Coniston, Lancashire Genealogy

England   Lancashire   Lancashire Parishes

Chapelry History
CONISTON, MONK, with Skelwith, a township, in the parish of Hawkshead, union of Ulverston, hundred of Lonsdale north of the Sands, N. division of the county of Lancaster, 4 miles (W. by N.) from Hawkshead; containing 470 inhabitants, of whom 259 are in Monk-Coniston. This place consists of various groups of houses and neat cottages, roofed with slate from the adjacent mountains, and beautifully scattered round the head of Coniston Lake, anciently called Thurston Water, which is about six miles in length from north to south, about half a mile in its greatest width, and about twenty-seven fathoms in depth. The lake abounds with char, said to be of finer flavour than the char of other lakes; and at the head, on the margin of the water, is an inn for the accommodation of visiters, where post-horses, carriages, and pleasure-boats are always in readiness. The scenery around abounds with every variety of picturesque and romantic grandeur. A church was erected and endowed by Mr. Redmayne, on the Brathey Hall estate, here, in 1835, and consecrated the year following; it is a neat edifice on the road from Hawkshead to Ambleside, near Brathey Bridge, where are two pleasing cascades.

From: A Topographical Dictionary of England by Samuel Lewis (1848), pp. 679-682. URL: http://www.british-history.ac.uk/report.aspx?compid=50894 Date accessed: 29 June 2010.

Slate quarrying and tourism are the two main sources of employment in the village.

Civil Registration
Birth, marriages and deaths were kept by the government, from July 1837 to the present day. The civil registration article tells more about these records. There are several Internet sites with name lists or indexes. A popular site is FreeBMD.

Lancashire Online Parish Clerks
An extremely useful resource for research in Lancashire Parishes http://www.lan-opc.org.uk/

Church records
Contributor: Include here information for parish registers, Bishop’s Transcripts, non conformist and other types of church records, such as parish chest records. Add the contact information for the office holding the original records. Add links to the Family History Library Catalog showing the film numbers in their collection

Census records
Contributor: Include an overview if there is any unique information, such as the census for X year was destroyed. Add a link to online sites for indexes and/or images. Also add a link to the Family History Library Catalog showing the film numbers in their collection.

Probate records
Records of wills, administrations, inventories, indexes, etc. were filed by the court with jurisdiction over this parish. Go to Lancashire Probate Records to find the name of the court having primary jurisdiction. Scroll down in the article to the section Court Jurisdictions by Parish.

Maps and Gazetteers
Maps are a visual look at the locations in England. Gazetteers contain brief summaries about a place.


 * England Jurisdictions 1851
 * Vision of Britain

Web sites
Contributor: Add any relevant sites that aren’t mentioned above.