Status details for Township

Full Description:

Prior to 1100 AD a township was the term applied to the inhabitants of a particular manor, parish, division of a hundred, tun (small town) or village. Youngs' Guide to the Local Administrative Units of England describes a township or vill after 1100AD as a division of an original parish that had its own church and which usually had civil functions. The civil functions of the township or vill enabled it to maintain the poor inhabitants of that community starting around 1540 and continuing until 1906, although most townships disappeared before 1866 either being included into adjacent civil parishes or gaining their own separate civil parish status. A distinct difference between townships of the North and South of England was that those of the North where regarded as divisions subordinate to parishes. In practice they are as limited as if they were seperate parishes, for instance the ancient division of the original parishes of Crosthwaite, Grasmere, Windermere and Kendall by the townships of Barrowdale, Langdale, Rydal and Ambleside.