Ellenbrook St Mary the Virgin, Lancashire Genealogy

England Lancashire  Lancashire Parishes

Guide to Ellenbrook, Lancashire ancestry, family history, and genealogy. Parish registers, transcripts, census records, birth records, marriage records, and death records.

Parish History
ELLENBROOK, (St Mary the Virgin) a chapelry, with a railway station, in Eccles, Lancashire parish, Lancashire; on the Manchester and Wigan railway, 2½ miles E of Tyldesley. It was founded in 1758. Historically within the Diocese of Chester, the modern parish is part of the diocese of Manchester. Ellenbrook is part of the City of Salford.

Though its origins are uncertain, Ellenbrook chapel possibly existed in the early 13th century. It is not known whether a contemporary reference to a chapel at Worsley referred to Ellenbrook chapel, or to another chapel in the hall of the lords of Worsley. It was an outlying chapel within the parish of Eccles, the nearest churches being at Eccles, Lancashire, Leigh, Lancashire and Deane, Lancashire in Bolton. It was probably established through a grant from the Benedictine Abbot of Stanlawe Abbey (on the Mersey estuary) to Richard de Worsley, with the Benedictines staffing the chapel and paying sixpence a year to Eccles church to acknowledge the chapel's subsidiary status. The monks later moved from Stanlow to Whalley Abbey. In 1581, the chapel was endowed by Dorothy Brereton. Dorothy, daughter of Sir Richard Egerton of Ridley, Cheshire had married Richard Brereton of Worsley and Tatton, Lord of the Manor of Worsley, in 1572. Richard died in 1598, and was buried in Eccles Parish Church, and Dorothy married Sir Peter Legh of Lyme Hall, Cheshire in 1604. She was widowed again in 1636.

Dame Dorothy Legh died in 1639, and was buried in Eccles church. She bequeathed £400 to Ellenbrook chapel to buy Common Head Farm at Mosley Common, the income from which established Dame Dorothy Legh's Charity, which continues today. Following a legal dispute in the 1650s, it was determined that the charity would support the minister of Ellenbrook chapel and the local poor.

The first known minister at Ellenbrook was a Mr. Hunt, in around 1608. The chapel was not continously served by a resident minister, and during the 17th century numerous ministers were associated with Ellenbrook, many for only a few months. Of these, the longest-serving was Thomas Johnson whose service of some 30 years ended around 1646. Johnson was a renowned puritan, who left Ellenbrook to become Rector of Stockport until his death in 1656.

Perhaps the most notorious of the 17th century ministers was William Coulburn, who was at Ellenbrook from 1657 to around 1663. In 1663 he was arrested, possibly for trying to steal money through confidence tricks, an act which he perpetrated in various other parts of England in subsequent years. Despite numerous question marks over his character, Coulburn returned to Lancashire as minister at Mottram in Longendale, Cheshire, where he was buried following his death in around 1697.

Find Neighboring Parishes
Use England Jurisdictions 1851 Map
 * Type the name of the parish in the search bar
 * Click on the location pin on the map
 * Choose Options from the pop up box
 * Click "List Contiguous Parishes" to find the neighboring parishes

Civil Registration
Post 1837 events may be search online at Free BMD

Ellenbrook is part of Salford registration district.

Online index of Lancashire Births, Marriages and Deaths Lancashire BMD

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
Salford, Lancashire Poor Law Union

Probate Records
Lancashire Probate Jurisdictions, Parishes E through G

Maps
England Jurisdictions 1851

Websites
http://www.achurchnearyou.com/st-mary-the-virgin-ellenbrook/ for information about the parish