The Township of Eccleston, St Helens in the County of -- Lancashire --

ECCLESTON, a township, in the parish and union of Prescot, hundred of West Derby, S. division of the county of Lancaster; containing 6247 inhabitants. In the reign of Edward III. William le Norreys performed suit and service to the county and wapentake, for this, with other manors, by the hands of Alan de Eccleston, his tenant, the pedigree of which latter family ascends to the time of Henry III. The estates descended to Thomas Eccleston, Esq. (afterwards Scarisbrick, of Scarisbrick), who sold them about 1812 to Colonel Taylor, of Moston. The township includes the small hamlet of Portico and the wild common of Thatto Heath, and portions of the towns of Prescot and St. Helen's; it lies west of St. Helen's, and is intersected by the road from that place to Prescot: the area is 3311 acres. The manufacture of crown-glass and earthenware is considerable; and there are several stone-quarries, and mines of coal. Millbrook is the residence of William Pilkington, Esq., and Springfield that of John Barnes Barrow, Esq. Christ-Church, here, was built in 1838, at a cost of £2500, and is a cruciform structure in the early English style, with a square tower surmounted by a spire; it has some fine oak carving, and the eastern window is of painted glass, with figures of Faith, Hope, and Charity. The living is a perpetual curacy; net income, £120; patron, Samuel Taylor, Esq., of Eccleston Hall, who gave the site, and chiefly defrayed the cost of the erection of the church, parsonage-house, and schools. The impropriate tithes have been commuted for £370, payable to King's College, Cambridge, and the vicarial for £200. There is an endowment of £20 per annum for teaching children. The learned Dr. Adam Clarke wrote the principal part of his Commentary on the Bible at Millbrook, in the township.

From: A Topographical Dictionary of England by Samuel Lewis (1848), pp. 139-144.