the town of Bury, but not included in the parliamentary borough. The inhabitants are engaged in the cotton manufacture.
Horwick (pop. 3,562) and West Houghton (pop. 4,500) are in the parish of Dean, between Bolton and Wigan.
The townships of Barton (pop. 8,976), Pendleton (pop. 8,435), and Worsley (pop. 7,839), are in Eccles parish, west of Manchester : at Worsley are the extensive collieries formerly belonging to the duke of Bridgewater.
The township of Pelkington (pop. 11,006) is in Oldham parish, but is not included in the parliamentary borough.
Radcliffe (pop. 3,904) is a parish near Bury ; and the townships or chapelries of Blatchingworth and Calderbrook (pop. 4,221), Butterworth (pop. 5,648), and Wuerdale and Wardle (pop. 6,754), are near the town and in the parish of Rochdale, though not included in the parliamentary borough. These places are all, with the exception of Leyland, in the hundred of Salford, which is the principal seat of the cotton manufacture.
In West Derby hundred are the following places :- North Meols (pop. 5,132) is a parish on the coast at the entrance of the estuary of the Ribble. Everton (pop. 4,518) is a township in the parish of Walton on the Hill, near the estuary of the Mersey : it forms a suburb of Liverpool, and is the residence of many genteel families. West Derby (pop. 9,613), is in the same parish, more remote from Liverpool. Eccleston (pop. 3,259), and Sutton (pop. 3,173), are townships in Prescot parish, and participate in the manufactures of that town - flint and crown glass, earthen-ware, and watch-movements. The neighbourhood yields stone and coal. Hindley (pop. 4,715), Pemberton (pop 4,276), and Upholland (pop. 3,040), are all in Wigan parish.
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