Standish, Greater Manchester
Standish is a former mining and market village in North West England in the Metroplotan Borough of Wigan, located on the A49 between
Chorley and
Wigan, a short distance from Junction 27 of the M6.
The parish church of St Wilfrid's dates from the 16th century and is the only grade 1 listed building in the Metropolitan Borough of Wigan.Standish hosts a thriving
Arts Festival every October.There has been speculation that Standish was the home town of the pilgrim father,
Myles Standish, but while he may have come from a different family branch of the Standishes of Wigan, there is no evidence he ever lived here.There used to be a railway station which shut down many years ago, as did Victoria Colliery.
Standish has a documented history dating back to
1178. The name is almost certainly formed from two
Old English words
stan (stone) and edisc (park or enclosure). Historical remains earlier than the
Anglo-Saxon period have been found in Standish in the form of two
Roman hoards, one of which, the Boar's Head Hoard, was found in
1926.
At the end of the twelfth century
Warin Bussel was Baron of
Penwortham, and when his daughter married
Richard Spileman he gave to her the vills of
Stanedis and
Longetre as part of her dowry. Two daughters born of this marriage each received one of the vills as her own marriage portion; the elder, Juliana, marrying Radulphus, who took the name
de Stanedis or Standish, and the younger, Edith, marrying Siward, who adopted the name
de Longetre or Langtree.
With the marriage of Radulphus and Juliana, whose dowry gave them land and a name, the Standish family had begun. The story of the Standish family can be followed from here,
1202, to the last Lord of the Manor of Standish,
Henry Noailles Widdrington Standish, Lord of the Manor from
1883 to
1920. When he died in
1920, at
Contreville in
France, he left no children, and so the house of Standish officially came to an end.
Throughout their history the Standish family remained loyal to the
Roman Catholic faith after the
Reformation, and like many other
Lancashire gentry families had to steer a fine course between their beliefs and avoiding the wrath of the
Protestant State. Although Standish escaped major incident in the
English Civil War, the support of the Standishes for the
Jacobite cause involved the village in national events in the
1690s and again in
1715, when first William and then Ralph Standish were lucky to escape with their lives and to preserve the family estates intact.
St. Wilfrid's Church is first mentioned in
1205, but the vast extent of the ancient parish with its eleven townships (
Adlington,
Anderton,
Charnock Richard,
Coppull,
Duxbury,
Heath Charnock,
Langtree,
Shevington, Standish,
Welch Whittle and
Worthington) points to a very early foundation. It was rebuilt of local gritstone in the 16th. century and the large blocks of red sandstone, in the north-east corner, are relics of the older building. The old tower with its impressive spire above it had been left untouched at the rebuilding but this spire was unfortunately damaged by lightning in
1814 and again by storm in
1822. Forty-five years later the spire and the tower below were removed and then rebuilt. St. Wilfrid's Church was later joined in Standish by St. Marie's R.C. Church (opened on 18th May 1884) and Standish Methodist Church.
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The Standish Homepage A website all about Standish, Greater Manchester
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Standish History A collection of articles relating the 800+ years of the history of Standish
