Kirkham, Lancashire
Historical Description
Kirkham, a small town, a township, and a parish, comprising the townships of Kirkham and Medlar-with-Wesham, in Lancashire. The town stands near the Preston and Wyre railway, 3 miles N of Naze Point on the Eibble estuary, and 8 WNW of Preston; has been regarded as the capital of the Fylde country, and comprises several well-built streets, has a good supply of water, and fair sanitary arrangements under a local board of health. It is a seat of petty sessions and county courts, and has a post, money order, and telegraph office under Preston, a railway station, a magistrates' office, two churches, Congregational and Wesleyan chapels, two Roman Catholic chapels, a savings bank, a free grammar school, a girls' charity school, two Roman Catholic schools, a workhouse, and several charities. The church succeeded a Norman one, which was given by Eoger de Poitiers to Shrewsbury Abbey, and by Edward I. to Vale Royal Abbey, comprises a nave of 1822, a tower and spire of 1844, and a chancel of 1853, together with a N transept, and is convenient and spacious. One Roman Catholic chapel is at the Willows, half a mile from the town, was built in 1845 after designs by Pugin, is in the Early English style, and consists of nave, aisles, chancel, and porch, with tower and octagonal spire. The other chapel is at Wesham, half a mile N of the railway station. The grammar school was founded in 1658, affords both an English and a classical education, and has, under the scheme framed by the Endowed Schools Commissioners in 1881,, £900 a year from endowment, two exhibitions to be held at universities or places of higher education of £50 a year, and also £60 applied to ten entrance scholarships for boys from elementary schools in the ancient parish of Kirkham. The workhouse is that of the Fylde union, was enlarged in 1870, and has attached to it large garden grounds. Fairs are held on 4 and 5 Feb., 28 and 29 April, and 18 and 19 Oct. The town and the township are conterminous. Acreage, 857; population, 4003; population of the ecclesiastical parish, 5566. The ancient parish, tvhich is extensive, contains fifteen townships. Acreage, 45, 429. The living is a vicarage in the diocese of Manchester; net value, £450 with residence. Patron, Christ Church, Oxford.
Administration
The following is a list of the administrative units in which this place was either wholly or partly included.
Ancient County | Lancashire | |
Ecclesiastical parish | Kirkham St. Michael | |
Hundred | Amounderness | |
Poor Law union | the Fylde |
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 Kirkham from the following:
- Samuel Lewis' A Topographical Dictionary of England, by Samuel Lewis, seventh edition, published 1858. (Kirkham (St. Michael))
Land and Property
The Return of Owners of Land in 1873 for Lancashire is available to browse.
Maps
Online maps of Kirkham 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:
- Blackburn Standard
- Burnley Express
- Lancashire Evening Post
- Lancaster Gazette
- Burnley Gazette
- Preston Chronicle
- Burnley Advertiser
- Burnley News