85 
them having been printed until 1823. They were therefore at 
that time rarely, if ever, utilised by historians But no Lan- 
cashire parish history which did not incorporate the pith of the 
information of the Duchy Inquisitions would now-a-days pass 
muster at the hands of competent critics of such books. I note 
that in the collection of Inquisitions in the Record Office there 
are about fifty Inquisitions which relate to estates and their 
ancient possessors in the Burnley district, of which five or six 
are printed in the volume of the Record Society issued a few 
days since. 
4. Cowrt Rolls of Clitheroe Castle—The records of the 
Manor of Ightenhill and other members of the great fee of 
Clitheroe Castle in the custody of the Steward of the Honor of 
Clitheroe at Clitheroe Castle furnish somewhat similar particulars 
respecting the Copyhold estates and their succession of tenants, 
as the Escheator’s after-death Inquisitions do about the freehold 
estates and their tenants; but the Cowt Rolls, in which all 
the copyholds are entered, are a perfect series, containing an 
account of all the facts and conditions of each copyholding tenancy 
for several centuries to the present date, whilst the Inquisitions 
are but a fragmentary mass of records, ending nearly 240 years 
ago. A great proportion of the landsin the Burnley district are 
copyhold ; and therefore for the purpose of elucidating their 
ownership it would be necessary to seek for access to the records 
at Clitheroe Castle. The present Steward of the Honor, Arthur 
I. Robinson, Esq., is himself so much interested in local historical 
research and illustration, that I have little doubt he would grant 
all reasonable privileges of special reference to the Court Rolls to 
competent persons engaged upon a History of Burnley. I have 
seen a number of copies of surrenders, &c., into this court 
connected with the Whitakers of Healey and one or two other 
local families, and have had some experience of their service in the 
composition of sketches of families which held lands in copyhold. 
Evidence to very many facts which cannot be elsewhere derived 
is yielded by these copies of Court Roll which constitute the title- 
deeds of the copyholders ; and the records of Clitheroe Honor and 
its members, of which the local demesne of Ightenhill Park is one 
of the most important, must not be overlooked as a substantial 
portion of the raw material for local history when it comes to be 
worthily written. 
5. Private Deeds and Family Papers—The old charters and 
title-deeds of estates and papers of sundry descriptions relating to 
past transactions in family annals, which are in private hands 
remain an undefined quantity in the local annalist’s preliminary 
survey of his materials; for no one knows how much of curious 
lore bearing upon the state of communities at distant periods and 
upon domestic affairs, lies unregarded in the recesses of old family 
