WEST DERBY HUNDRED 



adjoin, from the time the monks of Merivale received 

 possession of it. 1 The chapel appears to have been 

 but poorly furnished. From that year there is clear 

 evidence that divine service was regularly celebrated, 

 the leases stipulating for the payment of a resident 

 priest, normally one of the monks of Merivale.* 



The church existing in the seventeenth century is 

 said to have been of timber and plaster. About 1614 

 Altcar was described as ' a donative impropriate to Sir 

 Richard Molyneux, Knight ; no incumbent, but a 

 bare reader and a mean pension.' 3 The Common- 

 wealth surveyors of 1650 found that there was a 

 church, but no parsonage or glebe lands ; the tithes, 

 worth 70 a year, 4 were farmed by Lord Molyneux 

 under a lease for ten thousand years. The church 

 was well situated within the parish, and there was no 

 need for any other. 6 In 1646 the stipend of the 

 minister was but twenty nobles (6 I $s. 4^.) a year, as 

 the old rent of the spiritualities of the parish ; but 

 upon Lord Molyneux's property being sequestered by 

 Parliament .503 year was promptly added to this 

 stipend out of the tithes of Altcar. 6 Altcar Hall was 

 assigned as a parsonage house, with orchards, gardens, 

 yards, stables, and outhouses. It is the old church- 

 house. Afterwards it became an inn, and is still 

 standing by the churchyard. 



Bishop Gastrell in 1717 found that Lord Molyneux, 

 who let out the tithes for 80 a year, paid the curate 

 there about 10 a year, to which a further l los. 

 might arise from surplice fees. There were two war- 

 dens, serving by house row.' 



Nearly thirty years later the church is supposed 

 to have been destroyed by fire, and a new one was 

 built, a royal brief in 1743 raising a certain portion of 

 the cost. The new building was consecrated in 1747. 

 It was a 'small brick edifice, with a cupola in which 

 was only one bell. The interior was very plain.' 8 



The present church of St. Michael, 9 in the Perpen- 

 dicular style, was built in 1879, the former one being 

 pulled down. 



The registers begin in 1664, but no marriage is 

 recorded till 1680. There are parish accounts from 



ALTCAR 



1714. An old font lies in the churchyard, in company 

 with the base of a cross and the font (sundial pattern) 

 of I747- 1 " 



Altcar being a donative, no institution or licence 

 was required ; but about the end of the seventeenth 

 century Bishop Gastrell notices that curates had been 

 licensed." Probably the monk in charge at the dis- 

 solution of the monasteries would remain at Altcar, 

 having no longer any other home ; " but the first 

 curate whose name is known is Gilbert Shurlacres. 13 



It appears that the curate-in-charge might only be 

 a ' reader,' that is, a layman licensed to read the 

 prayers ; the salary was very small, and as practically 

 all the people adhered to the Roman Catholic faith after 

 the Reformation there would be few offerings and other 

 dues to increase it. The improvement in the minis- 

 ter's stipend made by the parliamentary authorities 

 was accompanied by the appointment of Robert 

 Seddon, 'an orthodox and painful godly minister,' 

 who had been put in by Colonel John Moore, and 

 was there in 1650.'* The following are among the 

 later curates and vicars, who have since 1856 been 

 presented by the Earl of Sefton as patron : 



1656 Nathaniel Brownsword 13 



1657 John Walton, clerk " 

 oc. 1665 Brookes 17 



e. 1 669 Zachary Leech " 

 oc. 1671 Richard Critchley " 



1 702 Norris 



1702 Timothy Ellison 1S 



1717 Edward Pilkington 19 



1724 William Clayton " 



1735 Thomas Mercer 21 

 oc. 1774 William Naylor 8 ' 



1823 Thomas Garrett, M.A. (Aberdeen) a 



1826 Charles Forshaw, B.A. " 



1856 James Pearson, M.A. (Trinity College, 

 Camb.) 



1862 John Thomas 26 



1880 William Warburton 8? 



