Lydiate, Lancashire

Description
Lydiate, a village, a township, and an ecclesiastical parish in Halsall parish, Lancashire. The village stands near the Leeds and Liverpool Canal, 4 1/2 miles SW of Ormskirk. It has a station on the Cheshire Lines Committee railway and a post, money order, and telegraph office under Liverpool. Acreage of township, 1995 ; population, 1079. The manor belongs to the Blundell family. Lydiate Hall, an ancient timbered mansion, the residence of the Irelands, is now a farmhouse only partly occupied. Lydiate Abbey was in the course of erection at the Reformation, was left uncompleted at the dissolution, and is now a fine ivy-clad ruin including S wall and castellatad tower. The ecclesiastical parish was constituted in 1871. Population, 1546. The living is a vicarage in the diocese of Liverpool; gross value, £261 with residence. Patron, the Sector of Halsall. The church was built in 1841, is in the Perpendicular style, and comprises nave and chancel, with a pinnacled tower. A burial ground was presented in 1886, and has since been enlarged. A Roman Catholic church was built in 1853, and consists of nave, three aisles, and chancel, with embattled western tower and spire. A high altar of marble and stone was erected in 1878 and a presbytery in 1880.