Parishes, the old ecclesiastical administrative divisions, are now much less significant than they once were. Present local authority boundaries often follow parish boundaries but sometimes ignore them, so that, as indicated on the map below, only part of a parish may fall within a particular borough.
Local historians tend to use these old divisions for two reasons. Firstly, many of the documents they use as evidence arise from the parish-based system of local government, and secondly, the parish boundaries are generally a convenient way of dividing an area for field work and recording purposes.
