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Ashton in Makerfield, or Ashton le Willows, Lancashire
Historical Description

Ashton-in-Makerfield, or Ashton-le-Willows, a village and a township in Lancashire. The village stands 2 1/2 miles NW of Newton-le-Willows station on the L. & N.W.R., and has a post, money order, and telegraph office of the name of Ashton-in-Makerfield) under Newton-le-Willows. The township has long been noted for the manufacture of hinges, locks, bolts, screws, files, and nails, and there are extensive collieries. It is governed by a local board. Acreage, 6250; population, 13,379. The parish includes part of the township of Hay-dock. Garswood is the seat of Lord Gerard, who is lord of the manor and principal landowner. There are two livings, or ecclesiastically two parishes, Holy Trinity and St Thomas, the former a rectory, the latter a vicarage in the diocese of Liverpool; net values, £367, with residence, and £250 respectively. Patron of Holy Trinity, the Earl of Derby; of St Thomas, the Rector of Ashton. Holy Trinity Church is near the hamlet of Downall-Green, North Ashton, where is a post and money order office under Wigan, and St Thomas' Church is in the village of Ashton. There are likewise a handsome Congregational chapel built in 1867, three other dissenting chapels, a Roman Catholic chapel, an endowed grammar school, founded in 1588, for which a handsome set of new buildings was erected in 1872 capable of accommodating 120 scholars, and several other schools.
(Transcribed from The Comprehensive Gazetteer of England and Wales, 1894-5)
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