Local History – Page 4 – Newton-le-Willows – Burtonwood

The Last American

30 October 20231 November 2023 Steven Dowd

Once the biggest military base in Europe, Burtonwood is now a shadow of its former self. Lieutenant Colonel Bryan C. Lobdell has secured a place in the 50-year-old history of Burtonwood. This spans from the action-packed war years to today, a period marked by the absence of a clear enemy and American budget cuts that are accelerating its decline. Once, the place resonated with the landings and take-offs of great Flying Fortresses. Men worked in the hangars around the clock, seven days a week, fitting communications and armaments to the…

Burtonwood: Historical Snippets by Year

12 July 20242 August 2024 Steven Dowd

I’ve been trying to put together a year by year snippet history of Burtonwood historical notes, it’s a work in progress, it has errors, and spelling mistakes, these will most likely get edits, names and place names will be edited and checked , I am sure it will have more year snippets added to it and many updates as more documents are read and transcribed by the people helping me 1028 King Canute in his excursion against the Scots boldly made the Norwood road and took measures of common ford…

Winwick : It’s History and Antiquities

5 January 201428 September 2024 Steven Dowd

By WILLIAM BEAMONT. Second Edition, 1878 Time, that great clock which requires no winding up, and possesses what so many dreamers have sought for and sought in vain—the secret of perpetual motion—has also, like other clocks, from time to time, but at longer intervals, its striking times which summon attention and invite us to pause and look back, promising in return something which from the past shall teach the present how to improve the future, and instruct while it amuses us. CONTENTS. Part 1. Etymology of Winwick. Part 2. Oswald,…

Earlestown’s Brunswick Road Mission

1 November 20231 November 2023 Steven Dowd

From Mission to Church The City Mission Movement: it was discovered that the poor would listen in great number’ provided they were not asked to enter a church” (Owen Chadwick, The Victoria Church, Part Il, P .286). Our Church has its origins in the City Mission Movement of the last Century. The Town Mission in Earlestown began in 1875 as an outreach from the Manchester City Mission. As the Industrial Revolution progressed, great cities, like Manchester, mushroomed with vast working populations overnight. The whole social structure of Britain was changed…

The Irish Club, Earlestown, ’50 Years’ Golden Jubilee 1888-1939.

30 October 20231 November 2023 Steven Dowd

We go back fifty years. From the four Provinces beyond the sea have come exiles of Erin, settling in and around the district of Newton-in-Makerfield. They are not here of their own desire. They have been forced to leave their native land to earn a livelihood. Strangers in a strange land, they are God’s creatures, with the right to live. They are the poorest of the poor in this world’s goods, but in their poverty they are richly endowed with the spirit of faith, self-sacrifice, and affection, one towards another.…

Newton-le-Willows 1821-1851

18 August 20231 November 2023 Steven Dowd

The impact of the Liverpool and Manchester Railway on: Newton-le-Willows 1821-1851 Newton le Willows is situated on the lowlands of south Lancashire, on the route to the north by way of Warrington, Wigan and Preston. From Saxon times until 1830 the village of Newton was in the east of the township, situated on an inlier of bunter sandstone overlooking a crossing place on the River Deane; this sandstone area provided a dry site and a water supply from shallow wells. The remainder of the township is a broad spread of…

Haydock: A History of the County of Lancaster: Volume 4.

27 April 20181 November 2023 Steven Dowd

In history Haydock has been named as Hedoc, 1169; Heddoch, 1170; Haidoc, 1212. and then recently called Haydock This township has an area of 2,409 acres. (fn. 1) From its situation between Newton and Ashton it seems to have been cut off from the former township. Clipsley Brook separates it from Garswood in Ashton, and Sankey Brook forms the south-west boundary. The population in 1901 numbered 8,575. Haydock is varied in its natural features, sometimes undulating, sometimes flat. On the west the surroundings are unpicturesque but typical of a colliery country, scattered over…

Haydock: some history

27 April 20184 July 2020 Steven Dowd

Haydock Historic Characterisation project from 2011 conducted by National Museums Liverpool and English Heritage Township: Haydock Geology: The solid geology is coal measures sandstone overlain by drift deposits of boulder clay. Historic Core: According to the OS 6 1st Edition map, the main historic core of Haydock appears to have been based at Haydock Town and Old Boston. Linear settlement development also exisits between Haydock Green and Old Boston. Haydock Green is named and depicted on Greenwood(1818) and Hennet (1830) maps. Only the township of Haydock is named on Hennet…

A History of Burtonwood.

4 June 20244 June 2024 Steven Dowd

Burtoneswod, 1228; Bourtonewod, 1251; Burtonwode, 1297; Bortounwod, 1337. This township, of 4,192½ statute acres, (1) was long purely agricultural in character. The population has recently increased at a rapid rate, and in 1901 numbered 2,187 persons. The country is extremely flat, with much reclaimed marsh or mossland, drained by ‘cuts’ into the Sankey Brook, which, winding from north to south-east and south, forms the boundary of the township on those sides. It yields crops of wheat, clover, and hay, and some potatoes and turnips on a clay soil; but on…

History of Burtonwood Brewery

10 January 201419 August 2023 Steven Dowd

On March 13th, 1867, James and Jane Forshaw purchased the land on which the Burtonwood Brewery now stands. James had some brewing training while employed at the Bath Springs Brewery, Ormskirk, and probably chose the site because of its position mid-way between Warrington and St Helens, and also because there was an adequate supply of suitable water readily available. The first brewery had a 14-barrel open-tired copper, two 12-barrel Fer-menting Vessels and a cellar capacity for 45 barrels. The trade was with Free Houses, farmers and private landowners, mainly in…

The Burtonwood Chapel

10 January 201410 January 2014 Steven Dowd

The Chapel of Burtonwood was founded by Sir Thomas de Bold in 1605, when Burtonwood was part of the Parish of Warrington. It was consecrated by the Rt Rev John Lord, Bishop of Chester, on 16th December 1634 in the presence of Richard Bold and Thomas Ireland of Bewsey. During the Commonwealth, Burton-wood became a separate Parish, and it must have excited many of the Americans who came to Burtonwood in World War II to discover that an early incum-bent of the Church, the Rev. Samuel Mather, had sailed to…

The Story of Burtonwood

10 January 2014 Steven Dowd

In the last 25 years the name of Burtonwood has been carried by thousands of American servicemen to countries all over the world. It is the only place in the British Isles to bear this name, and is possibly more widely known than Warrington, to which it was originally a subservient manor. THE WOOD BY THE TUN Probably the original name of Bur-tonwood was simply ‘Burton’, which means the ‘tun’, or farmstead, by a ‘burh’, or fortifiedmanor. The burh could have been the borough of Warrington. The wood, however, was…

CASTLE HILL, Newton-le-Willows

5 January 20147 April 2018 Steven Dowd

1980’s Archaeological Excavations. he text for this post is transcribed from two pamphlets that where produced at the time of the 1980s digs at Castle Hill, to aid public understanding of the work that was being carried out by the archaeologists from Liverpool. Pamphlet #1 Having received permission from the Department of the Environment to excavate a scheduled ancient monument, a North West Archaeological Trust Community Programme is now in the process of investigating an earthwork at Castle Hill, Newton-le-Willows. Although this mound is a recognisable landmark and still stands…

Burtonwood – The Truth About G.I. Town

29 December 20133 January 2014 Steven Dowd

Four miles from Warrington in Lancashire, is Burtonwood, the great maintenance base for the American Air Lift to Berlin. There several thousand young Americans, most of whom had never been overseas before, were dumped far from their homes with orders to keep the Dakotas, Skymasters and other aircraft flying through the air door in the Iron Curtain. The success of the Air Lift was apparent to all, but locally the social consequences were less happy for both sides. Six thousand American airmen dumped down suddenly to live near a bleak…

The Vulcan Works – Making the Lion roar again

29 December 201329 December 2013 Steven Dowd

During the early part of 1979, Ruston Diesels Limited, the Company then occupying the historic Vulcan Foundry site, agreed to restore the locomotive Lion which had been a static exhibit for many years in the Transport Gallery of Liverpool Museum. This was to provide project work for apprentices and graduate trainees, and to enable Lion to participate in the forth-coming ‘Rocket 150’ celebrations. On 4 April, the engine arrived at Ruston’s looking rather incongruous on the back of an articulated lorry and during the next few weeks it was stripped…