148 History of the 



"The building, 20 yds. long, or thereabouts ; 7 yds. wide within. 

 2 Doors opposite each other in the Middle of the Building. The 

 Windows as below. [Here is givena rude sketch of an arched and 

 nuiUioned window.] The Roof supported by Crooks. 2 large 

 stone Troughs ; at each door one. A large stone Pulpit was 

 demolished when the Building was converted to its present use, in 

 the ruins of which some Beads were found. At present it is 

 occupied in 2 Cottages, the Property of Mr. Jopham, of Chester. 

 It is situate .at Lench, in the Parish of Bury and Forest of 

 Rossendale, distant from the nearest part of Brandwood about |- 

 of a mile." 



Fragments of stones, bearing inscriptions, have been dug out of the 

 soil in its vicinity. The place originally may have been used as a 

 Hermitage or dwelling — an offshoot of the parent Abbey of Whalley, 

 where the Monk or Monks in charge of the property of the church 

 in this neighbourhood took up their abode ; and afterwards, as the 

 poimlation of the district began to increase, it probably was 

 adapted to the performance of Divine worship. 



There is reason, if not corroborative evidence, in support of this ; 

 for it will scarcely be doubted that the ecclesiastics of those times 

 would be fully alive to the necessity of providing the means of 

 religious edification to the peo[)le in their charge, who were far 

 removed from the great centres of the imposing ceremonials of the 

 Church. We have already seen that the Abbot of \Mialley, in the 

 time of Henry HI, constructed and built a manor-house in the 

 " waste of Brendewode," and that the Manor was held in free, 

 pure, and perpetual alms freed from all charge, e.xcepting only 

 prayers and orisons for the souls of the founders and feoffors, and 

 their ancestors and heirs. True, the site of the Chapel at Rough 

 Lee was without the limits of their landed possessions in this 

 district ; but this fact does not militate against the present conjec- 

 ture. The " waste of Brendewode " was a bleak and uninviting 

 tract of country, having none of the characteristics of those 

 neighbourhoods usually chosen for the erection of religious 

 structures in past days ; and the Monks, with that unerring instinct 



