Many years ago my father said that our family came from Yorkshire, he thought near Halifax, and that the name meant a 'black bog' or 'black stream'.
Once the internet came along I was able to search, and I found it:  not Blackledge Road or Blackledge Street, but just BLACKLEDGE.
-John Blackledge, (johnblackledge@gmail.com) son of William Blackledge of Ordsall Lane, Salford. dob 27/04/1920

1757: BLACKLEDGE was a country footpath from Wards End.

BARUM-TOP, in 1606, was called Bourame, and Berum in 1797, where the old "Watergates" are shown in one of the corporation pamphlets, another reference is to S. King being fined 39s. 0d. for not letting the water have its course, and Roger Foster 'payned' the same amount for not letting the water flow into Blackledge.
(Ref: Yorkshire Directory of Streets)

So, for better or for worse, I thought that this Yorkshire branch eventually became the Salford (Lancashire) Protestant branch.

Then I was contacted by my cousin Lucy Dowling (her mother is a Blackledge), who explained that the Blackledges have always been a Lancashire line, not Yorkshire, and she had the family tree to prove it!  (Thank you, Lucy!)

The family tree that Lucy provided is now reproduced on this website.

We now realise that the main Blackledge line have always been staunch Catholics, and we think that my line of the family branched off as Protestants during the Civil War.

Interestingly, most of the Catholic line now live in Yorkshire, and most of the Protestant line now live in Lancashire.