Garswood

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Map sources for Garswood at grid reference SJ556993

Garswood is a village in the Metropolitan Borough of St Helens , between Wigan (Greater Manchester), and St Helens (Merseyside), England. Before the local government reorganisation it was in the historic county of Lancashire. It is a settlement within the town of Ashton-in-Makerfield and has enjoyed considerable expansion since the mid 1960s due to population movement from the nearby cities of Liverpool and Manchester to the less urban areas of South Lancashire.

1 Etymology
2 Industrial activity
3 Education
4 Transport

[edit] Etymology

Garswood is from Old English wudu "wood" with an uncertain first element. The name was recorded as Gratiswode (undated)

[edit] Industrial activity

Garswood has seen, along with extensive farming, much coal mining activity in its past, due to strata running up to an adjacent fault causing much outcropping of coal seams. Mining has taken place using shallow (comparatively) shafts and many drifts. The last drift mine in the Garswood area, Quaker House Colliery, closed in 1992. Extensive opencast mining has taken place in more recent times and continues to date in the area.

[edit] Education

In 1588, Seneley Green (as it was then known) became the site of the area's first Grammar School, founded by Robert Byrchall on land granted for the purpose by Sir Thomas Gerard. The building is, today, used as Garswood Public Library. Byrchall High School, in neighbouring Ashton in Makerfield, carries the founders name.

[edit] Transport

Garswood railway station provides direct rail links to Liverpool Lime Street, St. Helens and Wigan, plus many other stations along the same line.

Road links are provided by the village's proximity to the M6 motorway and the East Lancashire Road (A580), and it is equidistant from St. Helens and Wigan. Garswood is not far from Haydock Industrial / Business Estate, where companies as ASDA, Sainsbury's, Booker have warehousing facilities which employ large numbers of people, many of whom live in Garswood.