Chorley


Chorley is a town and the administrative centre of the wider Borough of Chorley in Lancashire, England, north of Wigan, south west of Blackburn, north west of Bolton, south of Preston and north west of Manchester. The town's wealth came principally from the cotton industry. In 2020 it had a population of 36,682.
In the 1970s, the skyline was dominated by factory chimneys, but most have now been demolished: remnants of the industrial past include Morrisons chimney and other mill buildings, and the streets of terraced houses for mill workers. Chorley is the home of the Chorley cake.

History

Toponymy

The name Chorley comes from two Anglo-Saxon words, and, probably meaning "the peasants' clearing". is a common element of place-name, meaning a clearing in a woodland; ċeorl refers to a person of status similar to a freeman or a yeoman.

Prehistory

There was no known occupation in Chorley until the Middle Ages, though archaeological evidence has shown that the area around the town has been inhabited since at least the Bronze Age. There are various remains of prehistoric occupation on the nearby Anglezarke Moor, including the Round Loaf tumulus which is believed to date from 3500 BC.
A pottery burial urn from this period was discovered in 1963 on land next to Astley Hall Farm and later excavation in the 1970s revealed another burial urn and four cremation pits dating from the Bronze Age.

Roman period

During the Roman era a Roman road ran near Chorley between Wigan and Walton-le-Dale. Hoards dating from the Roman period have also been found nearby at Whittle-le-Woods and Heapey.

Medieval period

Chorley was not listed in the Domesday Book of 1086, though it is thought to be one of the twelve berewicks in the Leyland Hundred.
Chorley first appears in historical records in the mid thirteenth century as part of the portion of the Croston Lordship acquired by William de Ferrers, Earl of Derby, around 1250. The Earl established Chorley as a small borough comprising a two-row settlement arranged along what later became Market Street. It appears that the borough was short lived, as it does not appear in a report of a commission on the Leyland Hundred in 1341. It is most likely that the borough was sacked by the Scots during the Great Raid of 1322, with Chorley being one of the southernmost points reached in Northern England. This led to the construction of a Peel tower, which said to have been located somewhere close to Duxbury Hall.
File:Bank Hall Daffodils.jpeg|thumb|Bank Hall, Bretherton, a Jacobean mansion house, awaiting restoration. Home to Lancashire's oldest Yew tree and one of the two fallen sequoia in the UK. Open on limited open days arranged by the Bank Hall Action Group.
The manorial history of Chorley is complex. The manor had no single lord throughout most of this period, as it had been split into moieties and was managed by several different families. This led to Chorley having several manorial halls, which in this period included Chorley Hall, which was built in the 14th century by the de Chorley family but was demolished in the 19th or 20th century. Very little is known of Chorley Hall, although, according to what the painter John Bird depicted in 1795, its location to where it once stood is said to have been where The Parish of St Laurence Church of England Primary School now stands, with phantom steps near to the school within Astley Park being the only physical clue to the hall's existence. There is also Lower Chorley Hall, which was owned by the Gillibrand family from 1583. It is believed the borough of Chorley was not a success in this period because of the lack of manorial leadership and the dispersed nature of the small population.
St Laurence's Church is the oldest remaining building in Chorley and first appears in historical records when it was dedicated in 1362. However, it is believed there was already an earlier Anglo-Saxon chapel on the site, which was a daughter foundation of Croston Parish Church. It is believed that the church is named after Saint Laurence, an Irish saint who died in Normandy in the 12th century, whose bones were conveyed to the church by local noble Sir Rowland Standish of Duxbury, an ancestor of Myles Standish.
As happened in many other instances following the Dissolution of the Monasteries, these relics went missing in the turmoil of the English Reformation under the rule of Henry VIII.
Chorley was granted a market charter by Henry VII in 1498 and have since held it every Tuesday. Before the reformation, it would coincide with a fair that was held annually on the feast of St Lawrence.

19th century to present

Chorley, like most Lancashire towns, gained its wealth from the Industrial Revolution of the 19th century which was also responsible for the town's growth. Chorley was a vital cotton town with many mills littering the skyline up to the late twentieth century. Most mills were demolished between the 1950s and 2000s with those remaining converted for modern business purposes. Today only a minority remain in use for actual manufacturing, and the last mill to stop producing textiles was Lawrence's in 2009.
Also, given its location on the edge of Lancashire Coalfield, Chorley was vital in coal mining. Several pits existed in Duxbury Woods, the Gillibrand area and more numerously in Coppull. Chisnall Hall Colliery at Coppull was considered the biggest Lancashire pit outside of Wigan and one of many located in the Chorley suburb. The last pit in the area to close was the Ellerbeck Colliery in 1987 which was located south of Chorley, between Coppull and Adlington.
The town played an important role during the Second World War, when it was home to the Royal Ordnance Factory, a large munitions manufacturer in the village of Euxton about from the town centre. A smaller factory was also built near the railway line of Blackburn–Wigan in Heapey.

Religion

The Church of England parish church of St Laurence, located on Union Street, has been a place of Christian worship for over 800 years. The Church of England parish church of St George, situated on St George's Street, is an important example of the work of architect Thomas Rickman, a major figure in the Gothic Revival. It was built as a Commissioners' church in 1822.
St Mary's Roman Catholic Church is based in the town centre at Mount Pleasant. The parish was founded in 1847, in a chapel in Chapel Street. The land for the church was purchased in 1851 and the first building erected in 1853. It was opened in June 1853. The church can sit 750 persons. Pugin & Pugin of London and Hansom are the architects.
Chorley United Reformed Church is one of the oldest and largest United Reformed Churches in the north west. Founded in 1792 as an Independent Church it later affiliated to the Congregational church and in 1972 voted to become part of the new United Reformed Church. The church is home to the oldest Scout Troop in the town, established in 1919. In January 2017 it was announced that the church building, which had been at its current site since 1792, would be demolished, and the congregation relocated to other premises. These plans never came to fruition and the church building was instead refurbished in 2020.
In the north of the town, there is a park containing a meeting house and a temple of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. The temple, which is regarded as a local landmark, is the largest LDS temple in Europe and named the Preston England Temple. Construction on the temple commenced in 1994 and was completed in 1998. Connected to the temple campus is the England Missionary Training Centre for the LDS Church which houses church representatives preparing to fill proselytizing and service assignments in Great Britain and other parts of Europe.
Chorley's first mosque is on the corner of Brooke Street and Charnock Street. The building officially opened in March 2006, having been in planning for over three years. A second mosque opened in 2020.

Governance

In 1837, Chorley joined with other townships in the area to become head of the Chorley Poor Law Union, which took responsibility for the administration and funding of the Poor Law in the area. Chorley became incorporated as a municipal borough in 1881; it was governed by a mayor, a council of eight aldermen and twenty four councillors.
The population of the Municipal Borough of Chorley remained roughly static in the 20th century, with the 1911 census showing 30,315 people and the 1971 census showing 31,665. Under the Local Government Act 1972, Chorley became the core of a larger non-metropolitan district on 1 April 1974. The present Borough of Chorley has forty-two councillors, representing 14 three-member electoral wards in Chorley town council.
The Member of Parliament for the constituency of Chorley, since 1997, is Lindsay Hoyle, Speaker of the House of Commons. He was formerly a Labour MP.

Geography

The principal river in the town is the Yarrow. The Black Brook is a tributary of the Yarrow. The name of the River Chor was back-formed from Chorley and runs not far from the centre of the town, notably through Astley Park. Chorley is located at the foot of the West Pennine Moors and is overlooked by Healey Nab, a small hill which is part of the West Pennine Moors. It is the seat for the Borough of Chorley, which is made up of Chorley and its surrounding villages.
Chorley had a population of 33,424 at the 2001 census, with the wider borough of Chorley having a population of 101,991. Chorley forms a conurbation with Preston and Leyland and was once proposed as being designated part of the Central Lancashire New Town under the New Towns Act, a proposal which was eventually scaled back.

Economy

The first signs of industry, as with many towns in Lancashire, was mining; evidence of which can be seen by the various abandoned quarries on the outskirts of the town. One of these is Anglezarke Quarry, between Chorley and Horwich. Remnants of mining include an old railway bridge from the Duxbury Mine off Wigan Lane. Eventually, the mining industry was replaced by cotton mills.
Manufacture of trucks was inherited from the neighbouring town of Leyland. A large factory on Pilling Lane produced, including military vehicles and tanks during the Second World War.
After the Second World War, production was reduced and the final part of the site was closed in 2008 by BAE Systems. A large part of the site has been redeveloped for residential and industrial use as Buckshaw Village.
Through the twentieth century, especially the latter half, Chorley suffered the loss of much of its manufacturing capacity with great losses in or the complete disappearance of its coal, textiles, motor vehicles and armaments industries.
Leyland Trucks and BAE Systems are Central Lancashire's largest employers, with their sites in Leyland and Samlesbury respectively.
Other companies with a presence in the borough are:
In 2011, Chorley Council launched an initiative, Choose Chorley, to encourage SMEs and large businesses to relocate to Chorley. The initiative offers red carpet introductions to key people in the town, financial incentives and tailored support for business growth.
The town is the home of the Chorley cake. Every October, the Chorley Cake Street Fair promotes the cakes, with a competition for local bakers to produce the largest ever Chorley cake; the event restarted in 1995.