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Ulverston

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ULVERSTON - popularly Ooston - a town, a township, a parish, a sub-district, and a district, in Lancashire. The town stands on the Furness railway, near the influx of the river Leven to Morecambe bay, 5 miles NE of Dalton-in-Furness; belonged to the Saxon magnate Ulph or Ulpha; was given, by King Stephen, to Furness abbey; superseded Dalton, after the dissolution of monasteries, as practically the capital of Furness; is now a seat of petty sessions and county courts, and a polling place; publishes two weekly newspapers; carries on brewing, iron-founding, the manufacture of linens, checks, ginghams, and wood-hoops, and a considerable coasting trade; presents a modern, well built, cleanly appearance, with streets branching from a market place; and has a head post-office, a r. station with telegraph, two banking offices, two hotels, a court-house, a police station, a concert-hall built in 1850, a temperance hall, an iron market-cross of 1821, a parochial church restored in 1864, another church built in 1832, three dissenting chapels, a Roman Catholic chapel, a subscription library, a people's library, an endowed school with £31 a year, two proprietary schools, a national school, a workhouse, charities £56, a weekly market on Thursday, five annual fairs, and races or flan-sports in Aug. Pop. in 1851, 6,433; in 1861, 6,630. Houses, 1,348. more ...

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

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Archives & Libraries

Local studies information is held at Cumbria Record Office, Barrow.

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Census

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Civil Registration

The Register Office covering the Ulverston area is Ulverston.

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Description & Travel

You can see pictures of Ulverston which are provided by:

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Directories

Ulverston parish from Mannix & Co., History, Topography and Directory of Westmorland, 1851.

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Gazetteers

The National Gazetteer of Great Britain and Ireland - 1868

"ULVERSTON, a parish in the hundred of Lonsdale North of the Sands, in the county palatine of Lancaster; an extensive parish which comprises the town and hamlets of Ulverston, which may be termed the capital of Low Furness, and contains the parish church and the district church of Holy Trinity, and the chapelries or churches of Egton-cum-Newlands, Lowick, Blewith, Torver, and Coniston; also the townships of Osmotherly, abutting on the town, Mansriggs at a short distance, and Satterthwaite a little further from it. The parish is a very large one, extending from Coniston on the N. to that of Urswick on the S., measuring in its length about 17 miles. It is bounded on the E. by the beautiful shores of Coniston lake and the river Crake flowing out of it as far as the sands at Greenodd, a small port on the estuary; westward by the parishes of Pennington and Urswick. It is said to have derived its name from Ulpha, a Saxon lord, and in old records is written Olvestona. In 1127 it was conferred on the powerful abbey of Furness, in the neighbourhood, by Stephen, afterwards King of England. From the monastery it came into the possession of Gilbert, who had succeeded to the barony of Kendal. The whole parish contains a population of 11,440 souls, of which 7,392 live within the limits of the town and hamlets. It is one of the numerous polling places for the election of members of parliament in North Lancashire. Petty sessions are held here weekly every Thursday. In 1795 a canal was constructed by Rennie, in communication with the tidal waters flowing into the bay, but the railways N. and S. have rendered this in a great measure useless, more especially since the opening of Barrow as a large seaport. The parish church is dedicated to St. Mary the Virgin, and a district one to the Holy Trinity.

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Historical Geography

In 1835 the parish of Ulverston contained the townships of Ulverston, Church Coniston, Torver, Blawith, Subberthwaite, Lowick, Egton cum Newland, Mansriggs and Osmotherley.

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History

The history of Ulverston as described in Mannex's directory of Furness and Cartmel, 1882.

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Maps

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View maps of Ulverston and places within its boundaries.

View a map of the boundaries of this town/parish.

You can see maps centred on OS grid reference SD293778 (Lat/Lon: 54.191101, -3.085259), Ulverston which are provided by:

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Poor Houses, Poor Law

The Workhouse site has an interesting description of Ulverston workhouse.

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Probate Records

For probate purposes prior to 1858, Ulverston was in the Archdeaconry of Richmond, in the Diocese of Chester. The original Lancashire wills for the Archdeaconry of Richmond are held at the Lancashire Record Office.

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Societies

The Ulverston Heritage Centre is a charitable organisation, dedicated to the preservation, restoration and public use of a wide range of artefacts, documents and pictures.

You can also see Family History Societies covering the nearby area, plotted on a map. This facility is being developed, and is awaiting societies to enter information about the places they cover.