Horwich

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HORWICH, a town, a parochial chapelry, and a subdistrict in Bolton district, Lancashire. The town stands 1 mile N of a station on the Bolton and Preston railway, and 5 WNW of Bolton. The railway station serves for it and for Blackrod, and has a telegraph. The town occupies the site of a Roman settlement; was a seat of cotton manufacture so early as the time of Henry VIII.; carries on now cotton spinning, bleaching, and dyeing; also conducts trade in connection with stone quarries, fire brick, tile, and terracotta works in the chapelry, and with collieries there and in the neighbourhood; and has a post office? under Bolton, a church, three dissenting chapels, a national school, and charities £392. The church was rebuilt in 1831, at a cost of £6, 000; is in the pointed style; comprises nave and two aisles, with lofty tower; and contains a monument, by Westmacott, to Joseph Ridgway, Esq. Two of the dissenting chapels are for Independents; and one of these is a large and handsome edifice of 1855. The national school is a spacious structure of 1832. The chapelry contains also the village of Wilderswood, and is in the parish of Dean. Acres, 3, 230. Real property, £15, 880; of which £170 are in mines, and £82 in quarries. Pop., 3, 471. Houses, 682. The Stoner family and the Rev. Henry Wright are the chief landowners. The reservoir of the Liverpool water works, a large sheet of water, is in the W. The living is a vicarage in the diocese of Manchester. Value, £334. * Patron, the Vicar of Dean. The sub-district contains also a township of Bolton-le-Moors. Acres, 4, 656. Pop., 4, 051. Houses, 803.

John Marius Wilson, Imperial Gazetteer of England and Wales (1870-72)