Great Marsden, Lancashire Genealogy

England Lancashire  Lancashire Parishes

Chapelry History
Great Marsden was created a district chapel in 1845 from, and lying within the boundaries of Whalley, Lancashire civil Parish, and the township chapelry of Colne, Lancashire.

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.

The parish history can be summarised:


 * 1845 Mission church founded
 * 1848 Church built in Barkerhouse Road
 * 1896 Church restored
 * 1996 Demolished, services held in the former school - Church Centre next to the site
 * 1999 Church Centre unsafe, services held at St.Philip's whilst new church to be built on the site of the previous one
 * 2000 May, New church building consecrated, the Parish now combined with that of St.Philip on Leeds Road

"MARSDEN, GREAT, a township, in the parochial chapelry of Colne, parish of Whalley, union of Burnley, Higher division of the hundred of Blackburn, N. division of Lancashire, 3½ miles ( N. E. by N.) from Burnley; containing 1987 inhabitants. This place was anciently called Merclesden, and Merlesden. In the 35th of Henry III., Edmund de Lacy obtained a charter for free warren in "Great and Little Merlesden;" and in the 4th of Edward II., a fishery existed here, by grant from Henry de Lacy. Richard Merclesden was master forester of Blackburnshire to Isabella, dowager queen, in the reign of Edward III.; and in the same reign, Henry, Duke of Lancaster, granted a tract of land in Merclesden to Richard de Walton. The township is within the manor of Ightenhill Park, and is a pleasant and flourishing locality, containing some good mausions, among which are Marsden Hall and Catlow, the latter a modernised seat. At Cattover is an extensive quarry of fine grit, producing 150 tons per diem of flag and other stone; it is leased from the lord of the manor to Messrs. Thomas and Benjamin Chaffer, by whom the produce is sent by canal, chiefly to Manchester and Liverpool. A church district was endowed in 1845 by the Ecclesiastical Commissioners: the living is a perpetual curacy, with a net income of £150, and in the patronage of the Crown and the Bishop of Manchester, alternately. The church is dedicated to St. John. The Wesleyans have a place of worship."

From: A Topographical Dictionary of England by Samuel Lewis (1848), pp. 260-263. URL: http://www.british-history.ac.uk/report.aspx?compid=51135 Date accessed: 20 July 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
http://www.1881pubs.com/ for details of public houses in the 1881 census

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

Web sites
Add any relevant sites that aren’t mentioned above.