Place:Pendlebury, Lancashire, England

the text in this article is based on one in Wikipedia Pendlebury has been since 1974 a suburban town in the City of Salford, in Greater Manchester, England. It lies 4.1 miles (6.6 km) to the northwest of Manchester city centre, 3.4 miles (5.5 km) northwest of Salford, and 5.9 miles (9.5 km) southeast of Bolton. Prior to 1974 Pendlebury was in the county of Lancashire. In 1934 it joined with the neighbouring settlements of Swinton and Clifton (Eccles), to form the municipal borough of Swinton and Pendlebury. A centre for coal mining for many years, Pendlebury saw extensive coal extraction from several collieries until the closure of Agecroft Colliery in the 1990s. In the 19th century and before Pendlebury contained two chapelries within the ancient parish of Eccles. It became a civil parish in 1866 and joined with Swinton to become a municipal borough in 1894. In 1933 the municipal borough was "demoted" to an urban district, probably because of diminishing population. [edit] History In 1199 King John confirmed a gift of a carucate of land called Peneberi to Ellis son of Robert. He had made the grant when he was Earl of Mortain (1189–99) and confirmed it when he became king in a deed signed at Le Mans in France. Ellis was described as Master Sergeant of Salford and a benefactor of Cockersand Abbey.

In 1201 Pendlebury was linked to the manor of Shoresworth to the south (described as "one oxgang of land") before Shoresworth became part of Pendleton (Eccles). The manors of Pendlebury and Shoresworth were held of the king in thegnage by a rent of 12 shillings in 1212. Ellis died in or about 1216, and his son Adam succeeded to his manor and serjeanty. In 1274 Ellis, son of Roger came to a violent death, and Amabel, his widow claimed dower in various lands against Roger de Pendlebury [her father-in-law?]. A short time afterwards, Amabel having received her dower, she and Roger de Pendlebury had to defend a suit brought by Adam de Pendlebury, who satisfied the jury of his title to the manor. Ellis had a brother, William and daughters Maud, Lettice and Beatrice. Maud married Adam son of Alexander de Pilkington of Pilkington, and had a daughter Cecily. The manor was sold before 1300 to Adam de Prestwich. The new lord of Pendlebury married Alice de Woolley, daughter of Richard son of Henry de Pontefract; the eventual heir was his daughter Alice, wife of Jordan de Tetlow. Her heir was her daughter, Joan, who married Richard de Langley, and the manor descended with the Langleys until the end of the 16th century. Robert Langley died 19 September 1561, leaving four daughters as co-heirs. On the division of the estates, Agecroft (a manor house in Pendlebury), and lands in Pendlebury, became the portion of Anne, who married William Dauntesey, from Wiltshire. The manor of Pendlebury was claimed by the Daunteseys for some time, but was afterwards held with Prestwich, descending in the Coke family until about 1780, when it was sold to Peter Drinkwater of Irwell House, Prestwich.

Agecroft Hall, the Tudor home of the Lord of the Manor of Pendlebury, stood on rising ground on the west side of the River Irwell, where it flows southwards towards Salford and Manchester between the high ground of Kersal and Prestwich to the east and north, and Irlams o' th' Height and Pendlebury on the west. Building probably began towards the end of the reign of Henry VII. In 1666, of the thirty-five hearths liable for tax in Pendlebury, Agecroft Hall, the only large house, had eleven hearths.

At the end of the 19th century, industrialisation swept through the Irwell Valley. Collieries were sunk around Agecroft Hall, railway tracks cut across the manor and a dirty lake formed on the edge of the estate. The house fell into disrepair and was sold at auction in 1925.

Research Tips

• See the Wikipedia articles on parishes and civil parishes for descriptions of this lowest rung of local administration. The original parishes (known as ancient parishes) were ecclesiastical, under the jurisdiction of the local priest. A parish covered a specific geographical area and was sometimes equivalent to that of a manor. Sometimes, in the case of very large rural parishes, there were chapelries where a "chapel of ease" allowed parishioners to worship closer to their homes. In the 19th century the term civil parish was adopted to define parishes with a secular form of local government. In WeRelate both civil and ecclesiastical parishes are included in the type of place called a "parish". Smaller places within parishes, such as chapelries and hamlets, have been redirected into the parish in which they are located. The names of these smaller places are italicized within the text.
• Rural districts were groups of geographically close civil parishes in existence between 1894 and 1974. They were formed as a middle layer of administration between the county and the civil parish. Inspecting the archives of a rural district will not be of much help to the genealogist or family historian, unless there is need to study land records in depth.
• Civil registration or vital statistics and census records will be found within registration districts. To ascertain the registration district to which a parish belongs, see Registration Districts in Lancashire, part of the UK_BMD website.
• Lancashire Online Parish Clerks provide free online information from the various parishes, along with other data of value to family and local historians conducting research in the County of Lancashire.
• FamilySearch Lancashire Research Wiki provides a good overview of the county and also articles on most of the individual parishes (very small or short-lived ones may have been missed).
• Ancestry (international subscription necessary) has a number of county-wide collections of Church of England baptisms, marriages and burials, some from the 1500s, and some providing microfilm copies of the manuscript entries. There are specific collections for Liverpool (including Catholic baptisms and marriages) and for Manchester. Their databases now include electoral registers 1832-1935. Another pay site is FindMyPast.
• A map of Lancashire circa 1888 supplied by A Vision of Britain through Time includes the boundaries between the parishes and shows the hamlets within them.
• A map of Lancashire circa 1954 supplied by A Vision of Britain through Time is a similar map for a later timeframe.
• GENUKI provides a website covering many sources of genealogical information for Lancashire. The organization is gradually updating the website and the volunteer organizers may not have yet picked up all the changes that have come with improving technology.
• The Victoria County History for Lancashire, provided by British History Online, covers the whole of the county in six volumes (the seventh available volume [numbered Vol 2] covers religious institutions). The county is separated into its original hundreds and the volumes were first published between 1907 and 1914. Most parishes within each hundred are covered in detail. Maps within the text can contain historical information not available elsewhere.
• A description of the township of Pendlebury from British History Online (Victoria County Histories), published 1911