Warton, United Kingdom

Warton is the birthplace of the medieval ancestors of George Washington, the first popularly elected President of the United States. Lawrence Washington, seven generations prior to George Washington and his family, arrived in Warton around 1300, and Robert Washington, Lawrence's great-grandson, is rumoured to have helped build the clock tower of St Oswald's Church. The Washington family coat of arms, three mullets and two bars, can be found in the church and is said to have inspired the design of the flag of the United States.

The flag of the United States of America is displayed on the village church flag pole every Fourth of July. The flag was donated to the village after US soldiers had visited the village during World War II and having returned to the USA contacted their state senator about the birthplace of the Washington family. The donated flag had flown above the Capitol Building in Washington DC.

The village continued to expand during the 16th and 17th century, a large number of houses being built to line the backbone of the village, Main Street, running through Carnforth, Warton, Yealand Conyers and Yealand Redmayne

Until the 18th century, Warton was a minor provider of limestone quarried from Warton Crag. With the invention of the steam locomotive this industry boomed, causing Carnforth, the small hamlet where the local railway station was placed, to expand and outgrow Warton in a matter of decades. A number of the old 17th century lime kilns can still be found dotted around Warton Crag.

The advancement of Carnforth's iron industry and locomotive progress meant that Warton expanded as a place for the workforce to live, and a number of cheap terraced houses filled up the gaps on Main Street around the turn of the 20th century. By the 1940s Warton had two council estates, a large number of shops and at least two public houses. Warton has had a cricket club since 1907 and they were crowned Westmorland League champions for the first time in 2007.

John Lucas (27 January 1684, Warton - 26 June 1750, Leeds) was educated at the village grammar school and then moved to Leeds in Yorkshire to work as a schoolmaster. He became friends with historian Ralph Thoresby and between 1710 and 1744 worked on A Topographical Description of the Parish of Warton, and some parts adjacent in the County Palatine of Lancaster and Diocese of Chester. Interspersed with great variety of Observations from history Ecclesiastical, Civil and Natural extracted from Original Records, Manuscripts, Pedigrees etc. and many rare ancient and modern Printed Books, making use of Thoresby's library. In 1930 J Rawlinson Ford and John Alexander Fuller-Maitland produced an edited version which was published as John Lucas's History of Warton Parish (Kendal, Titus Wilson) and in 2017 Andy Denwood edited the work again, publishing it as A History of Warton Parish (Lancaster, Andy Denwood: ISBN 978-0-9957765-0-0)

The old parish of Warton included the townships of Borwick, Carnforth, Priest Hutton, Silverdale, Warton, Yealand Redmayne and Yealand Conyers. The current civil parish of Warton has boundaries established in 1935 following the division of the historic Warton with Lindeth parish and is surrounded by the civil parishes of Silverdale and Yealand Conyers to the north, Priest Hutton and Borwick to the east, and Carnforth to the south (the border following the River Keer). To the west, the parish extends onto the sands of Morecambe Bay. The parish includes Warton Crag, a limestone hill immediately north of the village. It is protected as a nature reserve by multiple organisations, and has archaeological remains which have been identified as an Iron Age hill fort or an earlier structure. The southern boundary of the parish follows the River Keer as far as Kellet Lane just east of the M6 motorway; the eastern boundary skirts to the west of Tewitfield, and the northern boundary passes through Hyning Scout Wood before joining Morecambe Bay along the outflow from Leighton Moss, just south of Jenny Brown's Point.

The lake, formerly a gravel pit, at Pine Lake leisure park in the east of the parish, is the site of Mourholme castle, recorded in 1216, which gives its name to the local history society covering Warton.