Horwich, Lancashire

Description
Horwich, a growing town, a township, and an ecclesiastical parish in the civil parish of Deane, Lancashire. The town stands 5 miles WNW of Bolton, and 15 NW of Manchester, and has a station on the L. & Y.R. It 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. There are stone quarries, fire-brick, tile, and terra-cotta works, and collieries in the township and neighbourhood. A large number of hands are employed in the extensive locomotive works of the L. & Y.E. here. It has a post, money order, and telegraph office under Bolton, a church, Congregational, Wesleyan, Independent Methodist, and Baptist chapels, a mission school church erected in 1889, and a Roman Catholic chapel. There are also Liberal and Conservative clubs, erected in 1886 and 1887, a public hall erected in 1878, a county police station, four banks, and a weekly newspaper is published. The mechanics' institute, erected in 1887 by the L. & Y.R. for the use of their employees, is a fine building comprising a large lecture-hall, a library, fine reading-room, and various class-rooms. It is well lighted, and has a good supply of water. The church was rebuilt in 1831 at a cost of £6000, is in the Pointed style, comprises nave and two aisles, with lofty tower, and contains a monument by West-macott to Joseph Ridgway, Esq. The ecclesiastical parish contains also the village of Wilderswood. Acreage of township, 3254; population, 12, 850. A reservoir of the Liverpool Waterworks, a large sheet of water, is in the W. The living is a vicarage in the diocese of Manchester; gross value, £350 with residence. Patron, the Vicar of Deane. Since 1872 the township has been governed by a local board of twelve members.