Bury St Mary, Lancashire Genealogy

England Lancashire  Lancashire Parishes  Bury St Mary

Guide to Bury St Mary, 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 Bury Chapelries and Parish

Parish History
BURY (St. Mary), a borough, parish, and the head of a union, chiefly in the hundred of Salford, S. division, and partly in the Higher division of the hundred of Blackburn, N. division, of the county of Lancaster; comprising the chapelries of Edenfield, Heywood, and Holcombe, the hamlet of Ramsbottom, and the townships of Bury, Coupe with Lenches, Elton, Heap, Musbury, Tottington Higher-End, Tottington LowerEnd, and Walmersley with Shuttleworth 48½ miles (S. E. by S.) from Lancaster, 9 (N. N. W.) from Manchester, and 195½ (N. N. W.) from London. Bury Parish Church of St Mary the Virgin is located at the highest point in the town centre. Although the present building is Victorian there has been a church on the site for over 1,000 years: in medieval times the west door would have looked out across the market place to the castle. The steeple pre-dates the church, having been built in 1842. The church was designed a few years later by J S Crowther on a much grander scale and, with the nave now higher than the base of the spire, the two were cleverly joined by the addition of a narthex. There are places of worship for Independents, Primitive Methodists, Wesleyans, New Connexion of Methodists, Presbyterians, Baptists, and Unitarians; and a Roman Catholic chapel, erected in the year 1840.

The church was the garrison church for the Lancashire Fusiliers and colours of the Regiment hang proudly from their pikes around the walls of the nave. The nave stands 76ft 6ins high, 84ft 6ins long and 30ft wide. The windows on the north wall depict Old Testament figures whilst the south windows are of New Testament figures.

The detailed stonework includes over 150 heads, many said to represent members of the congregation and community. On the west wall are heads depicting the churchwardens, architect and clerk of works, whilst the Earl and Countess of Derby are to be found on the chancel arch. Sharp eyed observers will find a “green man” in the decorative stone on the north wall.

The west wall is inspired by Westminster Abbey, rising in four stages to the great rose window.

The pulpit was given in memory of Revd Roger Kay, who re-founded Bury Grammar School in 1726 (and who is believed to be buried beneath the pulpit).

The font is in memory of Revd Geoffrey Hornby. It was given in 1854 and was brought from the previous church to the baptistery here before being relocated in 2008.

The lectern was given by the staff of the Central School in 1875.

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

Church records
Online Records

Bury 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:

Original Records in Archives

Original parish and chapelry registers are held in the Manchester Archives and Studies centre in Manchester Central Library, St Peter's Square, Manchester, M2 2PD. Also, microfilm copies of these original registers are held at the Family Hsitory Library in Salt Lake City, UT, USA. See the Family History Library online Catalog for further details about their holdings.


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Poor Law Unions
Bury Poor Law Union, Lancashire Haslingden, Lancashire Poor Law Union

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