Description
Deane, a village and an ecclesiastical parish in Lancashire. The village stands near the Bolton and Kenyon railway, 1 1/2 mile W of Bolton, under which it has a post office; money order and telegraph office, Daubhill (T.S.O.) Population, 6523. A large part of the population is employed in cotton factories, bleachfields, and coal mines. The living is a vicarage in the diocese of Manchester; net value, £400 with residence. Patron, Simeon's trustees. The church is Early English and Perpendicular, and has a western tower with four pinnacles. The Bolton and County of Lancaster Certified Industrial School, for the maintenance and education of 250 boys, is in Rumworth township. Marsh the martyr of 1555 was a native and curate. The original parish of Deane extended over 90 square miles, and included the townships of Kearsley, Famworth, Little Hulton, Middle Hulton, Over Hulton, Eumworth, Wingates, Westoughten, Horwich, Halliwell, and Heaton.
Parish Church
THE Parish of Deane, originally the northern half of the Parish of Eccles,* takes its name from the dean or narrow wooded valley, on the edge of which the Church stands. The Church of St. Mary is picturesquely situated on high ground above a small stream, and consists of a Chancel, Nave, North and South Aisles, South Porch and West Tower. With the exception of the Tower, the building belongs to different periods of the 15th and beginning of the 16th centuries, with modern additions. On the site of the original small Chapel-of-Ease, after the burial-ground had become much used for interment by the Hultons and others, the monks of Whalley, to whom the chapelry of Deane, like the mother chapel of Eccles, then belonged, decided to build a worthier edifice. Progressing gradually, as was the custom in those days, they commenced by building the tower, of fourteenth century date, and went on to build the nave, which is probably early fifteenth century. This is the conclusion to which all records of the history of Deane point. Among the more important alterations to the fabric of recent years is the lengthening of the chancel in 1884, and the addition of the Organ Chamber in 1887. The fittings are mostly modern, but there is a good 16th century black oak pulpit, with back and canopy, the renaissance detail of which is rather elaborate. The reredos and organ fronts were designed by the late Vicar, and the Screen under the Tower Arch was made in the Vicarage by village talent.
* Victoria History of the County of Lancaster, Vol. v., 1911.
