Place:Tottington, Lancashire, England

Watchers
NameTottington
Alt namesTottington-Lower-Endsource: Family History Library Catalog, GENUKI
Affetsidesource: settlement in parish
Hawkshaw Lanesource: settlement in parish
Greenmountsource: settlement in parish
Walshawsource: settlement in parish
TypeTownship, Urban district
Coordinates53.617°N 2.333°W
Located inLancashire, England     ( - 1974)
See alsoSalford Hundred, Lancashire, Englandhundred in which it was located
Bury, Lancashire, Englandancient parish in which it was located
Bury Rural, Lancashire, Englandrural district of which it was part 1894-1899
Bury (metropolitan borough), Greater Manchester, Englandmetropolitan borough of which it has been a part since 1974
the text in this section is based on an article in Wikipedia

Tottington is, since 1974, a small township between Bury and Ramsbottom on the edge of the West Pennine Moors. It is within the Metropolitan Borough of Bury, in Greater Manchester, England. Prior to 1974 Tottington was in Lancashire.

Its early history is marked by its status as an important Medieval fee, a type of Royal Manor which encompassed several townships. This Royal Manor of Tottington stretched from Musbury and Cowpe with Lench, etc in the north to the edge of the original built-up part of Bury. During this time, the township of Tottington was an agricultural settlement, with open farmland and hunting grounds for deer and wild boar. The villages of Affetside, Greenmount and Hawkshaw were in the northern part of the township, with Walshaw to the southwest.

The earliest extant record of Tottington is from 1212. Tottington was part of the larger Royal Manor of Tottington, which comprised the northern part of the parish of Bury and was originally part of the De Montbegon Barony (Roger de Montbegon was present at the signing of the Magna Carta). Throughout the Middle Ages the manor was reduced as land was exchanged and bequeathed. The township of Walmersley with Shuttleworth were given to the Lord of Bury; Musbury and Cowpe with Lench in the north were ceded to Blackburn Hundred. The Manor of Tottington eventually formed part of the Honour of Clitheroe, which in turn became part of the eventual Duchy of Lancaster. When the Duke of Lancaster seized the throne to become Henry IV the duchy became royal and the Manor of Tottington with it.

Image:Bury ancient parish 1.png

Tottington Hall is first recorded in 1504, as the residence of the Nuttall family. The Nuttall family's fortunes improved throughout the Tudor (1485-1603) and Stuart periods (1603-1714) and in 1715 Thomas Nuttall built the first school in Tottington. In 1770 the hall and its estates were bought by John Gorton, whose family had made their wealth in the cotton trade. He brought his industrial expertise to Tottington, building Tottington Mill, Kirklees Mill and Leemings Hill Bleach Works; greatly contributing to the prosperity and expansion of the village in the Georgian period (1715-1830/37). During this time the family financed the building of St Anne's Church and vicarage, and refurbished Tottington Hall leaving it much as it stands today. In 1863 the hall and grounds were put up for sale and came under the Roberts family before being bought by the recently formed Tottington Urban District Council in 1918 for £2,750. Ownership was handed over to the newly formed Bury Metropolitan Council in 1974, who used it to house the village library.

In common with other Lancashire settlements in the 19th century, Tottington saw a large industrial presence develop, largely under the influence of John Gorton. An 1891 directory lists nine mills were producing calico, cotton cloth and yarn. In 1884 Hilaire de Chardonnet, a French chemist, came to the area to work on a cellulose-based fabric that became known as 'Chardonnay silk'. It was an attractive cloth, a forerunner of rayon. Chardonnet displayed it in the Paris Exhibition of 1889. However, like celluloid it was very flammable, and following several publicly reported accidents, it was discontinued. The site on Royds Street South reverted to typical Lancashire textile production until 1925, when the Kirklees Rayon Company began producing viscose continuous filament yarn at the mill. This continued until 1955 when viscose production ceased. Courtaulds took over the mill in 1962 and converted it into a dye-house, this work continued until 1980. Tottington Mill printworks was the subject of the 1921 sketch "Mill Yard, Tottington" by LS Lowry.[14]

In 1882 the Bury to Holcombe Brook Line was opened by Bury and Tottington District Railway. In 1888 the line was taken over by the Lancashire and Yorkshire Railway and Tottington railway station remained open until the line closed for passengers in 1952 and goods in 1963. On 16 September 1904 an electric tram service was introduced running along Market Street between Bury and Tottington by Bury Corporation Tramways; in response to this competition the following year the railway introduced new rolling stock and increased the number of 'halts' on the line such as at Sunnywood. Passengers had to climb up onto the carriages as there were no platforms. Following the closure of the line, in 1972 Tottington Urban District Council proposed that the trackbed of the former Holcombe Brook branch should be developed as a 3-mile recreational path; the project was adopted by Bury Metropolitan Council upon its creation and the pathway is now known as the Kirklees Trail.

Governance

By the 18th century what remained of Tottington Manor was divided into Tottington Lower End and Tottington Higher End. Lower End contained the village of Tottington, the hamlets of Woolfold, Bolholt and Walshaw in the south; Affetside and Hawkshaw in the west. The River Irwell forms the eastern boundary. Tottington Higher End consisted of the lands and settlements that now make up most of Rossendale borough.

The old township boundaries were removed by the Local Government Act 1894. Tottington Higher End was divided between Ramsbottom, Rawtenstall and Haslingden. Lower End was split to form Ramsbottom and Tottington Urban District Councils. Since 1974, as part of the provisions of the Local Government Act 1972, the urban district has been part of Bury Metropolitan Borough. One of the last actions of the UDC was the creation of Old Kay's Park, named after John Kay, the park was created as a bulwark against further development encircling the community.

Image:Bury_rev2.png

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 Tottington from British History Online (Victoria County Histories), published 1911
This page uses content from the English Wikipedia. The original content was at Tottington, 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.