Blackrod

"BLACKROD, a chapelry in the parish of Bolton-le-Moors, and hundred of Salford, in the county palatine of Lancaster, 6 miles to the W. of Bolton. Chorley is its post town. It is a station on the western division of the Lancashire and Yorkshire railway, and a branch of the Lancaster canal passes through the chapelry. The inhabitants are mostly engaged in the cotton manufacture, the print-works, and the coal-mines. The living is a perpetual curacy in the diocese of Manchester, of the value of £300, in the patronage of the Vicar of Bolton. The church is dedicated to St. Catherine. The Wesleyans have a chapel here. There are large National and Sunday schools, and a free grammar school, with an income from endowment of £140 a year, besides an exhibition at Pembroke College, Cambridge, of the value of £80 for four years. The charities produce about £200 per annum. The Roman road Watling Street passes through this place, which is conjectured by some to have been a Roman station. A fire which broke out in a coal-mine here was extinguished by turning the river Douglas into it. A number of silver vessels, bearing the impression of a rose and crown, were found in 1800, in a moat surrounding an old mansion in this township."