Church Coniston, Lancashire Genealogy

England Lancashire  Lancashire Parishes



Chapelry History
Church Coniston St Andrew was an Ecclesiastical Parish in the county of Lancashire, created in 1730 from chapelry in Ulverston Ulverston, Lancashire Ancient Parish. See also Comprehensive List of Chapelries in Ulverston Parish.Other places in the parish include: Above Coniston.

Having been within the boundaries of the historic county of Lancashire since 1182, Coniston was part of the administrative county of Lancashire between 1889 and 1974. Today Coniston forms part of Cumbria. The village is situated at the head of Coniston Water, the third longest lake in the Lake District.

Coniston is a popular spot for hill-walking and rock-climbing; there are fine walks to be had on the nearby Furness Fells and Grizedale Forest, and some of the finest rock in the Lake District on the eastern face of Dow Crag, three miles from the village. The Grizedale Stages rally also takes place in Coniston, using the surrounding Grizedale and Broughton Moor (or Postlethwaite Allotment) forests.

The creation of the national park in the 1950s provided a further boost to tourism, with attractions such as the John Ruskin Museum and ferry services across the lake developing. Donald Campbell added to the profile of the village and lake when he broke 4 World Water Speed Records on the lake in the 1950's. He died attempting to break the world water speed record for the eighth time in 1967, when his jet boat ("Bluebird K7") crashed at 290mph, having already set the record for the seventh time at Dumbleyung Lake, Western Australia in 1964. His body and boat (Bluebird K7) were discovered and recovered by divers in 2001 and he was buried in the new graveyard in Coniston in September 2001. The modern parish is within the Diocese of Carlisle.

CONISTONE, CHURCH, a chapelry, in the parish and union of Ulverston, hundred of Lonsdale north of the Sands, N. division of the county of Lancaster, 6 miles (S. W.) from Ambleside; containing 1148 inhabitants. The manor, which was held by the Urswicks, passed by marriage in the reign of Henry III. to the le Flemings, and became the seat of seven descents of the family. About the 10th of Henry IV., Thomas le Fleming married one of the four daughters of Sir John de Lancaster, by whom he acquired the manor of Rydal, in Westmorland; and for seven generations more, Rydal and Conistone vied to fix the family in Westmorland or Lancashire. Sir Daniel Fleming, Bart., died in 1821, leaving his lady his estates. The township is the most northern part of the county, stretching to the shire-stone near the hills of Wrynose and Hard-Knot; within its limits are Yewdale and the reputed lordship of Tilberthwaite. The population of the village has increased from the flourishing state of the copper-mines and slate-quarries here. A fair for cattle is held on the third Saturday in September. The chapel was consecrated in 1586, and re-erected in 1819, when 230 additional sittings were provided: the living is a perpetual curacy, in the patronage of T. R. G. Braddyll, Esq.; net income, £100. To the north-west of the village is the Old Man, the most elevated mountain in the county, 2576 feet above the level of the sea; on its summit are three heaps of stones called the Old Man, his Wife, and Son, supposed relics of the Sabæan superstition.

From: A Topographical Dictionary of England by Samuel Lewis (1848), pp. 679-682. URL: http://www.british-history.ac.uk/report.aspx?compid=50894 Date accessed: 29 June 2010.

See "Manchester St Dennis" for a Comprehensive List of Chapels within the Parish of Manchester".

Civil Registration
Birth, marriages and deaths were kept by the government, from July 1837 to the present day. The civil registration article tells more about these records. There are several Internet sites with name lists or indexes. A popular site is FreeBMD.

Lancashire Online Parish Clerks
An extremely useful resource for research in Lancashire Parishes http://www.lan-opc.org.uk/

Church records
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Census records
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http://www.1881pubs.com/ for details of public houses in the 1881 census

Poor Law Unions
Ulverston Poor Law Union,Lancashire

Probate records
Records of wills, administrations, inventories, indexes, etc. were filed by the court with jurisdiction over this parish. Go to Lancashire Probate Records to find the name of the court having primary jurisdiction. Scroll down in the article to the section Court Jurisdictions by Parish.

Maps and Gazetteers
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 * England Jurisdictions 1851
 * Vision of Britain

Web sites
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