Backford, Cheshire
Historical Description
Backford, a township and a parish in Cheshire. The township lies on the Dee and Mersey Canal, 1 mile NE of Mollington station on the Birkenhead railway, and 3½ N of Chester. It has a post office under Chester; Great Saughall is the money order office, and Upton Park (3 miles distant) the telegraph office. The parish includes also the townships of Lea, Caughall, Chorlton-by-Backford, and Mollington-Tarrant or Great Mollington. Acreage, 764; population of the civil parish, 137; of the ecclesiastical, 523. Backford Hall. The seat of the Gleggs, is the chief residence. The living is a vicarage in the diocese of Chester; net value, £240. Patron, the Bisllop of Chester. The church is ancient (the chancel is of the 14th century, the tower of the 15th), and was restored in 1879 and 1890; it contains some monuments, and a black letter Bible of 1617.
Administration
The following is a list of the administrative units in which this place was either wholly or partly included.
Ancient County | Cheshire | |
Ecclesiastical parish | Backford St. Oswald | |
Hundred | Wirrall | |
Poor Law union | Great Boughton | |
Registration district | Great Boughton | 1837 - 1869 |
Registration district | Chester | 1870 - 1937 |
Any dates in this table should be used as a guide only.
Civil Registration
For general information about Civil Registration (births, marriages and deaths) see the Civil Registration page.
For births, marriages, and deaths in Backford from 1837 to 1869 you should search for the Great Boughton Registration District.
For births, marriages, and deaths in Backford from 1870 to 1937 you should search for the Chester Registration District.
Directories & Gazetteers
We have transcribed the entry for Backford from the following:
- Samuel Lewis' A Topographical Dictionary of England, by Samuel Lewis, seventh edition, published 1858. (Backford (St. Oswald))
Land and Property
The Return of Owners of Land in 1873 for Cheshire is available to browse.
Maps
Online maps of Backford 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 Cheshire papers online:
Visitations Heraldic
The Visitation of Cheshire, 1580 is available on the Heraldry page.