Place:Astley (Wigan), Lancashire, England

:the text in this article is somewhat condensed from one in Wikipedia Astley is now a village in the Metropolitan Borough of Wigan in Greater Manchester, England. It is crossed by the Bridgewater Canal and the A580 East Lancashire Road. Continuous with Tyldesley, it is equidistant from both Wigan and Manchester, both 8.3 miles (13.4 km) away. The Astley Mosley Common ward had a population of 11,270 at the 2011 UK Census. Until 1974 Astley was located in Lancashire.Throughout the Middle Ages, Astley constituted a township within the ancient parish of Leigh within the West Derby Hundred. In 1894 the civil parishes of Astley, Culcheth, Kenyon and Lowton became part of Leigh Rural District which lasted until it was dissolved in 1933. Astley was then incorporated into the Tyldesley Urban District. The urban district was abolished in 1974 under the Local Government Act 1972, and Astley became part of the Metropolitan Borough of Wigan, a local government district of the metropolitan county of Greater Manchester. The Bridgewater Canal reached Astley in 1795, and the Liverpool and Manchester Railway in 1830. The Industrial Revolution introduced the factory system when the village's cotton mill was built in 1833. Coal mining also became an important industry. Astley Green was the southernmost colliery on the Manchester Coalfield and the last one to be sunk in Astley. Mining subsidence coupled with structural and political changes to the mining industry began the decline in Astley's industrial activities during the mid-20th century; its cotton mill closed in 1955, and the last coal was brought to the surface in 1970. Astley has grown to be part of a commuter belt, supported by its proximity to Manchester city centre and plentiful inter-city transport links. The Astley Green Colliery Museum houses collections of Astley's industrial heritage.

The Manor, Damhouse

Astley was mentioned in documents in 1210, when Hugh of Tyldesley, Lord of the Manors of Tyldesley and Astley, granted land to Cockersand Abbey. In 1212, he was recorded as tenant of Damhouse (later known as "Astley Hall"), the manor house for both Astley and Tyldesley, located just inside the Tyldesley township. After his death, his son Henry inherited the manors. He was succeeded by his son, another Henry, who, when he died in 1301, divided the lands between three of his six sons. It is from this division that the manors of Astley and Tyldesley were separated. Tyldesleys lived at the Astley manor until April 1353 when Richard Radcliff bought it for 100 marks. The Radcliffs remained there until 1561 when William Radcliff died childless and the land passed to his half-sister Anne, who married Gilbert Gerard.

In 1606 Adam Mort bought the manor house and land in Astley. He was a wealthy man who built the first Astley Chapel as a chapel of ease for the parish church in Leigh. The chapel was consecrated in 1631, the year that he died. He also built a grammar school that stood for over 200 years until 1833, when it was demolished and rebuilt. Adam Mort's grandson, another Adam, rebuilt Damhouse in 1650 and his initials are carved in the plaque over the front door. The stone and timber structure was named from the stream which was dammed to supply water to a waterwheel powering a corn mill near the house. It is possible the hall was once surrounded by a moat.

Adam Mort's descendants continued to support the chapel and school and remained at Damhouse until 1734 when it was bought by Thomas Sutton. After Sutton's death in 1752 the house was inherited by Thomas Froggatt of Bakewell who contributed to rebuilding the chapel in 1760. Froggatt's descendants owned Damhouse until 1800 when it was leased to tenants, one of whom was George Ormerod, owner of the Banks Estate in Tyldesley who gave land for its churchyard and church school. In 1839 the house became the property of Captain Adam Durie of Craig Lascar by marriage to Sarah Froggatt. Damhouse was dilapidated when the Duries moved in. Captain Durie gave land to build a school on Church Road. After his death in 1843 his widow, Sarah, married Colonel Malcolm Nugent Ross. The Ross's Arms public house at Higher Green is named in his honour. The Durie's daughter Katharine, who married first, Henry Davenport and second Sir Edward Robert Weatherall, became lady of the manor after her mother's death but the family was in financial difficulties and the house and estate sold in November 1889.

The Leigh Hospital Board bought Damhouse in 1893 for use as a sanatorium dealing with cases of diphtheria, scarlet fever and, in 1947, poliomyelitis. Two bombs fell close to the hospital during the Second World War. It became a general hospital in 1948 dealing with chronically ill and geriatric patients and closed in 1994.

Industrial Revolution

Astley became somewhat industrialised during the early 19th century, but not so much as neighbouring Leigh, Tyldesley and Boothstown. A Cotton mill was built by James and Robert Arrowsmith on Peel Lane at Astley Green, near the Bridgewater Canal in 1833. Until then, agriculture and cottage spinning and weaving had been the main economic activities. Fustians, muslins and, after 1827, silk were woven in the area. Handloom weaving declined after the cotton factory was built. Arrowsmith's factory lasted until 1955, when mining subsidence damaged its foundations and it was demolished, ending Astley's link with the textile industry.

Astley was on the Lancashire Coalfield and had several coal mines within its boundaries. On a map of 1768, a lane leading to Nook and Gin Pit Collieries was called the Coal Road and later North Coal Pit Lane. (Gin Pit's name alludes a method of coal mining, raising coal using a horse gin.) An early colliery at Cross Hillock was abandoned in 1886 because of flooding. Samuel Jackson developed the mines that became Astley and Tyldesley Collieries between Astley and Tyldesley.

Peat works were opened close to Astley railway station by the Astley Peat Moss Litter Company Limited in 1888.

On 7 May 1908 the Pilkington Colliery Company started sinking No 1 Shaft of Astley Green Colliery near the Bridgewater Canal. A colliery railway moved coal from the screens to the Liverpool and Manchester Railway but some coal was transported to power stations at Trafford Park and Stretford using the Bridgewater Canal. Pit-head baths, a canteen and medical centre designed for the Miners' Welfare Committee by architect C. Kemp, were built in 1935–36. The last coal was wound on 3 April 1970.

Early Governance

Historically, Astley formed part of the West Derby Hundred, a judicial division of southwest Lancashire. It was one of six townships or vills that made up the ancient ecclesiastical parish of Leigh. The townships existed before the parish.

Under the terms of the Poor Law Amendment Act 1834, the townships formed the Leigh Poor Law Union established on 26 January 1837, comprising the whole of the ancient parish [of Leigh] and part of that of Winwick. There were workhouses in Pennington, Culcheth, Tyldesley and Lowton, but Leigh Union workhouse at Atherleigh replaced them in the 1850s.

Research tips

• See the Wikipedia articles on parishes and civil parishes for descriptions of this lowest rung of local administration. The original parishes (known as ancient parishes) were ecclesiastical, under the jurisdiction of the local priest. A parish covered a specific geographical area and was sometimes equivalent to that of a manor. Sometimes, in the case of very large rural parishes, there were chapelries where a "chapel of ease" allowed parishioners to worship closer to their homes. In the 19th century the term civil parish was adopted to define parishes with a secular form of local government. In WeRelate both civil and ecclesiastical parishes are included in the type of place called a "parish". Smaller places within parishes, such as chapelries and hamlets, have been redirected into the parish in which they are located. The names of these smaller places are italicized within the text.
• Rural districts were groups of geographically close civil parishes in existence between 1894 and 1974. They were formed as a middle layer of administration between the county and the civil parish. Inspecting the archives of a rural district will not be of much help to the genealogist or family historian, unless there is need to study land records in depth.
• Civil registration or vital statistics and census records will be found within registration districts. To ascertain the registration district to which a parish belongs, see Registration Districts in Lancashire, part of the UK_BMD website.
• Lancashire Online Parish Clerks provide free online information from the various parishes, along with other data of value to family and local historians conducting research in the County of Lancashire.
• FamilySearch Lancashire Research Wiki provides a good overview of the county and also articles on most of the individual parishes (very small or short-lived ones may have been missed).
• Ancestry (international subscription necessary) has a number of county-wide collections of Church of England baptisms, marriages and burials, some from the 1500s, and some providing microfilm copies of the manuscript entries. There are specific collections for Liverpool (including Catholic baptisms and marriages) and for Manchester. Their databases now include electoral registers 1832-1935. Another pay site is FindMyPast.
• A map of Lancashire circa 1888 supplied by A Vision of Britain through Time includes the boundaries between the parishes and shows the hamlets within them.
• A map of Lancashire circa 1954 supplied by A Vision of Britain through Time is a similar map for a later timeframe.
• GENUKI provides a website covering many sources of genealogical information for Lancashire. The organization is gradually updating the website and the volunteer organizers may not have yet picked up all the changes that have come with improving technology.
• The Victoria County History for Lancashire, provided by British History Online, covers the whole of the county in six volumes (the seventh available volume [numbered Vol 2] covers religious institutions). The county is separated into its original hundreds and the volumes were first published between 1907 and 1914. Most parishes within each hundred are covered in detail. Maps within the text can contain historical information not available elsewhere.
• A description of the township of Astley from British History Online (Victoria County Histories), published 1911