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Eccles, Greater Manchester
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Eccles, Greater Manchester
Eccles (/ˈɛkəlz/) is a market town in the City of Salford in Greater Manchester, England, 3 miles (4.8 km) west of Salford and 4 miles (6.4 km) west of Manchester, split by the M602 motorway and bordered by the Manchester Ship Canal to the south. The town is famous for the Eccles cake.
Eccles grew around the 13th-century Parish Church of St Mary. Evidence of pre-historic human settlement has been discovered locally, but the area was predominantly agricultural until the Industrial Revolution, when a textile industry was established in the town. The arrival of the Liverpool and Manchester Railway led to the town's expansion along the route of the track linking those two cities.
The derivation of the name is uncertain, but two suggestions have been proposed. The received one is that the Eccles place-name is derived from the Romano-British Ecles or Eglys (eglwys in Welsh means 'church'), which in turn is derived from the Ancient Greek ecclesia via the Latin. Following the arrival in AD 613 of the invading Anglo-Saxons in Lancashire, many existing British place-names, especially rivers and hills (the River Irwell for example), survived intact. The root Ecles, found in several village names, could be an example of this. So, the suggestion is that the word denoted the site of a building, or a ruin featuring the landscape, which was recognised by the Anglo-Saxons as a church. Eccles would then have been a village founded around one such, and so Ecles may be the likely source of the modern name. In Kenyon's Origins of Lancashire (1991), however, the author casts doubt on the further suggestion that native British Church administration survived into Anglo-Saxon times, as there is not an exact correlation between Eccles place-names and pre-Domesday hundreds in south Lancashire.
An alternative etymology is derived from that known to belong to Eccles in Kent, recorded as "Aiglessa" in the Domesday Book of 1086 and so conclusively deriving from the Old English (pre 7th century) æc-læas meaning 'oak pasture'.
Pre-historic finds in the parish of Eccles include dugout boats found at Barton upon Irwell, an arrowhead, a spear and axes at Winton, which taken together appear to suggest the existence of a hunting and travelling society. Human habitation in the area may extend as far back as 6000 BC, with two separate periods of settlement on Chat Moss, the first around 500 BC and the second during the Romano-British period.
The village may have been founded by refugees from Manchester (Mamucium) during the Diocletianic Persecution in the early 4th century, although excavations in 2001–2005 revealed that the civilian settlement at Manchester had probably been abandoned by the mid-3rd century. Throughout the Dark Ages the parish appears to have been remote enough to be untouched by any local conflicts, while absorbing successive waves of immigrants from nearby towns.
The Manor of Barton upon Irwell once covered a large area; in 1276 it included townships such as Asphull, Halghton, Halliwelle, Farnword, Eccles, Workedele, Withington (latterly Winton), Irwelham, Hulm, Quicklewicke, Suynhul and Swinton. Before this date it would appear to have been even larger, but by 1320 the manor boundaries were described as "Tordhale Siche descending to Caldebroc, then to the pit near Preste Platteforde and then to another pit, then to the ditch of Roger the Clerk, then to the hedge of Richard the Rimeur, then following the hedge to Caldebroc." The manor was originally controlled by the Barton family until about 1292 when by marriage it came into the ownership of the Booth family, who retained it for almost 300 years. In 1586 the Trafford family assumed control of the manor, and established themselves in 1632 at Whittleswick, which was renamed Trafford Park.
The parish of Eccles contained the townships of Barton upon Irwell, Clifton, Pendlebury, Pendleton and Worsley. Toward the end of the Middle Ages the parish had an estimated population of about 4,000 Communicants. Agriculture remained an important local industry, with little change from the Medieval system due to a lack of adequate drainage and fertiliser. No evidence exists to demonstrate the layout of the area, but it would likely have been the same as the surrounding areas of Salford, Urmston and Warrington where oats and barley would have been grown. Local cottage industries included blacksmiths, butchers, thatching, basket weaving, skinning and tanning. Weaving was popular, using linen and wool;merchants traded in corn; badgers bought and sold local produce.
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Eccles, Greater Manchester
Eccles (/ˈɛkəlz/) is a market town in the City of Salford in Greater Manchester, England, 3 miles (4.8 km) west of Salford and 4 miles (6.4 km) west of Manchester, split by the M602 motorway and bordered by the Manchester Ship Canal to the south. The town is famous for the Eccles cake.
Eccles grew around the 13th-century Parish Church of St Mary. Evidence of pre-historic human settlement has been discovered locally, but the area was predominantly agricultural until the Industrial Revolution, when a textile industry was established in the town. The arrival of the Liverpool and Manchester Railway led to the town's expansion along the route of the track linking those two cities.
The derivation of the name is uncertain, but two suggestions have been proposed. The received one is that the Eccles place-name is derived from the Romano-British Ecles or Eglys (eglwys in Welsh means 'church'), which in turn is derived from the Ancient Greek ecclesia via the Latin. Following the arrival in AD 613 of the invading Anglo-Saxons in Lancashire, many existing British place-names, especially rivers and hills (the River Irwell for example), survived intact. The root Ecles, found in several village names, could be an example of this. So, the suggestion is that the word denoted the site of a building, or a ruin featuring the landscape, which was recognised by the Anglo-Saxons as a church. Eccles would then have been a village founded around one such, and so Ecles may be the likely source of the modern name. In Kenyon's Origins of Lancashire (1991), however, the author casts doubt on the further suggestion that native British Church administration survived into Anglo-Saxon times, as there is not an exact correlation between Eccles place-names and pre-Domesday hundreds in south Lancashire.
An alternative etymology is derived from that known to belong to Eccles in Kent, recorded as "Aiglessa" in the Domesday Book of 1086 and so conclusively deriving from the Old English (pre 7th century) æc-læas meaning 'oak pasture'.
Pre-historic finds in the parish of Eccles include dugout boats found at Barton upon Irwell, an arrowhead, a spear and axes at Winton, which taken together appear to suggest the existence of a hunting and travelling society. Human habitation in the area may extend as far back as 6000 BC, with two separate periods of settlement on Chat Moss, the first around 500 BC and the second during the Romano-British period.
The village may have been founded by refugees from Manchester (Mamucium) during the Diocletianic Persecution in the early 4th century, although excavations in 2001–2005 revealed that the civilian settlement at Manchester had probably been abandoned by the mid-3rd century. Throughout the Dark Ages the parish appears to have been remote enough to be untouched by any local conflicts, while absorbing successive waves of immigrants from nearby towns.
The Manor of Barton upon Irwell once covered a large area; in 1276 it included townships such as Asphull, Halghton, Halliwelle, Farnword, Eccles, Workedele, Withington (latterly Winton), Irwelham, Hulm, Quicklewicke, Suynhul and Swinton. Before this date it would appear to have been even larger, but by 1320 the manor boundaries were described as "Tordhale Siche descending to Caldebroc, then to the pit near Preste Platteforde and then to another pit, then to the ditch of Roger the Clerk, then to the hedge of Richard the Rimeur, then following the hedge to Caldebroc." The manor was originally controlled by the Barton family until about 1292 when by marriage it came into the ownership of the Booth family, who retained it for almost 300 years. In 1586 the Trafford family assumed control of the manor, and established themselves in 1632 at Whittleswick, which was renamed Trafford Park.
The parish of Eccles contained the townships of Barton upon Irwell, Clifton, Pendlebury, Pendleton and Worsley. Toward the end of the Middle Ages the parish had an estimated population of about 4,000 Communicants. Agriculture remained an important local industry, with little change from the Medieval system due to a lack of adequate drainage and fertiliser. No evidence exists to demonstrate the layout of the area, but it would likely have been the same as the surrounding areas of Salford, Urmston and Warrington where oats and barley would have been grown. Local cottage industries included blacksmiths, butchers, thatching, basket weaving, skinning and tanning. Weaving was popular, using linen and wool;merchants traded in corn; badgers bought and sold local produce.
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