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- source: Getty Thesaurus of Geographic Names
- source: Family History Library Catalog
- the following text is based on an article in Wikipedia
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Hoghton is a small village and civil parish since 1974 within the Borough of Chorley in Lancashire, England. According to the UK Census 2011 it had a population of 802. The parish is northeast of Brindle.
In the village is Hoghton Tower, a fortified manor house and ancestral home of the De Hoghton family since the 12th century. (Sir Richard de Hoghton (1279-1337) is covered here in WeRelate.)
Also within the parish are the hamlets of Riley Green and Hoghton Bottoms (both re-directed here). The villages of Gregson Lane and Coupe Green are sometimes described as in Hoghton, although they are outside the parish, forming the ward of Coupe Green and Gregson Lane in South Ribble district in the former parish of Pleasington.
From 1894 until 1974 the parish was in Chorley Rural District. Prior to 1894 it was part of Brindle subdistrict of the Chorley Registration District and Poor Law Union, and a township in the ancient parish of Leyland in the Leyland Hundred.
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A Vision of Britain through Time provides the following description of Hoghton from John Marius Wilson's Imperial Gazetteer of England and Wales of 1870-72:
- "HOGHTON, a village, a township, and a chapelry, in Leyland parish, Lancashire. The village stands on the river Darwen, adjacent to the East Lancashire railway, 5 miles W by S of Blackburn; and has a station on the railway, and a post office under Preston. The township comprises 2,227 acres. Real property: £4,928; of which £200 are in quarries. Population in 1851: 1,373; in 1861: 1,201. Houses: 249. The decrease of population was caused by the removal of families to manufacturing towns.
- "The manor belongs to Sir Henry de Hoghton, Bart.; and has belonged to his family since the time of [King] Stephen. Hoghton Tower was once the seat of the Hoghton family; stands on a rock, commanding a magnificent view; consists of two courts, with three square towers, all now in a ruinous condition; was garrisoned during the civil wars of Charles I, and partly blown up accidentally, but afterwards repaired; and is now in the keeping of a custodian. James I was entertained here during three days of 1617; issued then the order for the " Book of Sports; and is said to have been so much pleased with a fine loin of beef, served up to table, that he knighted it as " Sir Loin, and thus gave rise to the name by which the joint has ever since been called. Alum mines were then in operation, near the foot of the hill; and they continued, many years afterwards, to be productive; but they have gone into disuse. There are now, in the township, two small cotton manufactories.
- "The chapelry was constituted in 1842, and is less extensive than the township. Population: 1, 100. Houses: 231. The living is a vicarage in the diocese of Manchester. Value, about £150. Patron, the Vicar of Leyland. The church was built in 1833; it presents no architectural features. There are a Wesleyan chapel and a school, the latter unendowed, but supported by Sir H. de Hoghton."
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 township of Hoghton from British History Online (Victoria County Histories), published 1911
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