200 A HISTORY OF LONGRIDGE. [Chap. 8. 



genial and kindly, but shrewd and hardworking, lives a quiet and 

 retired life among his books, and is deservedly respected and poj^ular. 

 Near the Chapel there is a good School, with an average attendance 

 of about 80. 



Lee House Church. 



Aboiit two miles from Longridge, on the road to Chipping, is Lee 

 House Roman Catholic Chapel, Thornley. It is a modest little 

 building, dedicated to St. William, and was erected in 1738, when a 

 Catholic Mission was founded there by Mr. Thomas Eccles, of Lee 

 House. It was formerly under the Franciscans, then under the 

 Secular Clergy, and it is now under the Benedictine Order. From 

 1841 to 1859, the Chapel was closed. There is the stone base of an 

 old Pilgrim's Cross in the graveyard. Father Trappes caused this 

 cross base to be brought hither from the old road between Chipping 

 and Longi'idge. The tradition is, that it took a number of horses and 

 men to remove it ; and that, seeing how difficult it was to remove, 

 people were afraid to go near it, but were eventually pacified. 



The interior of the Chapel is very plain. The building will seat 

 about 150 people, the average attendance being somewhere about 

 fifty. There are some tablets in the Church. 



List op Priests at Lee House. 



1738 Eev. G. Holmes, O.S.F.' 



Eev. F. Clarke, ,, 



•Fr. Holmes was martyred at Lancaster. 



