Woodplumpton, Lancashire Genealogy

Guide to Woodplumpton, Lancashire ancestry, family history, and genealogy: chapelry register transcripts, census records, birth records, marriage records, and death records.

Chapel History
PLUMPTON-WOOD (St Anne), a village and a parochial chapelry in St Michael on Wyre parish, Lancashire. The village stands near the Lancaster and Preston canal, 1¼ mile S W of Barton railway station, and 4¼ north by northwest of Preston. The chapelry also contains the hamlets of Catforth, Eaves, Higher Plumpton, and Lower Bartle. The church is ancient, [at least by 1604] and was modernised in 1852. There are a Wesleyan chapel, a Primitive Methodist chapel, a Roman Catholic chapel.

Churchyard
The churchyard lies mostly to the south and west of the church. There are stocks close to the lychgate. These date from the 18th century or earlier, and have been restored. They have two stone shafts with round heads, the right-hand of which is inscribed with the initials "AB". They have received a Grade II designation from English Heritage. There is a sundial south of the church. The dial, which sits on an octagonal stone shaft, is dated 1657. The plate and gnomon are brass. The sundial has also been given a Grade II listing.

Woodplumpton churchyard is said to be the burial place of an alleged witch, a local 17th century woman named Meg Shelton who was known as the "Singleton witch" or the "Fylde Hag". According to legend, she was buried upside down to prevent her from escaping. The spot is marked by a boulder.

The Witch of the Fylde


At the graveyard in Woodplumpton by the Ribble is the grave of a woman, Meg Shelton 'The Witch of the Fylde' whose body was found crushed between a barrel and a wall in the early 18th Century.There are many stories of this mischievous individual, the most bizarre being that she kept rising from the grave! Three times the townsfolk buried her but each time she scratched her way to the surface. Eventually it was decided that she should be buried face down and that a great granite slab be placed over her grave. This seemed to work as she was never seen again, although in the 1920’s a young boy said that he had seen a woman dressed in ‘funny’ clothes wandering in the graveyard. Many of the stories associated with Meg tell of her ability to change her appearance and how she would use this ability to cause mischief and steal from the local farmers. On one occasion a farmer became suspicious when he discovered that he had more sacks of corn piled up than there should have been. He grabbed a pitchfork and began to prod the sacks. Suddenly one of the sacks let out a scream and turned into Meg. On another occasion a farmer looking into one of his fields where he kept his cows saw an old woman with a goose which was feeding on the grass. He thought nothing of it until he noticed that from the goose’s bill was dripping a white liquid. He rushed into the field and kicked the goose at which point it shattered into a thousand pieces spraying milk everywhere. Meg had been stealing milk and had turned her jug into a goose to fool the farmer. Meg screeched with rage and flew off. One day a farmer saw a hare in one of his fields and set his great black dog after it. The hare moved like the wind but the dog was even faster and a desperate race ensued. Gradually the great black dog moved closer and closer but mysteriously the hare headed straight for Meg’s cottage and escaped through the front door but just at the last moment the dog managed to nip one of its hind legs. From that time on it was said that Meg walked with a pronounced limp!

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Civil Registration
Birth, marriages and deaths were kept by the government, from July 1837 to the present day.
 * See England Civil Registration for online resources and information.

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
The Church of England (Anglican) became the official state religion in 1534, with the reigning monarch as its Supreme Governor. Non-Conformist refers to all other religious denominations that are not the official state religion.

Church of England
Chapelry is a church or churches built in a large ecclesiastical parish to help the members attend worship services closer to their homes.

Online Parish Records Table

Due to the increasing access of online records: Hover over the collection's title for more information Other Websites These databases have incomplete parish coverage.
 * Individual parish coverage for databases in this table are inconsistent and should be verified
 * Dates in the following table are approximate
 * Joiner Marriage Index - Lancashire ($)
 * The Genealogist Parish Registers - Lancashire ($)
 * UK Websites for Parish Records - Links to online genealogical records
 * Online Genealogical Index - Links to online genealogical records
 * OnLine Parish Clerks - Lancashire - OnLine Parish Clerks project for Lancashire

Non-Conformist Churches (All other Religions)

 * 1647-1996 at FamilySearch - How to Use this Collection; index (dates may vary by parish)

Poor Law Unions
Preston 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

Websites
Parish website includes history and images of the church