Up Holland (or Upholland) is a village in Skelmersdale and is a civil parish in the West Lancashire district, in the county of Lancashire, England, 4 miles (6 km) west of Wigan. The population at the 2011 census was 7,376.[1]
The place-name is first attested in the Domesday Book of 1086, where it appears as Hoiland.[3] It appears as Upholand in a Lancashire Inquest of 1226. This is from the Old Englishhohland, meaning 'land on or by a hoe or spur of a hill'.[4] The name Up Holland differentiates it from another place locally called Downholland, 10 miles to the west (on the other side of Ormskirk). The manor of Holland was a possession of the Holland family until 1534, whence it may be presumed they derived their name.
Notable claims
George Lyon, reputed to be one of the last English highwaymen, is said to be buried in the churchyard of the AnglicanChurch of St. Thomas the Martyr. The truth of the matter is that Lyon was little more than a common thief and receiver of stolen goods. The grave can be found under the concrete parapet opposite the White Lion pub.
A burial place of greater historical significance can be found at the south east corner of the church. Here, in a railed enclosure is the grave of Robert Daglish; a pioneer in steam locomotive engineering and design. In 1814, when George Stephenson was still working on his early locomotive Blucher, Daglish built The Yorkshire Horse,[5] a 'rack and pinion' locomotive to haul coal wagons at a nearby colliery. This proved to be a great success. Daglish went on to construct other locomotives and work on railway systems both in Great Britain and America.
Community
Up Holland has its own art society known as Upholland Artists' Society[6] that consists of a group of amateur and professional artists that live in or near Up Holland. They hold regular exhibitions and paint a wide range of subjects from local scenes to contemporary abstract pieces.
The Roman Catholic parish church of St Theresa, College Road, is a fine building of 1955 by F. X. Velarde, "one of the most unusual and innovative Catholic architects of the twentieth century".[8]
St Joseph’s College.
A Catholicseminary, St Joseph's College, used for training Catholic priests, was once based in Up Holland. The college closed down in 1987 after over 150 years of serving the northern Catholic dioceses of England, and its extensive buildings are now derelict.[9]
Up Holland and its surrounding countryside its described in the English novel The War Hero by Michael Lieber.[10]
People
Richard Ashcroft (of The Verve), musician. Richard's mother, Louise, is the daughter of Reg and Lilian Baxter. The Baxters were a prominent family in Up Holland throughout the 20th century.
Ted Ray (born Charles Olden), comedian. His father was the licensee of the Bull's Head public house, which used to stand in School Lane.
Dr Simon Ross Valentine, journalist, lecturer and writer, author of the first book ever published on Peshmerga (Kurdish army fighting ISIS);[14] (for which he was honoured by the Kurdish president with a honorary captaincy in the Kurdish army); writer of the only biography of John Bennet (1714–1759), pioneer Methodist preacher; the Ahmadiyyah Jamaat, reform in Islam and the Globe Award-winning book on Wahhabism, in Saudi Arabia.[15] In 2023 he was commissioned by Bradford Council, West Yorkshire, to write a comprehensive history of Bradford City Hall to mark the Hall's 150th anniversary.[16] He attended Up Holland primary school in Roby Mill and Up Holland Grammar School.
^Russell, K. F. "Berry, Richard James (1867–1962)". Australian Dictionary of Biography. National Centre of Biography, Australian National University – via Australian Dictionary of Biography.
^Simpson, Caroline, "Dorothy Irene Wilkinson (1883–1947)", Australian Dictionary of Biography, Canberra: National Centre of Biography, Australian National University, retrieved 7 May 2024
External links
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