Chapter VI

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[35] Table forks were introduced into England from Italy at the close of the Tudor dynasty; previously the people of all ranks used their fingers for the purposes to which we now apply a fork. A kind of fork was used as far back as the Anglo-Saxon times, but only to serve articles from the dish.

[36] Harl. MSS.

[37] This Alex. Rigby must not be confounded with the gentleman of that name mentioned in the former chapter, and who in the civil contests was a parliamentary general. A. Rigby here denoted, was a royalist officer.

[38] A Discourse of the Warr in Lancashire, edited by William Beamont (Cheetham Society.)

[39] A Discourse of the Warr in Lancashire, edited by William Beamont.

[40] A discourse of the Warr in Lancashire, edited by William Beamont.

[41] Hist. Collect. P. 4, vol. I, p. 22.

[42] Tour, p. 20.

[43] From a M.S. of Peter Le Neve., Norroy, among the collection of Mr. Joseph Ames. The knights of this order were to wear a silver medal ornamented with a device of the King in the Oak, suspended by a ribbon from their necks. The following is a list of persons in the county of Lancashire who were considered fit and qualified to be made Knights of this Order with the value of their estates:—

Thomas Holt per annum £1000 Thomas Greenhalgh ” 1000 Colonel Kirkby ” 1500 Robert Holt ” 1000 Edmund Asheton ” 1000 Christopher Banister ” 1000 Francis Anderton ” 1000 Col. James Anderton ” 1500 Robert Nowell ” 1000 Henry Norris ” 1200 John Girlington ” 1000 Thomas Preston ” 2000 Thomas Farrington of Worden ” 1000 Thomas Fleetwood of Penwortham ” 1000 William Stanley ” 1000 Edward Tyldesley ” 1000 Thomas Stanley ” 1000 Richard Boteler (Butler) ” 1000 John Ingleton, senior ” 1000 ⸺ Walmsley of Dunkenhalgh ” 2000

[44] “This year (1715) provisions were plentiful and cheap, as also corn and hay”—the Journal of W. Stout of Lancaster.

[45] A tract in the library of the British Museum, entitled “Catholic Chapels, Chaplains.” etc., and bearing the date 1819.

[46] A kind of Ducking Stool.

[47] A bear was baited at Weeton fair less than a century ago.

[48] 25 Henry VIII. c. 13, and 31 Elizabeth, c. 7.

[49] 39 Elizabeth, c. 1.

[50] Gay.

[51] Gay. The Spell.

[52] Hist. of Blackpool and Neighbourhood, by W. Thornber, B.A.

[53] Gay.

[54] This high price was owing to an almost complete failure in the potatoe crops.

[55] Obtained by striking an average of the weekly market quotations in the local periodicals, published weekly during the respective years.

[56] Faerie Land, Song, edit. A.D. 1622.

[57] This is incorrect, as the Ribble and not the Darwent separates the Hundreds of Leyland and Amounderness.

[58] Record Office, 28 Henry VIII., V. S., c. 6.

[59] This Sir William de Clifton was accused in the year 1337 of having taken possession of twenty marks belonging to the Abbot of Vale Royal, and of having forcibly obstructed the rector in the collecting of tithes within the manors of Clifton and Westby; also with having inflicted certain injuries upon the hunting palfrey of the latter gentleman.

[60] Sir Cuthbert Clifton espoused as his second wife, Dorothy, daughter of Sir Thomas Smyth, of Wotton Walwyns, in Warwickshire, and had three sons, Lawrence, Francis, and John, captains in the royal army, and slain in the civil war, besides seven other children. Sir Cuthbert purchased Little Marton and the monastic portion of Lytham from Sir John Holcroft in 1606. He was knighted by James I. at Lathom House.

[61] See Out Rawcliffe in the chapter on St. Michaels’ parish for the Wilson-ffrance descent.

[62] See page 72.

[63] Dugdale’s Visitation.

[64] Richard Longworth, of St. Michael’s Hall, a justice of the peace.

[65] The small Lᵈ of Roshall was Edward Fleetwood, of Rossall Hall, who at this time was thirty years of age.

[66] John Westby, of Mowbreck, was probably the builder or purchaser of Burn Hall about the middle of the sixteenth century. See pedigree above at that date.

[67] Pawnage, or Pannage, signified the food of swine to be found in woods, such as acorns and beech-mast, etc.

[68] Regist. S. Mariæ de Lanc. MS. fol. 1.

[69] Regist. S. Mariæ de Lanc. fol. 77.

[70] Regist. of Cockersand Abbey, and S. Mariæ de Lanc.

[71] Baines’s Hist. of Lanc.

[72] Regist. S. Mariæ de Lanc.

[73] John Hull, M.D., F.L.S., commenced his professional education at Blackburn in 1777; and in 1791, after graduating in medicine, settled at Manchester, where he attained to considerable eminence both as a physician and writer on botanical and medical subjects. He retired from practice to his native town of Poulton in 1836, and remained there until his demise.

[74] “Enter and pray, if you have raised to heaven your open palms you will have performed sacred duties, and will fly from evil things.”

[75] Mr. Rudhall, as we learn from the following entry in the registers of the 30 men of Kirkham, was in business at Gloucester:—“1749, April 14. Paid old Mr. Rudhall for coming from Gloucester to take notes of the bells when the 2nd. was recast, £3 3s. 0d.”

[76] The Pancake Bell is usually rung by an apprentice of the town as a signal for his _confreres_ to discontinue work for that day, but strange to say on a late occasion not one apprentice could be found in the whole of Poulton, and consequently the duty was performed by the ordinary bell-ringer.

[77] In all previously issued lists of vicars, Richard Fleetwood has erroneously been named as patron in this instance. There was no Rich. Fleetwood of Rossall at that time, and Edward, who had been patron at the former institution, was probably still alive as he had no son and but one daughter, who married Roger Hesketh, the next patron in right of his wife.

[78] In 1876 a brass plate was found in Poulton church, near the site of the old communion table, inscribed:—“Here lies the body of Anne, wife of Richard Harrison, vicar of Poolton, who dyed the 24th of December, 1679, aged 55 years.”

[79] From these entries it would seem that the regulation of 1782 soon became a dead letter, if indeed it were ever carried into practice.

[80] The Battle and Victory of the Nile.

[81] Visitation of St. George.

[82] For a full description of the direction taken by this road, see page 7.

[83] The Rev. G. Y. Osborne resigned the living of Fleetwood on being appointed vicar of St. Thomas’s, Dudley, which cure he held up to the date of his decease.

[84] A second line was laid on this length in 1875 for the first time.

[85] Coastguards were first located at Fleetwood in 1858, and consisted of six men and an officer. Their present station in Abbot’s Walk was erected in 1864, and comprises cottage accommodation for six men, and another residence for the officer in command.

[86] Newly-built vessels registered for the first time, the other vessels belonging to the harbour being transferred from other parts and re-registered here.

[87] Rot. Lit. Claus. 16 John, m. 7.

[88] Rot. Finium 5 Henry III. m. 8.

[89] Escaet. 42 Henry III. m. 11.

[90] Survey of Lancashire ending in 1346.

[91] Visitation of St. George.

[92] Placit de Quo Warr. 20 Edw. I. Lanc. Rot. 13d.

[93] An oxgang is as much land as an ox can plough in a year, something considerably less than a carucate, which is estimated at one hundred acres.

[94] Chethem Soc. Series, No. lxxiv. p. 57.

[95] For “Westby of Burn Hall” see