England & Wales Hardwicke Marriage Index
Marriages 1754 - 1837
Leyland St Andrew

The Parish

The parish of Leyland lies in central Lancashire centred upon the town of Leyland but including a wide area of surrounding rural and semi-rual land. Leyland is located around 6 miles south of the large industrial town of Preston and sits just west of the A49 road which connects Preston with Wigan. As a large and extensive parish Leyland parish included 3 chapelries, Euxton, Heapey and Hoghton, the last being licensed for marriages from 1781 and carrying its own page within this project. At the time of this transcript Leyland would have been a middle-sized town with a population of close to 3,000 folk surrounded by a heavily populated rural agricultural landscape. The economy of the wider parish dominated by pastoral farming whilst Leylane provided the specialist services and market to its hinterland. With the coning of the industrial revolution and into modern times Leyland has grown into a substantial urban area with large townships of Clayton le Woods and Whittle le Woods the urban area stretches for almost 3 miles from west to east. The area is thick with modern developments, the first notable change was the construction of the Leeds - Liverpool Canal which cut through the south of the parish. The railway age saw the main West Coast rail line from London to Glasgow pass through with Leyland acquiring a station on that line. Most modern is the M6 motorway which squeezes between Leyland and its subsidiary towns on its way from London to Carlisle. Leyland is, of course, synonymous with the car plants that carry its name now sadly smaller than in the mid 20th century. Leyland is drained southwestwards by the River Lostock which soon meets the heavily man-influenced River Asland and in turn the outer Ribble estuary before meeting the Irish Sea. Leyland is sited at between 20 and 50 metres with the western suburbs being lower, it is around 40 metres by the church, land rises steadily to the east of Clayton & Whittle le Woods onto the western Pennines quickly rising to 300 metres on Wheelton Moor. The wider parish of Leyland was extensive, as are many in Lancashire, covering close to 18,000 acres the wider parish would have supported a population of around 14,000 parishioners albeit it was much lower at the start of this transcription period. In Domesday times Leyland barely merits a mention, it being almost a frontier settlement at that time for the Normans, held by Roger de Poitou its assets were barely listed at all recording only a small patch of woodland.

The Church

St Andrew's church sits on the southern side of the B5248 road, which crosses through the oldest parts of Leyland on an east to west course and is here named Church Road. The church has fabric from 3 distinct eras of church building, the 13th, 15th and 19th centuries and not, as one might suspect, from one end through to the other. The eastern end and the chancel are the oldest portion of the church, 13th century and showing the Early English Gothic style of that century. The nect phase is actually the western tower, a tall Perpendicular edifice of the early 15th century. In between stands the nave, completely rebuilt between 1816 & 1817 and built slightly lower than its predecessor as can be sign by the scar of the former roof-line on on the tower. Internally the nave has three galleries separated by thin iron columns. Traces of a Norman predecessor church were found in mid-Victorian times during excavations but nothing of that Norman Romanesque style survives in today's church. There is no parking allowed in the immediate vicinity so the church is best approached on foot, it sits elevated above pavement level and banked by a head-height sandstone wall. A sloping path rises through steps from the west to a sandstone archway marking the churchyard, the churchyard is rather narrow on its north/south axis making for a tricky subject to adequately capture in landscape format.