Rawtenstall, Lancashire

Description
Rawtenstall, a town, a municipal borough, and an ecclesiastical parish in Bury and Whalley parishes, Lancashire. The town stands on the Manchester, Bury, and Bacup railway, 8 miles N by E of Bury, and 4 from Bacup. It was not long ago a secluded village, consists now of regular and well-built streets, is a seat of petty sessions and a polling-place, and has a railway station, and a post, money order, and telegraph office under Manchester. There are a church, Baptist, Unitarian, Wesleyan, Primitive and Free Methodist, and Roman Catholic chapels, and a cemetery, formed in 1877 and laid out anew in 1883. Two weekly newspapers are published. Rawtenstall was incorporated as a municipal borough in 1891, and includes Clough Fold, Crawshaw Booth, Lumb, Newchurch, Waterfoot, and a part of Tottington Higher End. It is divided into six wards, and is governed by a mayor, 6 aldermen, and 18 councillors. Population, 29,507. A fair is held on 21 June. The inhabitants are chiefly employed in the cotton and woollen manufactories and in stone quarries. The ecclesiastical parish of St Mary was constituted in 1841. Population, 9463. The living is a vicarage in the diocese of Manchester; net value, £306. The parish church of St Mary is in the Gothic style, and was erected in 1837; it consists of chancel, nave of five bays, S porch, and an embattled western tower (rebuilt in 1881) with a clock and eight bells. The church was enlarged in 1871, and partially restored and reseated in 1886-87. St John Clough Fold was formed into a separate ecclesiastical parish in 1887. Population, 3152. The living is a vicarage in the diocese of Manchester; net value, £195 with residence. The church, erected in 1890, is in the Gothic style, and consists of chancel, nave, transepts, aisles, and S porch. Lumb in Rossendale, Newchurch in Rossendale, and Waterfoot constitute separate ecclesiastical parishes.