Where did it all begin?
If you look at many villages they are built to a set pattern. Our neighbour, Churchtown is built around its Church, Wrea Green is built around a wide open space - the Green. Even St Michaels has a set pattern being Medieval but built around its Church and main road. Other villages like Lees, near Oldham are built around a distinct area known as The Square, bounded by the Police Station, Church and a farm. Some are built around the Big House. But what of Great Eccleston?
to find out about why the Square is like it is click below.
The layout of the village is Medieval and is built along the main turnpike road, West End and the High St, formed this road but Raikes Road was a dirt track in fact Raikes means path. So what of the bulge? If you vlick on th 'The area known as the Square' I will explain it.
The earliest origins
Great Eccleston is certainly an ancient village and probably had people living here for many thousands of years. Flint arrow heads and scrapers were found some years ago around Copp. However the true village was created before Domesday.
Great Eccleston is an ancient village and existed long before Domesday, the earliest known written information about the village is around1066. At this time the village was a large village, much larger than surrounding villages therefore it was included in Domesday. If you search Domesday then you will find that it is in Yorkshire as Lancashire did not exist.
At that time Great Eccleston was part of the ancient hundred of Amounderness and was owned by Tostig Godwinson, the brother of King Harold II. As this is documented and the fact it is included in Domesday it must have existed before this time.
In 1069 in the tax rolls the size of the village was two carucates (ploughshares) The carucate was a medieval unit of land area approximating the land a plough team of eight oxen could till in a single annual season. However the village recorded no households. This is strange as there was a village. The village Lord of the Manor was Earl Tostig in 1066, with the landowner being William the Conqueror. However in 1066 as Tostig had been killed at the Battle of Stamford Bridge and his lands were subsequently taken over by the Normans.
Between 1069 and 1086 William the Conqueror gave Amounderness to Roger de Poitou, an Anglo-Norman baron.
Below is the 1059 map of the area. Great Eccleston at this point does niot appear to exist, but it may have done. Only towns and villages with churches are noted on the map.
Just outside the village about half a mile from the 'square' on the southern side is Copp. The Old English name of Copp means summit ie land on the top of a hill. Copp is a cluster of farms and houses on the summit of a small hill. In ancient times this was known as the Island of Coppe.
The Island of Coppe
As Amounderness was a marshy area it would flood occasionally. Copp was an area of higher land that would have sat dry for the season, hence the term Island.
Domesday
in 1066 Lancashire did not exist as a county therefore Domesday places the village in yorkshire and lists it as: Eglestun. The village was recorded as having 0 households.
As you can see from this copy of the listing it also lists two other names for the village.
There is a lot of debate about the name Eccleston. One account is that the land was orginally owned by Egil who was a Norse landowner. Many believe that it meant Church land but as mentioned previously there were no churches in the village up to at least 1664. I doubt it was church land for this reason and the fact that it was called Egilstun in 1086, the land of Egil. However at the time of Domesday it was recorded to have had three chapels.
Population in 1600s
There were 42 houses in the village in 1664.
Victorian Village
In 1871, John Marius Wilson's Imperial Gazetteer of England and Wales described Great Eccleston like this:
ECCLESTON (Great), a township in St. Michael-on-Wyre parish, Lancashire; on the river Wyre, 5½ miles SW of Garstang. It has a post office under Garstang. Acres, 1, 412. Real property, £3, 637. Pop., 641. Houses, 141. There are chapels for Wesleyans and Roman Catholics.
Notice the omission of St Anne's at Copp. Copp at this time was not part of the village.
In 1887 it had a population of 628 - so a large village even then. In the 2011 census the population of the village was 1473, in 2024 this had risen to 1657 inhabitants. with new houses planned this could rise even further in the next few years.
This shows the 1856 Map of the area. Many of the names will be familiar to you.
