Place:Claughton on Lune, Lancashire, England

Watchers
NameClaughton on Lune
Alt namesClaughton (near Hornby)source: alternate name and ancient parish
TypeAncient parish, Parish
Coordinates54.092°N 2.668°W
Located inLancashire, England
See alsoLonsdale Hundred, Lancashire, Englandhundred in which it was located
Lunesdale Rural, Lancashire, Englandrural district 1894-1974
Lancaster (borough), Lancashire, Englanddistrict municipality covering the area since 1974
NOTE: Two other places named Claughton may cause confusion. The first is Claughton (near Garstang), not far to the south, and now in the Borough of Wyre. The second is Claughton cum Grange on the Wirral Peninsula in what was the county of Cheshire, but is now in Merseyside.
the text in this section is based on an article in Wikipedia

Claughton on Lune (#6 on the map) is a small village and civil parish in the City of Lancaster in Lancashire, England. The village is on the A683 road east of Lancaster. At the time of the 2001 UK census had a population of 132, which had increased to 209 by the time of the 2011 UK census.

North of the village is the River Lune, and to the south is Claughton Moor and the fells of the Forest of Bowland.

There is industry in the village in the form of a brickworks.

St Chad's Church was closed by the Church of England in 2002 due to a decline in the number of worshippers and the fact that the building was in need of modernisation. There was a church on the site as early as 1100, and it was classified as an ancient parish. However, it had no subsidiary townships and today the church is part of the Hornby with Claughton parish. In the 19th century and before, this was the ancient parish of Claughton (near Hornby).

The following description from John Marius Wilson's Imperial Gazetteer of England and Wales of 1870-72 is provided by the website A Vision of Britain Through Time (University of Portsmouth Department of Geography).

"CLAUGHTON, a parish in the district and county of Lancaster; on the river Lune, and on the Skipton and Lancaster railway, 1½ mile WSW of Hornby [railway] station, and 7 NE by E of Lancaster. Post town, Hornby, under Lancaster. Acres: 1,550. Real property: £1,493. Population: 94. Houses: 19. The property is subdivided. Claughton Hall, built as a manor-house in the time of James I., has two embattled towers and numerous transomed windows. The living is a rectory in the diocese of Manchester. Value: £150. Patrons: the Trustees of T. Fenwick, Esq. The church is good; and there is a Roman Catholic chapel."

A map of a wider area will be found at the page for Lancaster Borough.

Image:Lunesdale RD no titles 125pc.png

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 Claughton (including the village of Claughton on Lune) from British History Online (Victoria County Histories), published 1914
This page uses content from the English Wikipedia. The original content was at Claughton, Lancaster. 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.