Chipping, Lancashire Genealogy

England Lancashire  Lancashire Parishes



Parish History
Chipping St Bartholomew is an Ancient Parish in the county of Lancashire. Other places in the parish include: Thornley with Wheatley.

Chipping is named in the Domesday book as Chippenden; the name is derived from the medieval Chepyn meaning market place. Chipping is a prefix used in a number of place names in England, and is probably derived from ceapen, an Old English word meaning 'market', though the meaning may alternatively come from (or via) the Medieval English word chepynge with a more specific meaning of 'long market square'.

The village is known to be at least 1,000 years old and is mentioned in Domesday. It lies on the south-western edge of the ancient Forest of Bowland abutting the civil parish of Bowland-with-Leagram. Leagram Park, the site of one of the medieval deer parks of the Forest, is a short drive from the village. Despite this, Chipping was not a part of the ancient Forest and its manor did not fall within the powerful Lordship of Bowland.

Chipping is a civil parish, and formerly an ancient parish that also included Thornley-with-Wheatley, which became a separate parish in the 19th century. Chipping was in Clitheroe Rural District from 1894 until the reorganisation of local government in 1974,

It is now in Ribble Valley, a non-metropolitan district formed in 1974. The parish of Chipping is combined, with Bowland-with-Leagram and Bowland Forest High, into the ward of Chipping, which elects one councillor to Ribble Valley Borough Council.

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.

CHIPPING (St. Bartholomew), a parish, in the union of Clitheroe, Lower division of the hundred of Blackburn, N. division of the county of Lancaster; containing, with the township of Thornley with Wheatley, 1675 inhabitants, of whom 1168 are in the township of Chipping, 12 miles (N. E. by N.) from Preston. "Chepyn" was one of the three parishes which were separated from that of Whalley, some years before the reign of Edward the Confessor. In Edward III.'s reign, John de Chepin granted the homage and service of thirteen vassals to Richard Knolle; and, with a short interval, in which the property was seized into the hands of the crown for felony, it continued in the Knolle family until the 7th of Henry VIII., when a female heir brought the estate to the knightly family of Sherburne, of Stonyhurst, from whom it passed to the Welds, and recently to the Earl of Derby. The parish is picturesquely situated in the ancient forest of Bowland, and is inclosed by Whitmoor hills and Longridge Fell. It comprises 8763a. 1r. 26p., whereof about 836 acres are arable, 5439 meadow and pasture, 90 wood and plantations, and a great part of the remainder common and waste: the township of Chipping contains 5582a. 2r. 24p. The soil is rather light, in some parts inclining to moor and peat, and the lands are watered by two rivulets called Lunde and Chipping brooks: limestone, in which fossils are found, is obtained in abundance. There are two cotton-mills, of which one, belonging to John Evans, Esq., has been established more than half a century, and is propelled by water and steam power; the other is the property of Simon Bond, Esq., and began working in 1806, water-power only being used. The living is a discharged vicarage, valued in the king's books at £36. 13. 4.; patron, the Bishop of Chester, as appropriator of the rectory, which is valued at £24. 16. 5½. The income of the vicar is £120; it is derived, in part, from lands in Dutton and Whittingham, producing £38, and includes £33. 13. 4. assigned in lieu of tithes. The great tithes of Chipping township have been commuted for £399; and the bishop's glebe consists of 13 acres. The church was built in 1520; it is in the early English style, with a tower, and contains a polygonal font, of ancient date, with a carved inscription: in the churchyard is a stone cross, dated 1705, and surmounted by a dial. There are places of worship for Independents and Presbyterians; also one for Roman Catholics, built in 1827, on a site given by George Weld, Esq., of Leagram Hall. In 1684, John Brabbin left lands in Chipping, now producing £68 per annum, to clothe and educate 24 boys; and an estate now yielding £45 per year, to place them out as apprentices. He also founded an almshouse for six aged females, who each receive 12s. per month, and coal; and there are several minor charities.

From: A Topographical Dictionary of England by Samuel Lewis (1848), pp. 599-603. URL: http://www.british-history.ac.uk/report.aspx?compid=50875 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

Census records
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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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