Hardsough Mill

Last week I published the Walmersley and Bolton Clan and explained the rational for identifying the Thomas who was buried at Holcombe, St Emmanuel in 1810, aged 55, from Heartsough Mill, with the Thomas of Thomas and Sarah who had 8 children baptised between 1800 and 1809.

Holcombe, St Emmanuel was a chapel of ease in Bury parish until 1866, so events were also recorded in the Bury parish records or Bishop’s Transcripts. Thomas’s burial appears in the Bishop’s Transcripts with an abode of Elton, so I assumed Heartsough Mill was in Elton. I have only seen an image of the Bishop’s Transcripts online so I’m not sure if events at the parish’s chapels of ease were also recorded in the Bury parish register, or just the Bishop’s Transcripts, though the latter seems most logical.

My post on the new clan received a comment from Russell Taylor who said that he was not aware of a Heartsough Mill in Elton, but there is a Hardsough Lane in Edenfield, and there was at one time a Hardsough Mill on it. Peter Jones confirmed he was familiar with Hardsough Lane, but had searched in vain for any reference to Heartsough Mill in Elton.

If Heartsough is a corruption of Hardsough it means that Thomas never moved from Edenfield, so the need to explain a further move is removed. Maybe the reference to Elton in the Bishop’s Transcripts is mearly a misunderstanding of where Hardsough was.

I even managed to find a photograph of Hardsough Mill on Google Books, from Edenfield Through Time by John Spence. However this reference says the mill was built in 1871, long after Thomas died. I am sure the name Hardsough was applied to the area, even before Thomas’s time, and there are likely to have been mills in the area.

I have updated the clan tree and report with the new information.

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