Longridge, Lancashire Genealogy

England Lancashire  Lancashire Parishes



Chapelry History
Longridge was created a chapel of ease in 1727 from, and lying within the boundaries ofRibchester, Lancashire Ancient Parish. See also List of Chapelries in the Parish of Ribchester. Other places in the parish include: Dilworth and Alston.

Longridge is a small town and civil parish in the borough of Ribble Valley in Lancashire, England. It is situated 8 miles (13 km) north-east of the city of Preston, at the western end of Longridge Fell, a long ridge above the River Ribble. Its nearest neighbours are Grimsargh and the Roman town of Ribchester (Bremetennacum), 3.5 miles (6 km) to the southeast.

The Battle of Preston started from Longridge, Cromwell halting there before taking on Monarchist forces from Scotland.[citation needed]

Longridge initially developed outwards from an area around St. Lawrence's Church, at the boundary of the townships of Dilworth and Alston and to the south of the modern-day town centre. Though there was a thoroughfare called 'Market Place', there was no development around that area. Most of the development of the town occurred after 1800.] After this time, development occurred at a much faster pace, with expansion northwards including a mill to the north of Kestor Lane.

The demand for stone from Longridge's quarries led to the opening of the Preston and Longridge Railway in 1840 to carry the stone away, for use in such places as Lancaster Town Hall and Liverpool Docks. The arrival of the railway led to the opening of several cotton mills and the town grew considerably larger from the mid-19th century. The mills and quarries have now all closed, although stone quarried in the town was used to construct the M55 motorway in the 1970s. One of the quarries was used as Longridge motor-racing circuit between 1973 and 1978. Longridge railway station closed to passengers in 1930, and the railway was dismantled in 1967.

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.

Here is a mid-19th century historical and jurisdictional perspective by the topographer Samuel A. Lewis:

"LONGRIDGE, a parochial chapelry, in the parish of Ribchester, union of Preston, Lower division of the hundred of Blackburn, N. division of the county of Lancaster, 7 miles northeast of Preston. The chapelry comprises Alston and Dilworth townships. The church, dedicated to St. Lawrence, was erected in 1716. There was a Roman Catholic chapel as well as an hospital for a master and brethren, dedicated to the Virgin Mary and Our Saviour.—See Alston and Dilworth."

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 

Longridge chapelry's registers of christenings, marriages and burials, along with those of the ancient parish of Ribchester 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 Longridge and comprising the whole ancient parish of Ribchester to which it was attached, be certain to see "Church Records" on the RIBCHESTER ST WILFRID PARISH page.

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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