Eccleston's two textile mills are now closed. The "Old Mill" building is now being used as an antique, collectable and nostalgia retail space called "Bygone Times". The "New Mill" has been converted into a small village shopping centre.

The village has two schools, Eccleston St. Mary's Church of England Primary School and Eccleston Primary School.

Its name came from the Celtic word "eglēs" meaning a church, and the Old English word "tūn" meaning a farmstead or settlement - i.e. a settlement by a Romano-British church.

Nowadays it acts as a rural suburb for commuters to Central Lancashire, Liverpool, and Manchester, set amidst countryside.

Notable people

• St. John Rigby, martyr
• Anthony Jackson III, of St. Mary's Parish, a son of Sir Anthony Jackson II from Yorkshire who was a courtier for Charles I and Charles II. Anthony III later left Eccleston for County Cavan, Ireland, having obtained settling rights in Ireland from the Cromwells. One of III's sons was an Isaac Jackson, who became a Quaker, went first to Oldcastle in County Meath, then to Ballitore in County Kildare, Ireland, and then with his family to the Quaker settlements in rural Chester County, Pennsylvania. Isaac has hundreds of descendants in the USA as of 2008, and was a collateral relation to US President Andrew Jackson and, in a subsequent generation, the US Civil War general, Thomas "Stonewall" Jackson.

External links

• Eccleston chorley.gov.uk.