Briercliffe, Lancashire Genealogy

England Lancashire  Lancashire Parishes



Chapelry History
Briercliffe St James was created a chapelry in 1843, taken from and lying withing the boundaries of Whalley Parish, and near Blackburn.

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.

"BRIERCLIFFE, with Extwistle, was a township, wiith a chapelry and lying within the parochial chapelry and poor law union of Burnley, both chapelries of which are in the parish of Whalley, Higher division of the hundred of Blackburn, N. division of the county of Lancaster, 2½ miles northeast of Burnley. Briercliffe was a district church, dedicated to St James, and was built in 1840. There were two Baptist chapels built in this place.

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/

Online Records
 Church of England 

Briercliffe chapelry's registers of christenings, marriages and burials, along with those of the ancient parish of Whalley to which it is attached, have been mostly transcribed and are displayed online at the following web sites and ranges of years:

For a full list of all those chapels surrounding Briercliffe and comprising the whole ancient parish of Whalley to which it was attached, be certain to see "Church Records" on the WHALLEY PARISH page.

Poor Law Unions
Burnley 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