Lancashire County Council, as part of their Lancashire Archives and Local History online collections catalogue, have Blackburn Diocese Tithe awards and plans from 1839 for Walton le Dale Area.
The Lancashire Archives Document reference is: DRB/1/193
It has Open Access status, which means that you can request to visit the Lancashire Archives at Bow Lane in Preston an view the relevant documents. Part of the Walton le Dale Tithe Apportionment Entry for 1839 is a Tithe Map.
The physical characteristics of the Map are: (width by height) 157.4cm (62 inches) x 113.2cm (45 inches)
The Online Archive Catalogue Record is: https://archivecat.lancashire.gov.uk/records/DRB/1/193
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The Tithe apportionment entries contain details about the Plot number, Owner and Occupier. It also included a Plot description, Usage and Size. The sizes are measured in Acres, Roods and Poles.
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Tithe Records in Walton le Dale
The Tithe Commutation Act of 1836 (6 & 7 Will. IV, c.71) allowed parishioners to replace payments of tithes in kind—such as crops or livestock—with monetary payments. The key records created under this Act are the Tithe Apportionments, any altered apportionments, and the accompanying Tithe Maps.
Later, the Tithe Act of 1936 (26 Geo. V & 1 Edw. VIII, c.43) abolished all tithe rent charges. Responsibility for the preservation of tithe documents produced under the Acts of 1836, 1837, 1839, 1860, and 1891 was placed under the Master of the Rolls, who may transfer them to approved archives. Today, this responsibility is managed by The National Archives: Historical Manuscripts Commission. Guidance on the care, custody, and access to tithe documents is set out in the Tithe (Copies of Instruments of Apportionment) Rules 1960 (SI 1960/2440), as amended in 1963.
Each confirmed instrument of apportionment was made in three copies: the original (now held at The National Archives), a copy for the diocesan registrar, and a copy for the parish incumbents and churchwardens. Many of these copies, along with later altered apportionments, are now preserved in local record offices, including those covering Walton le Dale.
Tithe maps were created between 1836 and the 1850s following the Tithe Commutation Act which substituted a fixed monetary payment for the annual payments in kind which had dated from Mediaeval times.
Tithe maps usually cover a whole township (a township was the smallest administrative area of Lancashire which levied a separate rate) and exist for about 80% of the pre-1974 county. In some parts of the Lancashire the tithes had been commuted earlier as part of an enclosure award.
They were drawn at a large scale and are accompanied by a schedule listing the owners and occupiers of the lands and buildings shown as numbered properties on the map and recording the apportionment of the payment.
The schedule is usually arranged alphabetically by landowner and contains:
- Names of landowners
- Names of occupiers
- Acreage of land held/owned
- Description of the property
- State of cultivation
- Amount of tithe rent charge payable
- Names of the tithe owners
Quite often the description of the property includes field names which can provide significant information for the Lancashire Place Name Survey and is why the schedules are being indexed by LPNS volunteers.