Townships: Burnage

BURNAGE

Bronadge, Bronage, (Copies of) 1320 survey.

Burnage is a rural township of 666 acres, (fn. 1) separating Withington from Heaton Norris. It contains the hamlets of Green End and Lady Barn. (fn. 2) The population in 1901 was 1,892.

The Manchester and Cheadle road passes through it from north to south, and there are cross roads. The village lies near the centre; Green End is further south, and Lane End and Catterick Hall border upon Didsbury. The district is partly residential and partly agricultural.

Burnage was customarily included in Didsbury chapelry, but this was contested in 1814, an expensive lawsuit being necessary to establish the right of the chapelry. (fn. 3) The township was included in the Withington local board district in 1877. (fn. 4)

MANOR

There was never any manor of BURNAGE, which was a border district between the lordships of Withington and Heaton Norris, pertaining, it would seem, rather to the latter than to the former, (fn. 5) as the 356 acres of common pasture land it contained (fn. 6) were described under Heaton in the survey of 1320. While Thomas Grelley was a minor Sir John de Byron and Sir John de Longford had inclosed for themselves 100 acres and turned it into arable; and after that, Sir John de Byron and Dame Joan de Longford had inclosed yet 36 acres more; these 136 acres, it was considered, might be taken by the lord of Manchester and approved by him, provided enough pasture for the commoners were reserved. (fn. 7) Some compromise was no doubt made; the Byrons do not appear again, and John La Warre and Joan his wife afterwards granted to Thomas son of Henry de Trafford 100 acres of moor and pasture in Heaton and Withington, 'namely, that moiety of the place called Burnage lying next to Heaton, which moiety remained to the said John and Joan after a partition of the whole place made between them and Sir Richard de Longford.' (fn. 8)

The Longford moiety passed, like Withington, to the Mosleys (fn. 9) and Egertons; the Trafford moiety seems to have been sold to a number of small holders. In 1798 William Egerton was the principal contributor to the land tax, paying over a third; (fn. 10) and in 1844 Wilbraham Egerton owned about half (fn. 11) the land.

Burnage was a township in 1655. (fn. 12)

In connexion with the Established Church, St. Margaret's was consecrated in 1875; the Bishop of Manchester is the patron. (fn. 13) A temporary district of St. Chad has recently been created at Lady Barn; the patronage is vested in the Crown and the Bishop of Manchester alternately.

The Wesleyan Methodists have a chapel at Lady Barn. The Congregationalists also are represented.