The historic parish of Bircle, near Bury,

England England is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. It shares land borders with Wales to its west and Scotland to its north. The Irish Sea lies northwest and the Celtic Sea to the southwest. It is separated from continental Europe ...

, was created on 1 July 1846, although the village of Bircle (nowadays known as Birtle) pre-dates this by many centuries. It is believed that 'Bircle' is a shortening of the phrase 'Birch Hill', as it was suggested that there were birch trees in the parish. Names such as "Cleggs Wood", "Simpson Clough" and "Dobb Wood" appear on early

Ordnance Survey Ordnance Survey (OS) is the national mapping agency for Great Britain. The agency's name indicates its original military purpose (see ordnance and surveying), which was to map Scotland in the wake of the Jacobite rising of 1745. There was ...

maps. "Hill' did appear in the fourteenth century in the name of 'Birkhill' but it never found a permanent place. Over a period of time its name has also appeared as Brithull, 1243; Birlcil, 1246; Birkhill, 1334, 1573; but Bircle appears in the Diocese of Manchester directory in England. Bircle

Church Church may refer to: Religion * Church (building), a building for Christian religious activities * Church (congregation), a local congregation of a Christian denomination * Church service, a formalized period of Christian communal worship * Ch ...

is on Castle Hill Road.

Parish

Vicars of the parish

*Thomas Wilson 1846–1891 *Charles Renshaw 1891–1920 *R P Trend-Smith 1920–1935 *J W Maddison 1936–1957 *R H Pickering 1958–1962 *Arthur J Dobb 1962–1972 *David Harrison 1972–1983 *Marcus Maxwell 1984–1993 *Arthur Ross Brockbank 1993–2012 *Gordon Joyce 2012–2019 *Harvie Nicol 2019-

The church

The church of

St John the Baptist John the Baptist or , , or , ;Wetterau, Bruce. ''World history''. New York: Henry Holt and Company. 1994. syc, ܝܘܿܚܲܢܵܢ ܡܲܥܡܕ݂ܵܢܵܐ, Yoḥanān Maʿmḏānā; he, יוחנן המטביל, Yohanān HaMatbil; la, Ioannes Bapti ...

, also known as Bircle Church, is a listed building for its special architectural or historic interest. The church was designed by architect George Shaw and was first dedicated in 1846. It is a small church and is a relatively early example of ecclesiologically correct

Gothic Gothic or Gothics may refer to: People and languages *Goths or Gothic people, the ethnonym of a group of East Germanic tribes **Gothic language, an extinct East Germanic language spoken by the Goths **Crimean Gothic, the Gothic language spoken b ...

rock-faced

ashlar Ashlar () is finely dressed (cut, worked) stone, either an individual stone that has been worked until squared, or a structure built from such stones. Ashlar is the finest stone masonry unit, generally rectangular cuboid, mentioned by Vitr ...

with ashlar dressings and slate roofs with stone-coped gables. The nave and chancel both have hammer beam roofs rising from stone

corbels In architecture, a corbel is a structural piece of stone, wood or metal jutting from a wall to carry a superincumbent weight, a type of bracket. A corbel is a solid piece of material in the wall, whereas a console is a piece applied to the st ...

. Carved

angels In various theistic religious traditions an angel is a supernatural spiritual being who serves God. Abrahamic religions often depict angels as benevolent celestial intermediaries between God (or Heaven) and humanity. Other roles include ...

holding shields are on the ends of the hammer beams. There are four stained glass windows in the nave. These were given in memory of loved ones. They depict

Ruth Ruth (or its variants) may refer to: Places France * Château de Ruthie, castle in the commune of Aussurucq in the Pyrénées-Atlantiques département of France Switzerland * Ruth, a hamlet in Cologny United States * Ruth, Alabama * Ruth, Ar ...

St Peter ) (Simeon, Simon) , birth_date = , birth_place = Bethsaida, Gaulanitis, Syria, Roman Empire , death_date = Between AD 64–68 , death_place = probably Vatican Hill, Rome, Italia, Roman Empire , parents = John (or Jonah; Jona) , occupati ...

St Paul Paul; grc, Παῦλος, translit=Paulos; cop, ⲡⲁⲩⲗⲟⲥ; hbo, פאולוס השליח (previously called Saul of Tarsus;; ar, بولس الطرسوسي; grc, Σαῦλος Ταρσεύς, Saũlos Tarseús; tr, Tarsuslu Pavlus; ...

and

Mary Mary may refer to: People * Mary (name), a feminine given name (includes a list of people with the name) Religious contexts * New Testament people named Mary, overview article linking to many of those below * Mary, mother of Jesus, also call ...

, the mother of

Jesus Jesus, likely from he, יֵשׁוּעַ, translit=Yēšūaʿ, label=Hebrew/Aramaic ( AD 30 or 33), also referred to as Jesus Christ or Jesus of Nazareth (among other names and titles), was a first-century Jewish preacher and religiou ...

. On the wooded ceiling are carved angel figures. Long:-2.260 Lat:53.607

The Workhouse

In 1852, plans were made for a workhouse to accommodate 400 inmates, with a separate 60-bed hospital in Jericho. Jericho Workhouse, also known as the Bury Union Workhouse, was opened on 21 January 1857, and a year later the total expenditure for the scheme had swollen to £20,481. Inmates came from as far away as Spain. In the 1881 census a 64-year-old named Susannah Allport, a Bonnet Maker (Milliner) from

Salamanca Salamanca () is a city in western Spain and is the capital of the Province of Salamanca in the autonomous community of Castile and León. The city lies on several rolling hills by the Tormes River. Its Old City was declared a UNESCO World Her ...

was in residence. Today it is the site of Fairfield General Hospital.

Historical timeline of Bury Workhouse

The Road to Jericho 1775- A workhouse was built on Manchester Road,

Redvales Redvales is a residential district to the south of Bury town centre in Greater Manchester in the United Kingdom. The population of the Bury Ward at the 2011 census was 11,483. Roughly-speaking, the area occupies the area from Manchester Road to ...

, Bury. 1825 - Bury Select Vestry recommended that the town needed to build a new workhouse or improve the existing one. 1827 - The Vestry decided to extend the existing Bury workhouse. 1837 - The Poor Law Union was formally declared on 8 February 1850 - The Bury Board of Guardians were refused an extension on the lease of land for the workhouses 1852 - The Bury Board of Guardians gave notice that they were prepared to receive plans and specifications for a new Union workhouse capable of support 400 inmates with suitable outbuildings, yards and conveniences. 1853 - The Vaccination Act introduced compulsory vaccination against smallpox. It required that every child, health permitting should be vaccinated within 3 months, or in the case of orphans, 4 months of birth. 1855 - Work began on the new Bury Union workhouse at Jericho, almost two miles east of Bury on Rochdale Old Road. 1857 - The Bury Union workhouse opened on 21 January. The total cost of building and land was £21,418. 1858 - The Bury Union workhouse was consecrated by the Bishop of Manchester on 26 July 1862 - Additions were made to the Bury Union workhouse providing separate infant accommodation. 1867 - The poor law guardians were to control vaccination districts and pay vaccinator from 1 - 3 shillings per child vaccinated in the district. 1868 - Additions were made to the Bury Union Workhouse to provide separate accommodation for the 'insane'. 1877 - On 9 June the foundation stone for a new 32 bed infectious diseases hospital at Jericho site was made by Alderman John Duckworth, chairman of the Bury Board of Guardians. There was also to be a nurses' home and mortuary. 1878 - The infectious diseases unit was opened on 24 August 1903-1905 - A new 126 bed infirmary with a maternity ward and staff accommodation was erected on the Jericho site. The site was officially opened on 20 September 1905. 1904 - The Registrar General requested that the workhouse births were to be disguised by the use of postal addresses. Birth certificates for those born in the Bury Union workhouse gave the address 380 Rochdale Old Road, Bury and did not name the workhouse. 1911 - Bury Union workhouse added an annexe to house male inmates. 1929 - Bury Union workhouse was renamed Jericho Institution. 1946 - The last burial took place at the Jericho Institution cemetery. 1948 - The Jericho Institution became part of the NHS and was renamed Fairfield General Hospital.

Cheesden Valley

The Cheesden Valley runs on a north-south alignment between Bury and

Rochdale Rochdale ( ) is a large town in Greater Manchester, England, at the foothills of the South Pennines in the dale on the River Roch, northwest of Oldham and northeast of Manchester. It is the administrative centre of the Metropolitan Borough ...

. Cheesden Brook runs through the valley, joining with Naden Brook to eventually run into the

River Roch The River Roch is a river in Greater Manchester in North West England, a tributary of the River Irwell. Course Rising on Chelburn Moor (south of Todmorden in the Pennines), the river flows south through Littleborough towards Rochdale where ...

near Heywood. During the industrial age, the valley became a centre of

cotton Cotton is a soft, fluffy staple fiber that grows in a boll, or protective case, around the seeds of the cotton plants of the genus '' Gossypium'' in the mallow family Malvaceae. The fiber is almost pure cellulose, and can contain minor p ...

production, dependent on running water. The valley is now slowly but surely reclaiming the once busy mills and returning them to nature. Th
Lost Mills
can be seen from the air as they slowly and inexorably decay. It encompasses Deeply Vale, Bircle Dene and Ashworth Valley.

Mining

As early as 1580,

Queen Elizabeth I Elizabeth I (7 September 153324 March 1603) was Queen of England and Ireland from 17 November 1558 until her death in 1603. Elizabeth was the last of the five House of Tudor monarchs and is sometimes referred to as the "Virgin Queen". Eli ...

granted John Blackwall the right to mine coal in the Cheesden Valley. In addition, it is believed that during the 17th century, small communities – "folds" – could have had their own mines.

Pre-Industrial History

There are signs of human activity dating from about 8000 BC. Flints from the

Mesolithic The Mesolithic (Greek: μέσος, ''mesos'' 'middle' + λίθος, ''lithos'' 'stone') or Middle Stone Age is the Old World archaeological period between the Upper Paleolithic and the Neolithic. The term Epipaleolithic is often used synonymo ...

period have been found in the Cheesden Valley and Knowl Moor areas. All were discovered on high ground close to a water source, and all are quite small and suitable for use as arrowheads and similar objects.

References

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BBC Domesday Reloaded BBC Domesday Reloaded was a local history web site for the digitised content of the BBC's 1986 Domesday Project. It was launched in May 2011 and included some updates contributed by users during 2011. During the site's first day of public opera ...

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