Chatburn, Lancashire Genealogy

England Lancashire  Lancashire Parishes



Chapelry History
Chatburn Christ Church was created a chapelry in 1838 and taken from, and lying within Whalley, Lancashire Ancient Parish. Other places in the parish include: Worston.

Chatburn is a village located in the Ribble Valley, Lancashire. It is situated in a hollow between two ridges north-east of Clitheroe, just off the A59 road. It lies near Pendle Hill, which is to the east of the village. The River Ribble flows to the west of the town. The town is approximately 400 feet above sea level.

The village itself can be dated back to Anglo-Saxon times; it takes its name from one of the most distinguished characters of that time, St Chad. The village sits outside the Forest of Bowland and was never considered part of the ancient Lordship of Bowland.

A feature of the village is the spire of the parish church, which was erected around 1838. The steeple was struck by lightning in 1854, but was rebuilt in the same year.

The Diocese of Blackburn is a Church of England diocese, covering much of Lancashire, created in 1926 from part of the Diocese of Manchester. The Diocese includes the towns of Blackburn, Blackpool, Burnley, and the cities of Lancaster, and Preston, as well as a large part of the Ribble Valley.

"CHATBURN, a district chapelry [as of 1838] and a township, in the parish of Whalley, union of Clitheroe, Higher division of the hundred of Blackburn, N. division of the county of Lancaster, 2¼ miles (N. E. by E.) from Clitheroe; the township containing 500 inhabitants. This township is situated on the river Ribble, at the base of Pendle hill, and on the road from Clitheroe to Skipton. It comprises 923a. 3r. 39p., whereof about 100 acres are arable, 740 meadow and pasture, 20 woodland, 40 acres buildings and roads, and 25 covered by water; the surface is irregular, the soil good, resting upon limestone, and the scenery picturesque, with fine views of the castle of Clitheroe and the vale of the Ribble: two quarries of limestone are in operation. The Chatburn brook issues from the wild fissures of Pendle hill, and increases the Ribble below the village. The line of the Blackburn, Clitheroe, and North-Western railway, passes here. The chapelry includes the township of Worston: the living is a perpetual curacy, with a net income of £160, and is in the patronage of Hulme's Trustees; incumbent, the Rev. Robert Ingram. The tithes have been purchased by the landowners. The chapel, consecrated in 1838, is in the Romanesque style, and is a neat structure with a spire, it was erected at a cost of £1622, of which the Incorporated Society gave £250: of 364 sittings, 189 are free. A national school is supported by subscription. The limestone abounds in fossils."

From: A Topographical Dictionary of England by Samuel Lewis (1848), pp. 554-558. URL: http://www.british-history.ac.uk/report.aspx?compid=50867 Date accessed: 25 June 2010.

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.

Online index of Lancashire Births, Marriages and Deaths Lancashire BMD

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

Church records
Include here information for parish registers, Bishop’s Transcripts and other types of church records, such as parish chest records. Add the contact information for the office holding the original records. Add links to the Family History Library Catalog showing the film numbers in their collection

Parish registers for Christ Church, Chatburn, 1838-1900 Lancashire Record Office reference: PR 3184/1/1-5, 7-8

Bishop's transcripts for Chatburn, 1873-1874 Microfilm of original records at the Lancashire Record Office, Preston. Chatburn is a chapelry in the parish of Whalley.

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

Poor Law Unions
Clitheroe 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
Maps are a visual look at the locations in England. Gazetteers contain brief summaries about a place.


 * England Jurisdictions 1851
 * Vision of Britain

Web sites
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