Place:Newchurch in Rossendale, Lancashire, England

the following text is based on an article in Wikipedia Newchurch in Rossendale has been, since 1974, a settlement in the Borough of Rossendale, Lancashire. It is around one mile away from Rawtenstall and half a mile from Waterfoot (redirected here; see below). Wikipedia quotes an estimate of current population at 3000. Newchurch is one of the earliest settlements in the Forest of Rossendale. The township of Newchurch stretched from Bacup to Rawtenstall and in 1511 it was recorded as having a population of 1,000 people. Before the building of St Nicholas in 1511, the village was called Kirk. The settlement is built on a hill, Seat Naze. The hill has a network of caves running underneath it, used for quarrying in the early 1900s. These caves stretch from Newchurch to Crawshawbooth around 4 miles away. end of Wikpedia contribution In 1894 Newchurch was split between the civil parishes of Rawtenstall and Bacup, both of which were made urban districts in that year. (Source: A Vision of Britain through Time) Rawtenstall and Bacup both became part of Rossendale Borough in 1974.

A Vision of Britain through Time provides the following description of Newchurch-in-Rossendale from John Marius Wilson's Imperial Gazetteer of England and Wales of 1870-72:

"NEWCHURCH-IN-ROSSENDALE, a village and a chapelry in Whalley parish, Lancashire. The village stands on an eminence, adjacent to the Manchester, Bury, and Bacup railway, 2½ miles W S W of Bacup; and has a station on the railway and a post-office under Manchester, both of the name of Newchurch, and a fair on the last Monday of June. The chapelry contains also the villages of Clough-Fold, Tunstead, Waterfoot, Booth-Fold, and Whitwell-Vale. Acres: 9,650. Rated property: £33,374. Population: 24,413. The property is much subdivided. The manor belongs to the Duke of Buccleuch. Thistle-Mount, Springfield, Ashlands, Clough-fold, Edgeside, and Leabank, are chief residences. Coal, freestone, and slate abound; stone is quarried; and the cotton and woollen manufactures are largely carried on. The living is a rectory in the diocese of Manchester. Value, £500. Patron, the Vicar of Whalley. The church was rebuilt in 1826, on the site of a previous church of 1512; is in the Tudor style; consists of nave and aisles, with an embattled tower; has very old pews, and a carved Caen stone pulpit of 1854; and contains 1,200 sittings. The rectory house was built in 1852; and is a handsome edifice, in the Tudor style. Two other churches are in Tunstead and Waterfoot; chapels for Baptists, Wesleyans, Primitive Methodists, and Unitarians, national schools, and an endowed grammar-school, are in Newchurch; a Baptist chapel is in Clough-Fold; and a mechanics' institution is in Whitwell-Vale. The Wesleyan chapel was built in 1804, and contains nearly 500 sittings. The Unitarian chapel was rebuilt in 1865, at a cost of £2,200; and is in the pointed style. The grammar-school was built and endowed in 1711, by Mr. John Kershaw. The Baptist chapel in Clough-Folddates from 1700; had Dr. Isaac Watts, at one time, as its minister; and was enlarged in 1838, and re-enlarged in 1853."

Waterfoot

the following text is based on an article in Wikipedia

Waterfoot is a small Rossendale mill-town at between Rawtenstall and Bacup in Lancashire where the B6238 road from Burnley meets the A681 road and where the River Whitwell meets the River Irwell.

Like the majority of the industrial communities in East Lancashire, Waterfoot expanded rapidly in the nineteenth century with the growth of industrialisation; it became a centre for felt-making, a process related to the predominant textile industry of the region. Before that, the main centre was Newchurch in Rossendale, that sits above Waterfoot to the north. The township of Newchurch in Rossendale stretched from Bacup to Rawtenstall, and in 1511 it was recorded as having a population of 1000 people, served by the monks of Whalley Abbey.

Woollen manufacture was formerly the chief industry, and there was some silk weaving, but since the 1770s cotton manufacture superseded wool as the principal business, with associated minor trades—size works, slipper works, dye works, foundries, reed and heald manufactories, roperies, saw-mills and cornmills. Stone was also extensively quarried in the vicinity, as well as there being small collieries.

Cotton became focused on the industrial manufacture of felt, which then developed into a footwear, specifically slipper, industry. Nowadays the remnants of this industry imports most of the footwear and act as distribution centres, which still line the roads approaching the village centre.

From the discussion in British History Online it is assumed that Waterfoot was in the part of Newchurch in Rossendale that was absorbed into Rawtenstall at the end of the 19th century.

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 Newchurch in Rossendale from British History Online (Victoria County Histories), published 1911