Astley Bridge with Sharples, Lancashire
Historical Description
Astley-Bridge with Sharples, forms a township and an ecclesiastical parish in Lancashire. The township lies near the Bolton and Blackburn railway, 3 miles N of Bolton. Area, 1780 acres; population, 6239. It is governed by a local board of 12 members, and has a post, money order, and telegraph office under Bolton. The parish was constituted in 1844. The living is a vicarage in the diocese of Manchester; value, —£290 with residence. Patrons, the Crown and the Bishop alternately. The church was built in 1848, is in the Early English style, and has a tower surmounted by a spire. There are Roman Catholic, Baptist, and Wesleyan chapels, three banks, and almshouses for 12 widows and spinsters. Cotton spinning and extensive bleach-works furnish employment to the inhabitants. Eden's Orphanage, erected in 1879, for destitute orphan children whose parents resided at the time of death in the Bolton Poor Law Union, priority being given to those belonging to the Astley Bridge Local Board's District, has since been added to by the erection of a detached new school-room in 1885, and by a large gymnasium and detached infirmary, opened in 1890. The school will accommodate 100 children.
Administration
The following is a list of the administrative units in which this place was either wholly or partly included.
Ancient County | Lancashire | |
Hundred | Salford | |
Poor Law union | Bolton |
Any dates in this table should be used as a guide only.
Church Records
Ancestry.co.uk, in association with Lancashire Archives, have images of the Parish Registers for Lancashire online.
Directories & Gazetteers
We have transcribed the entry for Astley Bridge with Sharples from the following:
- Samuel Lewis' A Topographical Dictionary of England, by Samuel Lewis, seventh edition, published 1858. (Astley-Bridge)
Land and Property
The Return of Owners of Land in 1873 for Lancashire is available to browse.
Maps
Online maps of Astley Bridge with Sharples are available from a number of sites:
- Bing (Current Ordnance Survey maps).
- Google Streetview.
- National Library of Scotland. (Old maps)
- OpenStreetMap.
- old-maps.co.uk (Old Ordnance Survey maps to buy).
- Streetmap.co.uk (Current Ordnance Survey maps).
- A Vision of Britain through Time. (Old maps)
Newspapers and Periodicals
The British Newspaper Archive have fully searchable digitised copies of the following Lancashire newspapers online: