Place:Ashton under Lyne, Lancashire, England

Watchers
NameAshton under Lyne
Alt namesAshtonsource: Webster's Geographical Dictionary (1988) p 82
Ashton-under-Lynesource: hyphenated
Fairbottomsource: settlement in borough
Hooley-Hillsource: settlement in borough
Park Bridgesource: settlement in borough
Park-Bridgesource: hyphenated
Smallshawsource: settlement in borough
Tauntonsource: settlement in borough
Wood Parksource: settlement in borough
TypeAncient parish, Borough (municipal)
Coordinates53.483°N 2.1°W
Located inLancashire, England     (1000 - 1974)
See alsoSalford Hundred, Lancashire, Englandhundred in which it was located
Tameside (metropolitan borough), Greater Manchester, Englandmetropolitan borough in which it has been located since 1974
source: Getty Thesaurus of Geographic Names
source: Family History Library Catalog
source: Family History Library Catalog
the following text is based on an article in Wikipedia

Ashton under Lyne (pop. 45,198 as of the 2011 UK census) has been, since 1974, a market town in the Metropolitan Borough of Tameside in Greater Manchester, England. Before 1974 it was located in Lancashire. It lies on the north bank of the River Tame, on undulating land at the foothills of the Pennines. Ashton (as it is often shortened to) is 6.2 miles (10.0 km) east of Manchester city centre.

During the Middle Ages, Ashton under Lyne formed a ancient parish and township centred on Ashton Old Hall which was held by the de Asshetons, the Lords of the Manor. Granted a Royal Charter in 1414, the manor spanned a broad rural area consisting of marshland, moorland, and a number of villages and hamlets.

Until the introduction of the cotton trade in 1769, Ashton was considered "bare, wet, and almost worthless". The factory system, and textile manufacture during the Industrial Revolution triggered a process of unplanned urbanisation in the area, and by the mid-19th century Ashton had emerged as an important mill town at a convergence of newly constructed canals and railways. Ashton under Lyne's transport network allowed for an economic boom in cotton spinning, weaving, and coal mining, which led to the granting of honorific borough status in 1847.

During the mid-20th century, imports of cheaper foreign goods led to the decline of Ashton's heavy industries, but the town has continued to thrive as a centre of commerce, and is considered the hub of the borough of Tameside, providing the perfect setting for the town hall, council offices and 19th-century market hall.

Image:Tameside.png

History from the 15th century

The manor remained in the hands of the Assheton family until 1514 when the line ended; Sir George Booth later acquired the manor and it descended with the Booth family until 1758 when the Earls of Stamford inherited it through marriage. The earls held the manor until the 19th century. The lords' consistent absence was probably the stimulus for Ashton's growth of a large-scale domestic-based textile industry in the 17th century. Pre-industrial Ashton under Lyne was centred on four roads: Town Street, Crickets Lane, Old Street, and Cowhill Lane. In the late-18th and early-19th centuries, the town was re-planned, with a grid pattern of roads. As a result, very little remains of the previous town. In 1730 a workhouse was established which consisted of a house and two cottages; it later came to be used as a hospital. The Ashton Canal was constructed in the 1790s to transport coal from the area to Manchester, with a branch to the coal pits at Fairbottom.

Domestic production of fustian and woollen weaving have a long history in the town, dating back to at least the Early Modern period. Accounts dated 1626 highlight that Humphrey Chetham had dealings with cloth-makers in Ashton under Lyne. The introduction of the factory system in the 19th century, during the Industrial Revolution, changed Ashton from a market town to a mill town. Having previously been one of the two main towns in the Tame Valley, Ashton under Lyne became one of the "most famous mill towns in the North West". From 1773 to 1905, 75 cotton mills were established in the town.

For more information, see the EN Wikipedia article Ashton under Lyne.

Governance

the following text is based on an article in Wikipedia

Lying within the historic county boundaries of Lancashire since the early 12th century, Ashton under Lyne anciently constituted a "single parish-township", but was divided into four divisions (sometimes each styled townships): Ashton Town (central Ashton under Lyne), Audenshaw, Hartshead, and Knott Lanes. Ashton Town was granted a Royal Charter in 1414, making it a market town. All four divisions lay within the hundred of Salford, an ancient division of the county of Lancashire.

In 1827, police commissioners were established for Ashton Town, tasked with bringing about social and economic improvement. In 1847, this area was incorporated under the Municipal Corporations Act 1835, as a municipal borough with the name "Ashton under Lyne", giving it borough status. When the administrative county of Lancashire was created by the Local Government Act 1888, the borough fell under the newly created Lancashire County Council.

The borough's boundaries changed during the late 19th century through small exchanges of land with the neighbouring districts of Oldham, Mossley, Dukinfield, and Stalybridge. In the early 20th century, the Borough of Ashton under Lyne grew; Hurst Urban District was added in 1927, parts of Hartshead and Alt civil parishes in 1935, and parts of Limehurst Rural District in 1954.

Under the Local Government Act 1972, the town's borough status was abolished, and Ashton has, since 1 April 1974, formed part of the Metropolitan Borough of Tameside, within the metropolitan county of Greater Manchester. Ashton under Lyne is divided into four wards: Ashton Hurst, Ashton St. Michaels, Ashton St Peters and Ashton Waterloo.

For more information, see the EN Wikipedia article Ashton-under-Lyne. Includes references to sources for facts given above.

Religion

the text in this section is based on an article in Wikipedia

St. Michael and All Angels' Church is a Grade I listed building that dates back to at least 1262, although it was rebuilt in the 15th, 16th, and 19th centuries. In 1795 it was the only church in the town, and one of only two in the area covered by the present borough of Tameside. There was a great increase in the number of chapels and religious buildings in the area during the 19th century, and by the end of the century there were 44 Anglican churches and 138 chapels belonging to other denominations. The most common denominations amongst the chapels were Catholic, Congregationalist, and Methodist.

St. Michael and All Angels was considered an ancient parish but because Ashton was a borough covering an enclosed urban area, it did not have the townships and chapelries normally associated with ancient parishes. but the four divisions of the borough (Ashton Town (central Ashton under Lyne), Audenshaw, Hartshead, and Knott Lanes), described above, were sometimes each styled townships. Knott Lanes became the Limehurst Rural District for the first half of the 20th century.

A Vision of Britain through Time goes into more detail (re-phrased to allow places nearby to be considered together):

The parish consists of the four divisions of Ashton Town, Audenshaw, Knott Lanes, and Hartshead; and includes the hamlets of Lees, Crossbank, Alt (including Altedge and Althill), Knott Lanes, Hurst, and Hartshead (including Hazlehurst), the villages of Audenshaw including Little Moss, Hooleyhill, Walkmill, Woodhouses, North Street, Hurst, (including Hurst Brook), Mossley, (including Mossley Brow), part of the town of Stalybridge (including Heyrod) and its own settlements of Smallshaw, Taunton and Wood Park.

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 parish of Ashton under Lyne from British History Online (Victoria County Histories), published 1911. The chapter includes a map of the parish.
  • A description of the churches and charities of Ashton under Lyne from British History Online (Victoria County Histories), published 1911
This page uses content from the English Wikipedia. The original content was at Ashton-under-Lyne. 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.