page_title: Lowton
section_title: History
hierarchical_section_title: Lowton / History
caption_attribution_description: English: Byrom Hall, Slag Lane Lowton Information on the history of Byrom Hall can he found on the website www.lowtonhistory.co.nr
context_page_description: Lowton is a town within the Metropolitan Borough of Wigan, in Greater Manchester, England. It is around 2 miles from Leigh, 7 miles south of Wigan and 12.0 miles west of Manchester city centre. The settlement lies across the A580 East Lancashire Road.
  Historically a part of Lancashire, Lowton's history is closely connected with Byrom Manor, the ancestral home of the Byroms, a family which included poet John Byrom; the inventor of a system of shorthand. During the Industrial Revolution Lowton was associated with coal mining and manufacturing, given its proximity to several nearby collieries and factories.
  At the 2011 census, the population of Lowton was split between two wards, Lowton East, and Golborne and Lowton West. The latter partially counted the entire population of Golborne, and partially the population of Lowton's western half, with the boundary between them roughly being at Scott Road to the north and Windsor Road to the south. The population comes to approximately 14,605 if the appropriate parts of Golborne and Lowton West east of these streets, are added up with the population of the Lowton East ward.
context_section_description: Lowton has an unclear toponymy: it is from Old English tun "farm, village" with an uncertain first element (The first element is from lhe old English for high point IE Wornoth Low near Stockport is the highest hill in the area, and Lowton is the highest point locally.) A record of the name as Liewetune in 1176 suggests Old English hleowe "lee", although this is not a certain etymology.
  Lowton was one of the berewicks of the Royal Manor of Newton, later being one of the members of the Barony of Makerfield.
  Byrom Manor, later to feature the ancestral home of the poet John Byrom and was constructed during the 18th century, is recorded as early as 1212,
  where the family prospered for centuries. Byrom Hall at one time featured a moat.
  The Hare and Hounds public house, built in the 17th century, was once used as a place to hold trials of local criminals, including murders. The Lowton stocks can still be found today nearby at St Luke’s Parish Church and are Grade II listed.
  The former Lowton railway station was used as a resting point for the royal train. Lowton had a second station – Lowton St Mary's – which closed in 1964.
  Lowton had a toffee factory, along with other sites of heavy industry. Many of these factories have now closed and have been replaced with light industry.
  Lowton's Sandy Lane is reputedly haunted by the ghost of Joshua Rigby, a local farmer who died in 1883.
caption: Byrom Hall, ancestral home of the Byrom family
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