Wray, Lancashire Family History Guide
Wray is an Ecclesiastical Parish in the county of Lancashire, created in 1842 from Melling (near Hornby) Ancient Parish.
Other places in the parish include: Botton.
Alternative names: Wray with Bolton, Wray with Botton
Parish church: Holy Trinity
Parish registers begin:
- Parish registers: 1877
- Bishop’s Transcripts: None
Nonconformists include: Society of Friends/Quaker and Wesleyan Methodist.
Table of Contents
Adjacent Parishes
Parish History
The Imperial Gazetteer of England & Wales 1870
WRAY, a village, a township, a chapelry, and a sub-district, in Lancaster district, Lancashire. The village stands 1 mile ESE of Hornby r. station, and 10 NE of Lancaster; and has a post-office under Lancaster, and cattle fairs on Shrove Tuesday and 30 April.
The township includes Botton hamlet, and comprises 6,506 acres. Real property, £4,072; of which £40 are in mines. Pop., 797. Houses, 154. The property is subdivided.
The chapelry was constituted in 1842; and is in Melling parish. Pop., 878. Houses, 168. The living is a vicarage in the diocese of Manchester. Value, £60. Patrons, Trustees. The church was built in 1840.
There are two Methodist chapels, a free school, and a subscription library.
The sub-district contains six townships of Melling parish, and all Tatham. Acres, 28,953. Pop., 2,270. Houses, 447.
Source: The Imperial Gazetteer of England & Wales [Wilson, John M]. A. Fullarton & Co. N. d. c. [1870-72].
A Topographical Dictionary of England 1848
WRAY, with Botton, a township, and an ecclesiastical district, in the parish of Melling, hundred of Lonsdale south of the Sands, N. division of Lancashire, 10 miles (N. E. by E.) from Lancaster, on the road to Settle; containing 718 inhabitants.
In the reign of Edward I., Geoffrey de Neville had a grant of free warren here. The Pooleys of Wray, and the Tunstalls of Botton, ancient and reputable families connected with the township, no longer exist.
The township comprises 3760a. 3r. 33p. of inclosed land, and about 2000 acres uninclosed; the surface is undulated, the soil clay in the higher parts, and alluvial in the lower, and the scenery picturesque: most of the land is good pasture and meadow. A bed of coal, eighteen inches thick, runs through the higher portion of the township; and there are two excellent flagstone-quarries.
Wray is the most populous village in the parish, and Botton one of the highest and most remote situations in the county. The Roe-burn partly propels a silk-mill, and uniting with the Hind-burn, forms the Wray beck, a tributary of the Wenning, which last river enters the Lune below Hornby. The North-Western railway into Yorkshire is distant only about half a mile.
The church, dedicated to the Holy Trinity, was built in 1839, on a site given by the Rev. W. E. Hoskins, of Margate; it is in the early English style, and cost £700. The living is a perpetual curacy, in the patronage of Five Trustees; net income, £90, with a house built in 1846.
The Society of Friends and the Wesleyans have places of worship. Richard Pooley, in 1685, bequeathed £20 for the erection of a school, and £200 to purchase land for its support; the income is about £35, which sum, with about £4 per annum arising from a bequest by Mary Thompson in 1803, is applied in aid of a parochial school.
Source: A Topographical Dictionary of England by Samuel Lewis 1848
Parish Records
FamilySearch
Use for:
England, Lancashire, Botton
Administration
- County: Lancashire
- Civil Registration District: Lancaster
- Probate Court: Court of the Bishop (Consistory) of the Commissary of the Archdeaconry of Richmond Western Deaneries – Lonsdale
- Diocese: Manchester
- Rural Deanery: Tunstall
- Poor Law Union: Caton Gilbert Union
- Hundred: Lonsdale
- Province: York