Claughton St Chad, Lancashire Genealogy

England Lancashire  Lancashire Parishes



Parish History
Claughton St Chad is an Ancient Parish in the county of Lancashire. From 1847 it was in the Tunstall deanery of the Diocese of Manchester. It should not be confused with Garstang, Lancashire which includes Claughton village.

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.

St Chad's Church was closed by the Church of England in 2002 due to a decline in the number of worshippers and the fact that the building was in need of modernisation. The church was part of the Hornby with Claughton parish. There was a church on the site as early as 1100.

There is a brick works in the village, and aerial ropeways above the road transport clay from Claughton Moor

CLAUGHTON (St. Chad), a parish, in the hundred of Lonsdale south of the Sands, N. division of the county of Lancaster, 7 miles (N. E. by E.) from Lancaster, on the road to Hornby, containing 118 inhabitants. This place was early erected into an independent parochial jurisdiction under its own lords, probably the Kellets. It would appear from an inquisition, 18th of Edward II., that the manor had passed to Hugh de Carnetbye; and a John de Claughton, and subsequently the Flemings, are mentioned as proprietors here. The Crofts were lords of a third part of the manor in the 15th and 16th centuries, and in the reign of Henry VIII.: Simon Croft appears afterwards to have held the whole manor. In 1712 the Fenwicks became lords of Claughton. The parish comprises a large tract of land, which is beautifully diversified, rising on one side into hills, and on the other spreading into a rich and fertile vale, through which the river Lune pursues its serpentine course. The soil is favourable for grazing; and there are some good quarries of flagstone. Claughton Hall is an interesting specimen of the domestic architecture of the reign of Elizabeth; the north-west front is ornamented by two square towers rising some height above the building, evidently erected for the purpose of enjoying the fine prospects up and down the valley of the Lune. It was in possession of Sir W. Croft in the time of Charles I., of whose cause he was a firm supporter. The living is a discharged rectory, valued in the king's books at £9. 13. 10., and in the patronage of the Heir of the late Thomas Fenwick, Esq.; net income, £145. The original church was built in 1070; the present edifice in 1815. There is a day and Sunday school.

From: A Topographical Dictionary of England by Samuel Lewis (1848), pp. 620-623. URL: http://www.british-history.ac.uk/report.aspx?compid=50880 Date accessed: 29 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
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Census records
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http://www.1881pubs.com/ for details of public houses in the 1881 census

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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