DITTON is a parish, formed March 19th, 1876; it is on the river Mersey, and has a station on the St. Helena, Warrington and Liverpool section of the London and North Western railway, 2 miles north-west from Widnes, 8 west from Warrington, south from St. Helens and 208 from London, in the Widnes division of the county, hundred of West Derby, petty sessional division and union of Prescot, St Helens county court district, rural deanery of Childwall, archdeaconry of Warrington and diocese of Liverpool. The church of St. Michael, at Hough Green, built in 1871, is an edifice of stone in the Decorated style, consisting of chancel, nave, transepts, south porch and a turret containing one bell; there are sittings for 370 persons, of which half are free. The register dates from the year 1870. The living is a vicarage, net yearly value £100, with residence, in the gift of five trustees, and held, since 1884, by the Rev. Charles William Wooll M.A. of St. John’s College, Cambridge. The Wesleyan chapel, erected in 1860, will seat 300; there is also a Wesleyan iron mission chapel in Liverpool road. Ditton Hall, formerly the seat of the late Hon. Mrs. Stapleton-Bretherton, was from 1871 a College of Jesuit refugees, but is now used as a House of the Sisters of Nazareth, for boys, in connection with the Catholic church of St. Michael, which is a building of red sandstone in the Gothic style, erected in 1876, at a cost of upwards of £30,000, by the late Hon. Mrs. Stapleton-Bretherton, and consists of chancel, nave of six bays, aisles and a lofty western tower in the Byzantine style, containing 6 bells; the stations of the cross are oil paintings of large size, and there are fine paintings over the two side altars. The soil is stiff clay; subsoil, clay and rock. The chief crops are grass, wheat and oats. The area is 1,926 acres of land, 10 of inland, and 4 of tidal water; rateable value, £18,251; the population in 1881 was 1,412; in 1891, 2,247 and in 1901, 2,605; the population of the ecclesiastical parish in 1901 was 2,744. By the Divided Parishes Act (1876) a portion of Tarbock, known as “Garnett’s Land,” was transferred to this parish in 1877 from Farnworth, Wheaton, Halewood and Huyton; all tithes go to either Prescot or King’s College, Cambridge.

PUBLIC ELEMENTARY SCHOOLS

Mixed, erected in 1872, for 210 scholars; average attendance, 194.

St. Mary's (Catholic) (mixed), erected in 1860 by the late Hon. Mrs. Stapleton-Breherton, for 134 children, since enlarged for 428: average attendance 280.