Shevington is a village and civil parish within the Metropolitan Borough of Wigan, Greater Manchester, England. The population of the Wigan ward called Shevington and Lower Ground had increased to 11,482 at the 2011 Census.
Lying within the historic county boundaries of Lancashire, Shevington lies approximately from Wigan town centre, from Skelmersdale and at the 2001 census had a population of 9,786.
History
Toponymy
Shevington, a farmstead near a hill called shevin, derives from the Celtic cevn meaning a ridge and the Old English tun, a farmstead. It is a hill slope settlement in the Douglas Valley recorded in documents in 1225 as Shefington. Other recorded spellings include Scheuynton in 1253, Sheuington in 1277, Sewinton 1288 and Sheuynton in 1292.
History
Shevington became a manor, an estate system of local government held of the king by a lord of the manor from the 12th to the 18th centuries. The area was included within the ecclesiastical parish of Standish until 1887 when it was granted separate status with the consecration of St Anne's Church.
From earliest times the area had a sparse and scattered population eking out a living from the common and wood and farmlands owned by the church including Burscough Priory, Cockersand Abbey and the Knights Hospitallers until the Dissolution of the Monasteries from 1536, and that of the local gentry included Sir Adam Banastre, Lord of the Manor in 1288 and the Standish, Catterall, Stanley, Rigby, Hulton, Dicconson and Hesketh families, the last being the last lord of the manor in 1798.
In Tudor times only a handful of families existed, possibly as few as 30, the population reached 335 by 1764, and the first official census in 1801 recorded 646. The 1851 census 1,147, 1,753 in 1,901, reaching 3,057 by 1951 and 8,001 in 1971.
By the 18th century most of the common land had been enclosed forming landed estates and tenant farms where mixed farming was practised. Corn was ground into flour at local water mills – Finch Mill on the Calico Brook and Standish Mill on Mill Brook and skills associated with agriculture developed – smithies, wheelwrights and so on. Handloom weaving and basket making were also undertaken together with primitive coal mining in the Elnup Woods area.
Demand for coal mining during the Industrial Revolution led to an intensification of mining with coal from many local pits transported via the River Douglas at Gathurst when the river was made navigable in 1742 but replaced from the 1780s by the Leeds and Liverpool Canal when much of the coal was loaded on to barges at Crooke. Past industries have included a glue factory and brick and tile works in Appley Bridge and the ICI Roburite Nobel Division Explosives Works (now Orica) at Gathurst from 1941-42 which employed over 500 workers during the Second World War, but was first established south of the River Douglas in 1888. The ICI Nobels Roburite Works was connected to Gathurst railway station by a 2 ft (610 mm) narrow gauge railway.
Shevington's scattered communities became more cohesive with the development of the village school from 1814, residential development from the 1850s the original Plough & Harrow public house, post office and shops near or in the long-recognised centre of the village at Broad o' th' Lane.
Governance
Anciently Shevington lay in the hundred of Leyland in Lancashire. It was a township in the parish of Standish and in 1837 became part of the Poor Law Union of Wigan. In 1894 under the Local Government Act the village achieved the status of a parish council, which included Shevington Vale, part of Appley Bridge, Shevington Moor and Crooke within its ancient boundaries, defined by the Calico Brook, Almond Brook, Mill Brook and the River Douglas. Since local government reforms which took place in 1974, Shevington has formed part of the Metropolitan Borough of Wigan of Greater Manchester, having previously been part of the administrative county of Lancashire.
Following the local elections in May 2012, Shevington now has three Labour District Councillors. This is the first time since 2006 that Labour has held all three seats.
The village currently has a parish council, which receives a precept from the Council Tax.
Geography
Shevington is built on sloping land between Standish and Wigan to the north-east of the River Douglas. Its area is . The underlying rocks are coal measures. The Leeds and Liverpool Canal runs parallel to the River Douglas. Shevington is located close to Junction 27 of the M6 motorway and is bordered by the villages of Appley Bridge and Standish, but also has close links to the villages of Wrightington and Standish Lower Ground.