Rainford

Rainford is a village and civil parish in the Metropolitan Borough of St Helens, Merseyside, England, 5 miles (8.0 km) north of St Helens. At the 2011 Census, the population was 7,779.

Within the boundaries of the historic county of Lancashire, the earliest record of the village was in 1189.

Rainford is well known for its industrial past when it was a major manufacturer of clay smoking pipes. The nearby coal mines became worked out and closed before the Second World War.

Until the mid-1960s, it was also a location for sand excavation, for use in the glass factories of St Helens.

The Rookery is a large 17th-century manor house which was formerly a school and workhouse.

Rainford lies on a fertile agricultural plain and is effectively an urban island surrounded by large scale farming, mainly arable, but with some livestock herds.

The village consists of two main sections – the main body of the village, centred on the parish church; and Rainford Junction, a smaller settlement which has grown up around Rainford railway station. The two parts of the village are separated by a band of farmland, although they come close to meeting at the village's north-western end.

There are three smaller villages which are near to Rainford – King's Moss to the east, Crawford to the north-east and Crank to the south-east.