Culcheth / Culchet / Culchith / Kilchiche / Kulchit / Kylchiz

The Victoria County History (Lancaster, vol. 4, 1911) notes: "Before the Reformation there was at Culcheth a chapel of ease known as Trinity Church. [...] It was perhaps not then very old, and the name NEWCHURCH has remained attached to it till the present time. [...] Sir John Holcroft by his will of 1559 left his chain of gold or £10 towards the payment of a priest and clerk if the other inhabitants of the township could be induced to subscribe. [...] The Commonwealth Surveyors in 1650 recommended that Newchurch should be made into a parish [...] The church was rebuilt in 1743, a plain brick structure. This was burnt down in April 1903, and has been rebuilt in the Norman style.[...] The registers 1599–1812 have been printed by the Lancashire Parish Register Society, 1905." The Culcheth Local History web site [www.culcheth.org/history1.htm] [accessed 29 September 2010] notes: "The name 'Newchurch' which is found throughout the village, refers to the building of the village's first church in or about 1560, as a separate, new church, from the mother-church of St. Oswalds in Winwick, some 5 km away. The original New Church burned to the ground in 1903 and had to be rebuilt from scratch". [NB;: the early register include baptisms; we have no information on the early font of the destroyed church]