Cheshire
Cheshire is a county in North West England, bordering Merseyside and Greater Manchester to the north, Derbyshire to the east and Shropshire to the south and Flintshire and Wrexham county borough to the west. Cheshire's county town is the City of Chester. Other major towns include Crewe, Ellesmere Port, Northwich, Runcorn and Winsford The county covers 905 square miles and has a population of around 1 million, it is rural, with a number of small towns and villages supporting the agricultural and other industries which produce Cheshire cheese, salt and silk. Cheshire's name was derived from an early name for Chester, was first recorded as Legeceasterscir in the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle, meaning "the shire of the city of legions". Although the name first appears in 980, it is thought that the county was created by Edward the Elder around 920. In the Domesday Book, Chester was recorded as having the name Cestrescir, derived from the name for Chester at the time. A series of changes that occurred as English itself changed, together with some simplifications and elision, resulted in the name Cheshire, as it occurs today.
Because of the close links with the land bordering Cheshire to the west, which became modern Wales, there is a history of interaction between Cheshire and North Wales. The Domesday Book records Cheshire as having two complete Hundreds that became the principal part of Flintshire. Additionally, another large portion of the Duddestan Hundred became known as Maelor Saesneg when it was transferred to North Wales. For this and other reasons, the Welsh language name for Cheshire is sometimes used. After the Norman conquest of 1066 by William I, dissent and resistance continued for many years after the invasion. In 1069 local resistance in Cheshire was put down using draconian measures as part of the Harrying of the North; the ferocity of the campaign against the English populace was enough to end all future resistance. Examples were made of major landowners such as Earl Edwin of Mercia, their properties confiscated and redistributed amongst Norman barons. William I made Cheshire a county palatine and gave Gerbod the Fleming the new title of Earl of Chester.
When Gerbod returned to Normandy in about 1070, the king used his absence to declare the earldom forfeit and gave the title to Hugh d'Avranches. Because of Cheshire's strategic location on Welsh Marches, the Earl had complete autonomous powers to rule on behalf of the king in the county palatine; the earldom was sufficiently independent from the kingdom of England that the 13th-century Magna Carta did not apply to the shire of Chester, so the earl wrote up his own Chester Charter at the petition of his barons. Cheshire in the Domesday Book is recorded as a much larger county, it included two hundreds and Exestan, that became part of North Wales. At the time of the Domesday Book, it included as part of Duddestan Hundred the area of land known as English Maelor in Wales; the area between the Mersey and Ribble formed part of the returns for Cheshire. Although this has been interpreted to mean that at that time south Lancashire was part of Cheshire, more exhaustive research indicates that the boundary between Cheshire and what was to become Lancashire remained the River Mersey.
With minor variations in spelling across sources, the complete list of hundreds of Cheshire at this time are: Atiscross, Chester, Exestan, Middlewich, Roelau, Tunendune and Wilaveston. Feudal baronies or baronies by tenure were granted by the Earl as forms of feudal land tenure within the palatinate in a similar way to which the king granted English feudal baronies within England proper. An example is the barony of Halton. One of Hugh d'Avranche's barons has been identified as Robert Nicholls, Baron of Halton and Montebourg. In 1182 the land north of the Mersey became administered as part of the new county of Lancashire, thus resolving any uncertainty about the county in which the land "Inter Ripam et Mersam" was. Over the years, the ten hundreds consolidated and changed names to leave just seven—Broxton, Eddisbury, Nantwich and Wirral. In 1397 the county had lands in the march of Wales added to its territory, was promoted to the rank of principality; this was because of the support the men of the county had given to King Richard II, in particular by his standing armed force of about 500 men called the "Cheshire Guard".
As a result, the King's title was changed to "King of England and France, Lord of Ireland, Prince of Chester". No other English county has been honoured in this way, although it lost the distinction on Richard's fall in 1399. Through the Local Government Act 1972, which came into effect on 1 April 1974, some areas in the north became part of the metropolitan counties of Greater Manchester and Merseyside. Stockport, Hyde and Stalybridge in the north-east became part of Greater Manchester. Much of the Wirral Peninsula in the north-west, including the county boroughs of Birkenhead and Wallasey, joined Merseyside as the Metropolitan Borough of Wirral. At the same time the Tintwistle Rural District was transferred to Derbyshire; the area of south Lancashire not included within either the Merseyside or Greater Manchester counties, including Widnes and the county b
Domesday Book
Domesday Book is a manuscript record of the "Great Survey" of much of England and parts of Wales completed in 1086 by order of King William the Conqueror. The Anglo-Saxon Chronicle states: Then, at the midwinter, was the king in Gloucester with his council.... After this had the king a large meeting, deep consultation with his council, about this land. Sent he his men over all England into each shire, it was written in Medieval Latin, was abbreviated, included some vernacular native terms without Latin equivalents. The survey's main purpose was to determine what taxes had been owed during the reign of King Edward the Confessor, which allowed William to reassert the rights of the Crown and assess where power lay after a wholesale redistribution of land following the Norman conquest; the assessors' reckoning of a man's holdings and their values, as recorded in Domesday Book, was dispositive and without appeal. The name "Domesday Book" came into use in the 12th century; as Richard FitzNeal wrote in the Dialogus de Scaccario: for as the sentence of that strict and terrible last account cannot be evaded by any skilful subterfuge, so when this book is appealed to... its sentence cannot be quashed or set aside with impunity.
That is why we have called the book "the Book of Judgement"... because its decisions, like those of the Last Judgement, are unalterable. The manuscript is held at The National Archives at London. In 2011, the Open Domesday site made the manuscript available online; the book is an invaluable primary source for historical economists. No survey approaching the scope and extent of Domesday Book was attempted again in Britain until the 1873 Return of Owners of Land which presented the first complete, post-Domesday picture of the distribution of landed property in the British Isles. Domesday Book encompasses two independent works; these were "Little Domesday", "Great Domesday" No surveys were made of the City of London, Winchester, or some other towns due to their tax-exempt status. Most of Cumberland and Westmorland are missing. County Durham is missing; the omission of the other counties and towns is not explained, although in particular Cumberland and Westmorland had yet to be conquered. "Little Domesday" – so named because its format is physically smaller than its companion's – is the more detailed survey, down to numbers of livestock.
It may have represented the first attempt, resulting in a decision to avoid such level of detail in "Great Domesday". Both volumes are organised into a series of chapters listing the fees, held by a named tenant-in-chief of the king, namely religious institutions, Norman warrior magnates and a few Saxon thegns who had made peace with the Norman regime; some of the largest such magnates held several hundred fees, in a few cases in more than one county. For example, the chapter of the Domesday Book Devonshire section concerning Baldwin the Sheriff lists 176 holdings held in-chief by him. Only a few of the holdings of the large magnates were held in demesne, most having been subinfeudated to knights military followers of the tenant-in-chief which latter thus became their overlord; the fees listed within the chapter concerning a particular tenant-in-chief were ordered, but not in a systematic or rigorous fashion, by the Hundred Court under the jurisdiction of which they were situated, not by geographic location.
As a review of taxes owed, it was unpopular. Each county's list opened with the king's demesne lands, it should be borne in mind that under the feudal system the king was the only true "owner" of land in England, under his allodial title. He was thus the ultimate overlord and the greatest magnate could do no more than "hold" land from him as a tenant under one of the various contracts of feudal land tenure. Holdings of Bishops followed of the abbeys and religious houses of lay tenants-in-chief and lastly the king's serjeants, Saxon thegns who had survived the Conquest, all in hierarchical order. In some counties, one or more principal towns formed the subject of a separate section: in some the clamores were treated separately; this principle applies more to the larger volume: in the smaller one, the system is more confused, the execution less perfect. Domesday names a total of 13,418 places. Apart from the wholly rural portions, which constitute its bulk, Domesday contains entries of interest concerning most of t
Merseyside
Merseyside is a metropolitan county in North West England, with a population of 1.38 million. It encompasses the metropolitan area centred on both banks of the lower reaches of the Mersey Estuary and comprises five metropolitan boroughs: Knowsley, St Helens, Sefton and the city of Liverpool. Merseyside, created on 1 April 1974 as a result of the Local Government Act 1972, takes its name from the River Mersey. Merseyside spans 249 square miles of land which border Lancashire, Greater Manchester and the Irish Sea to the west. North Wales is across the Dee Estuary. There is a mix of high density urban areas, semi-rural and rural locations in Merseyside, but overwhelmingly the land use is urban, it has a focused central business district, formed by Liverpool City Centre, but Merseyside is a polycentric county with five metropolitan districts, each of which has at least one major town centre and outlying suburbs. The Liverpool Urban Area is the fifth most populous conurbation in England, dominates the geographic centre of the county, while the smaller Birkenhead Urban Area dominates the Wirral Peninsula in the south.
For the 12 years following 1974 the county had a two-tier system of local government. The county council was abolished in 1986, so its districts are now unitary authority areas. However, the metropolitan county continues to exist in law and as a geographic frame of reference, several county-wide services are co-ordinated by authorities and joint-boards, such as Merseytravel, Merseyside Fire and Rescue Service and the Merseyside Police; the boroughs of Merseyside are joined by the neighbouring borough of Halton in Cheshire to form the Liverpool City Region, a local enterprise partnership and combined authority area. Merseyside is an amalgamation of 22 former local government districts from the former administrative counties of Lancashire and six autonomous county boroughs centred on Birkenhead, Liverpool, Southport, St Helens, Wallasey. Merseyside was designated as a "Special Review" area in the Local Government Act 1958, the Local Government Commission for England started a review of this area in 1962, based around the core county boroughs of Liverpool/Bootle/Birkenhead/Wallasey.
Further areas, including Widnes and Runcorn, were added to the Special Review Area by Order in 1965. Draft proposals were published in 1965, but the commission never completed its final proposals as it was abolished in 1966. Instead, a Royal Commission was set up to review English local government and its report proposed a much wider Merseyside metropolitan area covering southwest Lancashire and northwest Cheshire, extending as far south as Chester and as far north as the River Ribble; this would have included four districts: Southport/Crosby, Liverpool/Bootle, St Helens/Widnes and Wirral/Chester. In 1970 the Merseyside Passenger Transport Executive was set up, covering Liverpool, Sefton and Knowsley, but excluding Southport and St Helens; the Redcliffe-Maud Report was rejected by the incoming Conservative Party government, but the concept of a two-tier metropolitan area based on the Mersey area was retained. A White Paper was published in 1971; the Local Government Bill presented to Parliament involved a substantial trimming from the White Paper, excluding the northern and southern fringes of the area, excluding Chester, Ellesmere Port.
Further alterations took place in Parliament, with Skelmersdale being removed from the area, a proposed district including St Helens and Huyton being subdivided into what are now the metropolitan boroughs of St Helens and Knowsley. Merseyside was created on 1 April 1974 from areas parts of the administrative counties of Lancashire and Cheshire, along with the county boroughs of Birkenhead, Liverpool, St Helens. Following the creation of Merseyside, Merseytravel expanded to take in St Southport. Between 1974 and 1986 the county had a two-tier system of local government with the five boroughs sharing power with the Merseyside County Council. However, in 1986 the government of Margaret Thatcher abolished the county council along with all other metropolitan county councils, so its boroughs are now unitary authorities. Merseyside is divided into two parts by the Mersey Estuary, the Wirral is located on the west side of the estuary, upon the Wirral Peninsula and the rest of the county is located on the east side of the estuary.
The eastern part of Merseyside borders onto Lancashire to the north, Greater Manchester to the east, with both parts of the county bordering Cheshire to the south. The territory comprising the county of Merseyside formed part of the administrative counties of Lancashire and Cheshire; the two parts are linked by the two Mersey Tunnels, the Wirral Line of Merseyrail, the Mersey Ferry. Merseyside contains green belt interspersed throughout the county, surrounding the Liverpool urban area, as well as across the Mersey in the Wirral area, with further pockets extending towards and surrounding Southport, as part of the western edge of the North West Green Belt, it was first drawn up from the 1950s. All the county's districts contain some portion of belt. Raby on the Wirral is Merseyside's green belt. Ipsos MORI polls in the boroughs of Sefton
Cheshire West and Chester
Cheshire West and Chester is a unitary authority with borough status in the ceremonial county of Cheshire, England. It was established on 1 April 2009 as part of the 2009 local government changes, by virtue of an order under the Local Government and Public Involvement in Health Act 2007, it superseded the City of Chester. The remainder of ceremonial Cheshire is composed of Cheshire East and Warrington; the decision to create the Cheshire West and Chester unitary authority was announced on 25 July 2007 following a consultation period, in which a proposal to create a single Cheshire unitary authority was rejected. In line with every other district in Cheshire, the cabinet is composed of elected councillors. From its establishment in 2009, Cheshire West and Chester was governed by the Conservative Party, with Mike Jones as leader. Since the 2015 elections it has been governed by the Labour Party, with Samantha Dixon becoming the first female leader of the council upon taking office; the leader presently oversees a cabinet of eight, with each member holding a specific portfolio.
Opposition parties can elect to appoint shadow cabinet members, though they have no executive power. All councillors vote to appoint a chairman for the following municipal year at the council AGM. Traditionally, this role was combined with that of the apolitical and ceremonial Lord Mayor of Chester, but in 2015 these roles were separated and the role of chairman was politicised; the cabinet is scrutinised by one general committee and four district committees made up of councillors, which replaced six dedicated scrutiny committees for different topics in May 2015. Upon its establishment in 2009, Cheshire West and Chester Council inherited a number of buildings from the local authorities it replaced in every town in the borough. However, despite Cheshire County Council vacating its headquarters, the new authority spent £21 million purchasing and furbishing a new headquarters in Chester; the former County Hall was sold to the University of Chester, who now use it as a campus, for £10 million. The annual meeting of the council takes place at Chester Town Hall, on the same night as the investiture of the Lord Mayor and Sheriff of Chester.
Other meetings of the full council are held at Wyvern House in Winsford, where the council chamber used by Vale Royal Borough Council was changed to increase the seating capacity for councillors. Other than district or area meetings, most committee meetings, including the Cabinet and Planning, take place at the HQ building in Chester; the first elections to the authority took place on 1 May 2008, with the electoral wards being the same as those used in the former Cheshire County Council elections, each ward electing three councillors. There were twenty-four wards in total, meaning. An electoral review by the Local Government Boundary Commission for England was put into effect prior to the 2011 elections, meaning that three additional councillors were created, making a total of seventy-five in the borough; the ward boundaries were comprehensively re-drawn, with their number being increased by twenty-two to forty-six. The new wards were single-member wards, with two and three-member wards for the more populous areas.
The 2015 election took place on 7 May, producing the first change of executive in the council's history. The borough is divided into forty-six wards, listed below in alphabetical order. There are ninety-seven parish councils in the borough, despite there being a total of 166 civil parishes before a community governance review was undertaken by the borough council in 2014 under section 82 of the Local Government and Public Involvement in Health Act 2007. Notes Current MPs are highlighted in bold. Notes Cheshire West and Chester forms part of the North West England constituency, which elects eight members to the European Parliament using the d'Hondt method of party-list proportional representation; the remaining length of their mandate is unclear after the United Kingdom voted to leave the European Union in the membership referendum held in June 2016. Notes In line with nearly every local government district in England and Wales, the majority of the population describe themselves as'white'; the exact figure - 97.5% - is comparable with metropolitan counties such as Merseyside, non-metropolitan counties such as Cumbria and principal areas throughout Wales.
This would suggest. The next largest ethnic group in the borough is Asian, who along with other ethnic minorities are supported by the Cheshire Asian & Minority Communities Council, a registered charity headquartered in Chester; the majority of the population of Cheshire West and Chester is British-born, with the percentage standing at 95.1%, a figure above that of the UK as a whole. The largest overseas nationality is Polish, significant because of the World War II U. S. military base and subsequent Polish refugee camp in Cuddington. The overwhelming main religion in Cheshire West and Chester is Christianity, with a percentage figure above the average for England and Wales; the single largest church is the Church of England, with the borough being served by the Chester Archdeaconry, with six deaneries and an average of twenty parish churches in each deanery. Roman Catholicism has a significant presence across the borough, with all its churches located in the Diocese of Shrewsbury. Methodist churches in the borough form groups averaging ten, known as'circuits' (the four in Cheshire
Sealand, Flintshire
Sealand is a community in Flintshire and electoral ward, north-east Wales, on the edge of the Wirral peninsula. It is west of the city of Chester, is part of the Deeside conurbation on the Wales-England border. At the 2001 Census, it had a population of 2,746. Sealand is on flat land formed by land reclamation of part of the head of the estuary of the River Dee which had become silted-up, it is on the A548 road, near the Chester dormitory communities of Blacon and Saughall and is a popular place of residence for people from both sides of the Welsh/English border. Welsh medium primary education is available three miles away in Shotton at the established'Ysgol Croes Atti' whilst Welsh medium secondary education is available nine miles away in Mold at the long established'Ysgol Maes Garmon'; the River Dee flowed to the sea along the current border between Wales and England, until in the 18th century it was diverted into its present channelized course to try to improve ship access from the sea to Chester.
That led to extensive land reclamation in the head of the Dee estuary. The River Dee Company had a right to reclaim the marshes and build embankments following the re-alignment of the Dee. 1732: Nathaniel Kinderley proposed the scheme. 1735-1736: Nathaniel Kinderley & Company cut the new Dee channel from Chester to Golftyn. 1737: The new Dee channel was opened for shipping. 1740: Kinderley's company became known as the River Dee Company. 1753: First polder made: Shooting School, Sealand Manor, Garden City, about as far as Hawarden Bridge. 1754: Polder made: Ferry Lane Industrial Estate, Thornleigh Park, Sealand Nursery, Deeside House. 1768: Polder made: Bank Farm, Birchenfields Farm. 1790: Polder made: Yewtree Farm, Church Farm, Sealand village, Waterloo Farm, Willow Farm. 1826: Polder made: Old Marsh Farm, rest of low land east of where the A550 road is now. 1857: Polder made: where the Deeside Industrial Park is now. 1861: The thousands of acres of reclaimed marshlands around Sealand and Saltney were raising £8000 in annual rent.
1865-1867: St Bartholomew's Church, Sealand was built. About 1880: West of the Dee, a polder including Beeches Farm was made. 1892: Polder made: the Shotton steelworks. Boundaries of these polders show as old dikes across the farmland. RAF Sealand was a civilian airfield and was taken over by the military in 1916 for training. No. 30 Maintenance unit was formed there in 1939. In 1951 the station was taken over by the United States Air Force, handed back to the RAF in 1957; as a result of defence cuts announced in 2004, RAF Sealand was closed in April 2006. There are plans for a major residential development on the land. Though not about the community, the 1981 song "Sealand" by Liverpool band Orchestral Manoeuvres in the Dark took its title from the RAF base there. For songwriter Andy McCluskey, the name seemed to evoke the image of "a place between the land and the sea". St Bartholomew's Church, Sealand Photos of Sealand and surrounding area on geograph.org.uk Google Earth view of Sealand http://www.genuki.org.uk/big/wal/FLN/Hawarden/Sealand/ http://www.visionofbritain.org.uk/place/8807 http://www.angelfire.com/fl/shotton/history5.html, History of Shotton, including a map showing dates when land areas in the Sealand area were reclaimed.
Http://www.saughall.gov.uk/?page_id=821, History of Saughall and Shotwick Park, including how the Sealand land reclamation affected Saughall
Emergency medical services in the United Kingdom
Emergency medical services in the United Kingdom provide emergency care to people with acute illness or injury and are predominantly provided free at the point of use by the four National Health Services of England, Scotland and Northern Ireland. Emergency care including ambulance and emergency department treatment is free to everyone, regardless of immigration or visitor status; the NHS commissions most emergency medical services through the 14 NHS organisations with ambulance responsibility across the UK. As with other emergency services, the public access emergency medical services through one of the valid emergency telephone numbers. In addition to ambulance services provided by NHS organisations, there are some private and volunteer emergency medical services arrangements in place in the UK, the use of private or volunteer ambulances at public events or large private sites, as part of community provision of services such as community first responders. Air ambulance services in the UK are not part of the NHS and are funded through charitable donations.
Paramedics are seconded from a local NHS ambulance service, with the exception of Great North Air Ambulance Service who employ their own paramedics. Doctors are provided by their home hospital and spend no more than 40% of their time with an air ambulance service. Public ambulance services across the UK are required by law to respond to four types of requests for care, which are: Emergency calls Doctor's urgent admission requests High dependency and urgent inter-hospital transfers Major incidentsAmbulance trusts and services may undertake non-urgent patient transport services on a commercial arrangement with their local hospital trusts or health boards, or in some cases on directly funded government contracts, although these contracts are fulfilled by private and voluntary providers; the National Health Service Act 1946 gave county and borough councils a statutory responsibility to provide an emergency ambulance service, although they could contract a voluntary ambulance service to provide this, with many contracting the British Red Cross, St John Ambulance or another local provider.
The last St John Division, to be so contracted is reputed to have been at Whittlesey in Cambridgeshire, where the two-bay ambulance garage can still be seen at the branch headquarters. The Regional Ambulance Officers’ Committee reported in 1979 that “There was considerable local variation in the quality of the service provided in relation to vehicles and equipment. Most Services were administered by Local Authorities through their Medical Officer of Health and his Ambulance Officer, a few were under the aegis of the Fire Service, whilst others relied upon agency methods for the provision of part or all of their services.” The 142 existing ambulance services were transferred by the National Health Service Reorganisation Act 1973 from local authority to central government control in 1974, consolidated into 53 services under regional or area health authorities. This led to the formation of predominantly county based ambulance services, which merged up and changed responsibilities until 2006, when there were 31 NHS ambulance trusts in England.
The June 2005 report "Taking healthcare to the Patient", authored by Peter Bradley, Chief Executive of the London Ambulance Service, for the Department of Health led to the merging of the 31 trusts into 13 organisations in England, plus one organisation each in Wales and Northern Ireland. Following further changes as part of the NHS foundation trust pathway, this has further reduced to 10 ambulance service trusts in England, plus the Isle of Wight which has its own provision. Following the passage of the Health and Social Care Act 2012, commissioning of the ambulance services in each area passed from central government control into the hands of regional clinical commissioning groups; the commissioners in each region are responsible for contracting with a suitable organisation to provide ambulance services within their geographical territory. The primary provider for each area is held by a public NHS body, of which there are 11 in England, 1 each in the other three countries. In England there are now ten NHS ambulance trusts, as well as an ambulance service on the Isle of Wight, run directly by Isle of Wight NHS Trust, with boundaries following those of the former regional government offices.
The ten trusts are: East Midlands Ambulance Service NHS Trust East of England Ambulance Service NHS Trust London Ambulance Service NHS Trust North East Ambulance Service NHS Foundation Trust North West Ambulance Service NHS Trust South Central Ambulance Service NHS Foundation Trust South East Coast Ambulance Service NHS Foundation Trust South Western Ambulance Service NHS Foundation Trust West Midlands Ambulance Service University NHS Foundation Trust Yorkshire Ambulance Service NHS TrustThe English ambulance trusts are represented by the Association of Ambulance Chief Executives, with the Scottish and Northern Irish providers all associate members. On the 14 November 2018 West Midlands Ambulance Service became the UK's first university-ambulance trust; the service was operated before reorganisation in 1974 by the St Andrews’ Ambulance Association under contract to the Secretary of State for Scotland. The Scottish Ambulance Service is a Special Health Board that provides ambulance services throughout whole of Scotland, on behalf of the Health and Social Care Directorates of the Scottish Government.
Due to the remote nature of many areas of Scotland compared to the other Home Nations, the Scottish Ambulance Service has Britain's only publi
Civil parish
In England, a civil parish is a type of administrative parish used for local government, they are a territorial designation, the lowest tier of local government below districts and counties, or their combined form, the unitary authority. Civil parishes can trace their origin to the ancient system of ecclesiastical parishes which played a role in both civil and ecclesiastical administration; the unit rolled out across England in the 1860s. A civil parish can range in size from a large town with a population of about 75,000 to a single village with fewer than a hundred inhabitants. Eight parishes have city status. A civil parish may be known as and confirmed as a town, neighbourhood or community by resolution of its parish council, a right reserved not conferred on other units of English local government. 35% of the English population live in a civil parish. As of 31 December 2015 there were 10,449 parishes in England; the most populous is Weston super Mare and those with cathedral city status are Chichester, Hereford, Ripon, Salisbury and Wells.
On 1 April 2014, Queen's Park became the first civil parish in Greater London. Before 2008 their creation was not permitted within a London borough. Wales was divided into civil parishes until 1974, when they were replaced by communities, which are similar to English parishes in the way they operate. Civil parishes in Scotland were abolished for local government purposes by the Local Government Act 1929, the Scottish equivalent of English civil parishes are community council areas, which were established by the Local Government Act 1973; the Parish system in Europe was established between the 8th and 12th centuries and in England was old by the time of the Conquest. These areas were based on the territory of one or more manors, areas which in some cases derived their bounds from Roman or Iron Age estates. Parish boundaries were conservative, changing little, after 1180'froze' so that boundaries could no longer be changed at all, despite changes to manorial landholdings - though there were some examples of sub-division.
The consistency of these boundaries, up until the 19th century is useful to historians, is of cultural significance in terms of shaping local identities, a factor reinforced by the adoption of parish boundaries unchanged, by successor local government units. There was huge variation in size between parishes, for instance Writtle in Essex was 13,568 acres while neighbouring Shellow Bowells was just 469 acres, Chignall Smealy 476 acres; until the break with Rome, parishes managed ecclesiastical matters, while the manor was the principal unit of local administration and justice. The church replaced the manor court as the rural administrative centre, levied a local tax on produce known as a tithe. In the medieval period, responsibilities such as relief of the poor passed from the Lord of the Manor to the parish's rector, who in practice would delegate tasks among his vestry or the monasteries. After the dissolution of the monasteries, the power to levy a rate to fund relief of the poor was conferred on the parish authorities by the Act for the Relief of the Poor 1601.
Both before and after this optional social change, local charities are well-documented. The parish authorities were consisted of all the ratepayers of the parish; as the number of ratepayers of some parishes grew, it became difficult to convene meetings as an open vestry. In some built up, areas the select vestry took over responsibility from the entire body of ratepayers; this innovation allowed governance by a self-perpetuating elite. The administration of the parish system relied on the monopoly of the established English Church, which for a few years after Henry VIII alternated between the Roman Catholic Church and the Church of England, before settling on the latter on the accession of Elizabeth I in 1558. By the 18th century, religious membership was becoming more fractured in some places, due for instance to the progress of Methodism; the legitimacy of the parish vestry came into question and the perceived inefficiency and corruption inherent in the system became a source for concern in some places.
For this reason, during the early 19th century the parish progressively lost its powers to ad hoc boards and other organisations, for example the loss of responsibility for poor relief through the Poor Law Amendment Act 1834. Sanitary districts covered England in Ireland three years later; the replacement boards were each entitled to levy their own rate in the parish. The church rate ceased to be levied in many parishes and became voluntary from 1868; the ancient parishes diverged into two distinct, nearly overlapping, systems of parishes during the 19th century. The Poor Law Amendment Act 1866 declared all areas that levied a separate rate: C of E ecclesiastical parishes, extra-parochial areas and their analogue, chapelries, to be "civil parishes". To have collected rates this means these beforehand had their own vestries, boards or equivalent bodies; the Church of England parishes, which cover more than 99% of England, became termed "ecclesiastical parishes" and the boundaries of these soon diverged from those of the Ancient Parishes in order to reflect modern circumstances.
After 1921 each ecclesiastical parish has been the responsibility of the parochial church councils. In the late 19th century, most of the ancient irregularities inheri
