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- source: Family History Library Catalog
- source: Family History Library Catalog
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Knott Lanes was a sub-district of the Ashton under Lyne Poor Law Union and Registration District. That is, it had a registry office for births, marriages and deaths, and was a centre for census collection. Claims for poor law relief would have also been heard there.
A Vision of Britain through Time provides the following description of Knott Lanes from John Marius Wilson's Imperial Gazetteer of England and Wales of 1870-72:
- "KNOTT-LANES, a division of Ashton-under-Lyne parish, and conterminately a [registration] sub-district in Ashton-under-Lyne district, Lancashire; in the N of the parish, chiefly in the neighbourhood of Oldham. It contains the hamlets of Knott-Lanes, Woodpark, Lees, Crossbank, and Alt-Edge; the villages of Lees, Taunton, Waterloo, Bardsley, and Hey, and parts of Rhodes-Hill, Lanehead, Highknowles, Alt-Hill, Mill-Bottom, and Birks; and includes the chapelries of Bardsley, Leesfield, and Lees or Hey. Acres: 2,417. Real property: £38,578; of which £19,000 are in mines. Population in 1851: 6,044; in 1861: 7,312. Houses: 1,448. The increase of population arose from the opening of collieries, and the establishment of cotton-mills and machine shops. The villages of Lees and Bardsley, the former now a small market town, may be regarded as the chief seats of trade and population. An oak, adjoining Bardsley House, is 16-1/3 feet in girth at 2 feet from the ground."
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There is no page for Knott Lanes in Wikipedia and no chapter in Victoria History of the County of Lancashire, just references under Ashton under Lyne. However, it would appear to be the forerunner of Limehurst Rural District as most or all of the civil parishes of Limehurst Rural District are mentioned in Wilson's description. There are no specific reference to churches or chapelries within Knott Lanes, but these will be found within the various townships. The following quote, found later, indicates that Knott Lanes covered the western and northern parts of what became Limehurst Rural District at the end of the 19th century.
GENUKI provides the following description of Knott Lanes from James Butterworths' Town and parish of Ashton-u-lyne of 1823:
- "The division of Knott Lanes is bounded on the north by the parishes of Oldham and Saddleworth; by the division of Hartshead, in this parish, on the east; and by the said division, and the division of Audenshaw, on the south and west. It is in length from Birks, near Austerland in Saddleworth, to New Market below Taunton Fold, in the parish of Ashton-u-Lyne, about five miles: and in it's greatest breadth, from Boardmans edge to Fitton Hill, about two miles and a half. It contained about 1060 acres in 1618."
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 parish of Ashton under Lyne from British History Online (Victoria County Histories), published 1911 which contains references to Knott Lanes.
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