About this website

This website contains archive material that formerly appeared on the website of Bollington parish church.

The contents include:

Transcripts of many of the parish registers of baptisms, marriages and burials for St John's (former parish church) and St Oswald's (present parish church). Note that the former mission church of Holy Trinity, Kerridge did not have a separate register. Baptisms at Holy Trinity were recorded in St John's registers; Holy Trinity church was not licensed for marriages and did not have a graveyard.

Transcript of memorial inscriptions in the Churchyard and Columbarium at St John's. These transcriptions are linked to the burial register transcriptions wherever possible. A name search will provide details of register entry and/or memorial inscription where available.

Schematic layouts of the various sections of the churchyard and columbarium to assist in the location of memorials.

The Bollington Online War Memorial giving details of those who served in WW1 and their families, and additional details of the casualties from WW1 and WW2. Many photographs of the individuals concerned have been provided by family members and other researchers. Note that service records of those who served in WW2 are not available to the general public - it has only been possible to include details of those confirmed as WW2 casualties by the Commonwealth War Graves Commission.

Potted histories of the former incumbents of Bollington from 1834 to 2020. Note that the incumbents were techinically not "Vicars" in the early years!. We do not have a complete list of all the "official" curates who served in the parish (usually for short periods) to assist the incumbents. The burial registers show many names of those who performed burials who were not known to be regular parish clergy. Some were visiting clergy from other parishes, some were relatives of parish clergy, some were clergy from the diocese providing cover for vacancies, holidays or sickness. Others were from different denominations (mostly Methodists or Dissenters, but also some Roman Catholic) and some appear to be unordained people (relatives or funeral directors). In view of this uncertainty and lack of completeness, we have not included details of any of the assistant clergy.

The story of how St Oswald's building was modified in the 21st century to provide an accessible entrance and a new mosaic.

The story of the Columbarium at St John's, from its opening in 1958 to its extension in 2012, to provide space for the interment of cremated remains for decades to come.

A selection of "Sing-along" hymns (tunes and words provided so that you can join in in the privacy of your own home!). These were originally provided as individual blog posts during the enforced closure of the church during COVID lockdown. This is a personal selection of words and music chosen by the webmaster along with details of the authors and composers; some hymns are familiar favourites, others have fallen out of use in recent (or not so recent) decades. Some perhaps unfamilar tunes deserve to be better known. Some items are quite frankly curiosities. Note that we have been careful to use only words that are out of copyright; this means that traditional words have generally been retained (as modern "inclusive" words have usually been re-copyrighted by publishers of hymnals), but also that some more modern hymns have been excluded altogether.