The Cathedral Church of St Mary the Virgin, Lancashire Genealogy

England Lancashire  Lancashire Parishes

Guide to the Cathedral Church of St Mary the Virgin Blackburn, Lancashire family history and genealogy. Parish registers (baptism, christening, marriage, and burial records), civil registration (birth, marriage, and death records), census records, history, wills, cemetery, online transcriptions and indexes, an interactive map and websites.

Here is a Comprehensive List of Chapels in Blackburn St Mary Parish. View this updated list of chapelries (which held baptismal and burial registers and which subdivided this ancient parish) before researching in this large parish.

Parish History
BLACKBURN St Mary, a parish, fourteen miles in length and ten in breadth, was formerly part of Whalley Parish. Blackburn is the head of a union, in the Lower division of the hundred of Blackburn, N. division of the County of Lancaster; comprising the market-town and newly-enfranchised borough of Blackburn, which includes thechapelries of Balderston, Billington-Langho, Brownhill, Over Darwen, Salesbury, Samlesbury, and Tockholes, and the townships of Clayton-leDale, Cuerdale, Lower Darwen, Dinkley, Eccleshill, Great and Little Harwood, Livesey, Mellor, Osbaldeston, Pleasington, Ramsgrave, Rishton, Walton-le-Dale, Wilpshire, and Witton, 31 miles southeast by south from Lancaster.

Researchers may view a Comprehensive List of Chapels in Blackburn St Mary Parish. A chapel also dedicated to St Clement has been erected; and the Vicar likewise presents to the incumbencies of Balderstone, Bamber-Bridge, Billington-Langho, Lower and Over Darwen, Feniscowles, Great Harwood, Mellor, Mellor-Brook, Salesbury, Samlesbury, Tockholes, Walton, and Witton. In the town are places of worship for Baptists, the Society of Friends, Independents, Wesleyans, Primitive Methodists, and Warrenites, also a Scottish kirk and a Roman Catholic chapel; and in the rural parts of the parish are various other meeting-houses for different denominations. The union of Blackburn comprises the entire parish, with the exception of the townships of Cuerdale, Samlesbury, and Walton, which are in the union of Preston; together with four townships of the parish of Whalley.

Blackburn Cathedral
With the creation of the Diocese of Blackburn in 1926 (taken from the Diocese of Manchester) the impressive parish church of St Mary the Virgin was raised to cathedral status. The church, which was built in 1826 and designed by architect John Palmer, now forms the cathedral's nave.

In the early 1930s, fundraising began to enlarge the cathedral so that the building complemented its newfound importance. By 1938, enough money had been raised and work began on enlarging the new cathedral. Although work was interrupted by the war, it was resumed afterwards and continued through the 1950s and into the early 1960s. After the death of architect W.A. Forsyth in 1950, architect Laurence King joined the project and designed the distinctive lantern tower. The lantern tower, which consists of 56 different panes of coloured glass and an aluminium spire, was completed in 1967.

The cathedral was finally completed in 1977 and what had been built over the past decades was finally consecrated as Blackburn Cathedral.

The North transept contains eight misericords dating from the 15th century. It is not known at what time they arrived at the Cathedral, but they are believed to have originated at Whalley Abbey. This could mean that they were removed to a builder's yard after the Dissolution, but with the cathedral not being built until the 19th century, this allows for the possibility that they had lain unused for some 300 years.

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.

Blackburn's Marrying Chapels
Most of Lancashire' chapelries (nearly 90 percent) were not granted permission to marry couples prior to 1837. However, the following chapelries (chapels of ease) were granted sanction to marry couples within the parish boundary of St Mary Blackburn--besides the ancient parish of St Mary's itself:


 * 1) Bamber-Bridge St Saviour's - 1761
 * 2) Great Harwood St Bartholomew - 1547
 * 3) Samlesbury St Leonard the Less - 1634
 * 4) Walton le Dale St Leonard- 1609

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 Records
Blackburn St Mary is an ancient parish with chapelries totalling about 45. The following chart lists those chapelry and parish registers which have thus far been transcribed and posted online in some format. Click the years to view online data for each church for the pertinent years you are trying to search. Original parish registers, Bishop’s transcripts and some transcribed church records exist for this parish, and including additional records such as parish chest records. These are held at the Lancashire Record Office, in Preston, Lancashire or, be sure to view a Comprehensive List of Chapels in Blackburn St Mary Parish (then click the link for each church which takes you directly to the Family History Library online catalog for available microfilms to original registers).

Blackburn St Mary parish registers and those registers of all of its smaller chapelries lying within its boundaries have been mostly transcribed and are displayed online at the following web sites and ranges of years:

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