Bolton le Moors (also known as Bolton le Moors St Peter) was a large

civil parish In England, a civil parish is a type of administrative parish used for local government. It is a territorial designation which is the lowest tier of local government below districts and counties, or their combined form, the unitary authorit ...

and

ecclesiastical parish A parish is a territorial entity in many Christian denominations, constituting a division within a diocese. A parish is under the pastoral care and clerical jurisdiction of a priest, often termed a parish priest, who might be assisted by one or m ...

in hundred of Salford in the historic county of

Lancashire Lancashire ( , ; abbreviated Lancs) is the name of a historic county, ceremonial county, and non-metropolitan county in North West England. The boundaries of these three areas differ significantly. The non-metropolitan county of Lancashi ...

, England. It was administered from

St Peter's Church, Bolton St Peter's Church, Bolton-le-Moors, commonly known as Bolton Parish Church, is a Church of England parish church in Bolton, Greater Manchester, England. The parish church, dedicated to St Peter, is an example of the Gothic Revival style. The ...

in the township of Great Bolton.

History

Bolton le Moors was originally a part of the ancient parish of Eccles. In the 14th century it became a parish in its own right. It resembled what is now the town of

Bolton Bolton (, locally ) is a large town in Greater Manchester in North West England, formerly a part of Lancashire. A former mill town, Bolton has been a production centre for textiles since Flemish weavers settled in the area in the 14th cen ...

and some outskirts. As with many large parishes in the north of England, it was split into townships in 1662 for easier civic administration. Some of the townships had

chapel A chapel is a Christian place of prayer and worship that is usually relatively small. The term has several meanings. Firstly, smaller spaces inside a church that have their own altar are often called chapels; the Lady chapel is a common type ...

s and were known as chapelries.Map of Bolton ancient parishes
Retrieved on 15 March 2009. *

Anglezarke Anglezarke is a sparsely populated Civil parishes in England, civil parish in the Borough of Chorley in Lancashire, England. It is an agricultural area used for sheep farming, also site of reservoirs that were built to supply water to Liverpool. T ...

Blackrod Blackrod is a town and civil parish in the Metropolitan Borough of Bolton, Greater Manchester, England, northeast of Wigan and west of Bolton. At the United Kingdom Census 2011, it had a population of 5,001. Historically part of Lancash ...

* Bradshaw *

Breightmet Breightmet is a neighbourhood of Bolton, in Greater Manchester, England. The population of the ward taken at the 2011 census was 13,584. Historically a township of the civil and ecclesiastical parish of Bolton le Moors in the Salford hundred o ...

* Darcy Lever *

Edgworth Edgworth is a small village within the borough of Blackburn with Darwen, Lancashire, England. It is north east of North Turton between Broadhead Brook on the west (expanded artificially to form the Wayoh Reservoir) and Quarlton Brook in the sout ...

* Entwistle * Great Bolton * Harwood *

Little Bolton Little Bolton was a township of the civil and ecclesiastical parish of Bolton le Moors in the Salford hundred of Lancashire, England. Besides the main part of Little Bolton, it had three detached parts which were separated by areas of Lower Sha ...

Little Lever Little is a synonym for small size and may refer to: Arts and entertainment * ''Little'' (album), 1990 debut album of Vic Chesnutt * ''Little'' (film), 2019 American comedy film *The Littles, a series of children's novels by American author John P ...

Longworth Longworth is a village and civil parish in the Vale of White Horse, England. The 1974 boundary changes transferred it from Berkshire to Oxfordshire. The village lies between Faringdon, to its west, and Oxford, to the north-east. The 2011 Cen ...

* Lostock *

Quarlton Quarlton was a township of the civil and ecclesiastical parish of Bolton le Moors in the Hundred of Salford, Lancashire, England. It lay north east of Bolton. Topynomy Quarlton is derived from the Old English ''cweorn'' and ''dun'' meaning t ...

Rivington Rivington is a village and civil parish of the Borough of Chorley, Lancashire, England, occupying . It is about southeast of Chorley and about northwest of Bolton. Rivington is a rural area consisting primarily of agricultural grazing land, ...

* Sharples * Tonge with Haulgh * Turton For civil purposes, these townships and chapelries were largely autonomous. For ecclesiastical purposes they were presided by and gave an overall precept to the vicar of Bolton. In 1866, the young civil parish (

civil parishes in England In England, a civil parish is a type of administrative parish used for local government. It is a territorial designation which is the lowest tier of local government below districts and counties, or their combined form, the unitary authorit ...

were set up for almost all parishes from the 1840s to 1860s) was ended; the townships became civil parishes in their own right. These townships, later civil parishes, were used for the

censuses A census is the procedure of systematically acquiring, recording and calculating information about the members of a given population. This term is used mostly in connection with national population and housing censuses; other common censuses incl ...

until 1891, after which most were absorbed into the

County Borough of Bolton Bolton was, from 1838 to 1974, a local government district in the northwest of England conterminate with the town of Bolton. History Bolton was created a free Borough in 1253 when William de Ferrers, 5th Earl of Derby, granted a charter. However, ...

or became urban districts. Anglezarke and Rivington became part of the Chorley Rural District.

Anglican parish

The residual ecclesiastical parish exists, being east-central

town centre and a joined-on zone south-west.Bolton-le-Moors: St Peter (Parish Map)
Retrieved on 15 March 2009. It is one of the

Church of England The Church of England (C of E) is the State religion, established List of Christian denominations, Christian church in England and the mother church of the international Anglican Communion. It traces its history to the Christian church record ...

parishes in the Diocese of Manchester. The parish church is

and was rebuilt between 1866 and 1871. The Reverend Matthew Thompson served from 2008 to 2017.Parish Magazine: June 2008
. Retrieved on 15 March 2009.

Notable residents

Thomas Cole Thomas Cole was an English-born American artist and the founder of the Hudson River School art movement. Cole is widely regarded as the first significant American landscape painter. He was known for his romantic landscape and history paintin ...

(1801–1848), painter and the founder of the

Hudson River School The Hudson River School was a mid-19th century American art movement embodied by a group of landscape painters whose aesthetic vision was influenced by Romanticism. The paintings typically depict the Hudson River Valley and the surrounding are ...

. * John Moran (1830–1902), pioneer artistic photographer. *

Thomas Moran Thomas Moran (February 12, 1837 – August 25, 1926) was an American painter and printmaker of the Hudson River School in New York whose work often featured the Rocky Mountains. Moran and his family, wife Mary Nimmo Moran and daughter Ruth too ...

(1837–1926) painter and printmaker of the

Demography

References

{{Reflist History of Lancashire History of Bolton