page_title: History of St Helens, Merseyside
section_title: Formation of the Town
hierarchical_section_title: History of St Helens, Merseyside / History / Formation of the Town
caption_attribution_description: English: A splice of a 1610 Map showing the local region of Lancaster in 1610
context_page_description: St Helens is a large town and the administrative seat of the Metropolitan Borough of St Helens in Merseyside, England. The town was incorporated as a municipal borough in 1868, responsible for the administration of the four townships and manors of Eccleston, Parr, Sutton and Windle. In 1887 this role was expanded to a county borough, which was superseded in 1974 by the larger metropolitan borough.
  St Helens is in the far south west of the historic county of Lancashire in North West England, six miles north of the River Mersey. This portion of the county was partially settled by the Celtic Brigantes who were subsequently subjugated by the Romans in the 1st Century, with nearby Wigan probably the location of the Roman settlement of Coccium. No archaeological evidence has been uncovered to tie either group specifically to the St Helens area, though Eccleston derives its name from either the Latin Ecclesia or Welsh Eglwys suggesting a link to a church.
context_section_description: St Helens did not exist as a town in its own right until the middle of the 19th century. The town had a complex evolution spurred on by rapid population growth during the Industrial Revolution. Between 1629 and 1839 St Helens grew from a small group of dwellings surrounding the chapel, to a village centred around a larger church within a township, before becoming the significant urban centre for the four primary feudal lay manors that make up the modern town.
  The origin of the name "St Helens" stretches back to a "chapel of ease" dedicated to St Elyn, the earliest reference to which is in 1552. The first time the chapel is referred to is in 1558 when Thomas Parr of Parr bequeathed money towards maintaining the chapel and finding a man of the cloth to take residence.
  "[I bequeath] to a stock towards finding a priest at St. Helen's Chapel in Hardshaw, and to the maintenance of God's divine service there for ever, if the stock go forward and that the priest do service as is aforesaid".
  — William Farrer quoting Thomas Parr, A History of the County of Lancaster: Volume 3
  Early maps show that the chapel was on Chapel Lane, around the site of the modern, pedestrianised Church Street. Historically this was within the berewick of Hardshaw, a holding in the township of Windle entailing the southern border of that area abutting onto the open farmland of Parr to the east, and sharing boundaries with Sutton and Eccleston to the south and west respectively.
  Throughout the Middle Ages the area was predominantly arable land and was noted for large swathes of moss, heath and bog land while elsewhere it was covered by the greater Mersey Forest (the larger "Community Forest" was not established until much later).
  Largely flat, the elevation increased further away from the Mersey, and several small tributaries flowed to the river. The lay of the land was conducive to moving goods to the south and west respectively, towards the larger population centres of ancient Warrington and Chester, plus the rapidly growing and more influential Liverpool.
  The name St Helens was not set in stone until the 19th century, and it was variously named as St Hellins, St Helins, St Hellens, St Helyns, St Elyns or variations after it was officially incorporated in 1868.
caption: "St Helins" Chapel as recorded on a map of 1610 showing the surrounding towns and villages and the River Mersey.
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