Denton, Lancashire Genealogy

England Lancashire  Lancashire Parishes

Chapelry History
DENTON, a chapelry, in the parish of Manchester, union of Ashton-under-Lyne, hundred of Salford, S. division of the county of Lancaster, 3¾ miles (N. E. by N.) from Stockport; containing 3440 inhabitants. It lies west of the river Tame, on the road from Stockport to Ashton-under-Lyne, and contains 1630 acres of land. The village, which is five miles distant from Manchester, probably derived its name from Dane-town, an etymology countenanced by the appellations of Danehead-bank and Daneditch-bourne, places in the neighbourhood. The manufacture of hats, both for the home trade and exportation, is carried on upon a large scale; and coal is obtained at several places within the chapelry. The living is a perpetual curacy, in the patronage of the Grosvenor family; net income, £135; impropriators, the Dean and Canons of Manchester. The chapel, dedicated to St. James, was erected about 1530, and has portions in the early and decorated English styles, with some fragments of stained glass in the windows. A church district, comprising part of the township of Denton, and part of that of Haughton, and called Christ-Church, was formed in April, 1846, under the act 6 and 7 Victoria, cap. 37; the population of the district is about 4000, and the living is in the gift of the Crown and the Bishop of Chester, alternately. The Wesleyans and others have places of worship.

From: A Topographical Dictionary of England by Samuel Lewis (1848), pp. 28-32. URL: http://www.british-history.ac.uk/report.aspx?compid=50917 Date accessed: 29 June 2010.

Th'Owd Peg as it is known locally due to the timber frame construction St Lawrence Denton was founded in 1468.

Originally the timber-framed structure was neither a parish church nor dedicated to St. Lawrence. It began as a chapel of ease for the medieval manor of Denton within the Parish of Manchester, dedicated to St. James. It became a parish church under the name St. Lawrence in 1839.

The Church was dedicated to St. Lawrence as a result of the discovery within the structure of fragments of glass depicting the martyrdom of St. Lawrence. These fragments are now incorporated into a window on the south side of the sanctuary.

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.

Church records
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Census records
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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
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 * England Jurisdictions 1851
 * Vision of Britain

Web sites
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