Place:Castleton, Lancashire, England

Watchers
NameCastleton
Alt namesCastleton (inhabited place)source: from redirect
Blue Pitssource: another name for the township
Castleton (town)source: settlement in township
TypeTownship
Coordinates53.583°N 2.183°W
Located inLancashire, England     ( - 1900)
See alsoSalford Hundred, Lancashire, Englandhundred in which it was located
Rochdale, Lancashire, Englandancient parish in which it was located
Rochdale (metropolitan borough), Greater Manchester, Englandmetropolitan borough in which it has been located since 1974
NOTE: There is another place named Castleton, Derbyshire, England in the High Peak District of that county. Check sources and don't confuse the two.


:the text in this article is based on one in Wikipedia

Castleton has been since 1974 an area of Rochdale Metropolitan Borough in Greater Manchester, England, 1.2 miles (1.9 km) south-southwest of Rochdale town centre and 8 miles (13 km) north-northeast of the city of Manchester.

Before 1974 it was located in Lancashire. Castleton's early history is marked by its status as a township within the ancient parish of Rochdale. Castleton experienced rapid growth during the 19th century as a mill town, facilitated for the most part by the construction of the Rochdale Canal which is routed through the area. Castleton's growth was significant; so much so, that for a time it was almost the same size of nearby Rochdale. It merged with the County Borough of Rochdale in 1900.

Located between junctions 19 and 20 of the M62 motorway, Castleton today is a predominantly residential area, with a total population of 9,715, increasing to 10,159 at the 2011 Census.

Image:Rochdale reduced B.png

History

Back around the time the canal was built, Castleton was known as "Blue Pits Village", because of the blue clay that was found and mined around the area that the railway is now.

The Rochdale Canal was routed through Castleton around the year 1800 and made Castleton one of the larger industrial areas in northwest England. The canal granted jobs for hundreds of local residents, as it enabled the construction of several cotton mills. With the mills came the need for engineering and from 1892, Castleton was the home of Tweedales and Smalley who manufactured looms and textile machinery. Their 14 acres (5.7 ha) Globe Works factory no longer exists, being part of the site of the Woolworth's main distribution depot until the demise of the retail chain in the 21st century.

The Manchester and Leeds Railway Company (later the Lancashire and Yorkshire Railway) arrived in Castleton in 1839, and it was here that the line formerly diverged to Bury, Ramsbottom, Rawtenstall, Bacup and finally rejoined the main line at Rochdale. Castleton's railway area was one of the last mainstays of steam, being a huge resource of freight.

In 1903, Whipp & Bourne Ltd. was founded by Samuel Whipp and Charles Bourne to manufacture electrical switchgear. The company closed its factory in Castleton in 2007.

In 1913, the Dunlop Rubber company began building a vast textile mill complex at Castleton. At its peak the mill employed over 3,000 workers. Most of the mill was demolished in 1979.

Castleton Hall was occupied in the late nineteenth century by the "Joyful News Training Home and Mission", now Cliff College, which moved from Castleton to its current location at Calver in Derbyshire under the direction of the Wesleyan Methodist Church in 1904.

For more information, see the EN Wikipedia article Castleton, Greater Manchester.

Research tips

  • See the Wikipedia articles on parishes and civil parishes for descriptions of this lowest rung of local administration. The original parishes were ecclesiastical (described as ancient parishes), 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.
  • An urban district was a type of municipality in existence between 1894 and 1974. They were formed as a middle layer of administration between the county and the civil parish and were used for urban areas usually with populations of under 30,000. Inspecting the archives of a urban 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.
  • The terms municipal borough and county borough were adopted in 1835 replacing the historic "boroughs". Municipal boroughs generally had populations between 30,000 and 50,000; while county boroughs usually had populations of over 50,000. County boroughs had local governments independent of the county in which they were located, but municipal boroughs worked in tandem with the county administration. Wikipedia explains these terms in much greater detail.
  • 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 Castleton from British History Online (Victoria County Histories), published 1911
This page uses content from the English Wikipedia. The original content was at Castleton, Greater Manchester. The list of authors can be seen in the page history. As with WeRelate, the content of Wikipedia is available under the Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License.