Place:Windle, Lancashire, England

:the following text is based on an article in Wikipedia Windle (#13 on the map) is now a ward of St. Helens Metropolitan Borough in Merseyside, England. It had a population of 10,690 in the 2011 UK census. It borders the villages of Eccleston (St. Helens) and Rainford. It was one of the original four townships (alongside Eccleston, Parr and Sutton) that merged to form St. Helens in 1868. The townships were all part of the ancient parish of Prescot. When the four townships merged to become St. Helens County Borough in 1868, part of Windle remained outside in Whiston Rural District. This section of Windle, together with other parts of Whiston Rural District, was transferred into St. Helens Metropolitan Borough on its formation in 1974. [edit] History the text in this section is based on an article in Wikipedia The manor of Windle originally fell under the fee of the Warrington Barons until at least 1585. The first Baron is listed as Pain de Vilers. Vilers was disenfranchised by William de Ferrers, the Earl of Derby, to the benefit of William le Boteler from Warrington. The Manor was subject to contesting claims by the Vilers to no avail. Portions of Windle over the next three hundred years were divided between the families of the local gentry: Peter de Burnhull, Alan de Windle III and Thurstan de Holand. The de Burnhull family married into the Gerard family from nearby Kingsley in Cheshire who were the eventual inheritors of the land and title.

Other significant families were the Colleys (or Cowleys), Hindley and Urmstons. The families of Harflynch and Eccles appear in the 16th century; and others of the neighbourhood, like the Byroms, Parrs, and Woodfalls, were also owners of land. Adam Martindale, a puritan divine, born near Mossbank in 1623, recorded daily life and events of the area in his diaries, describing the chapelry and family interactions.

18th-century Windle was originally made up from the villages and areas of Cowley Hill, Gerards Bridge, Hardshaw (redirected to St. Helens), Islands Brow, Laffak, Mossbank, Pocket Nook, Windle Ashes and Windle Smithy. Hardshaw was the site of The Chapel of St Elyn in Chapel Lane. The modern town of St. Helens was formed around the Chapel of St Elyn that was located within the Hardshaw berewick since at least the 16th century.

In 1910 the area was said to cover 3,150 acres (12.7 km2).

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 township of Windle from British History Online (Victoria County Histories), published 1911