WEST DERBY HUNDRED 



PRESCOT 



I WHISTON 

 PRESCOT 

 SUTTON 

 ECCLESTON 

 RAINHILL 



PRESCOT 



WINDLE 

 PARR 



RAINFORD 

 II WIDNES 

 CRONTON 



CUERDLEY 



DITTON 



BOLD 



GREAT SANKEY 



PENKETH 



The ancient parish of Prescot was very extensive, 

 comprising fifteen townships and having a total area 

 of 37,221 acres. From early times, however, the 

 southern half of the parish was considered a separate 

 chapelry, with Farnworth as centre ; from it, at the 

 beginning of the eighteenth century, Great Sankey 

 was cut off to form a chapelry by itself. 



The townships were thus arranged for the county 

 lay : Prescot Division, paying twenty parts out of thirty- 

 nine, had four quarters, each paying the same, viz. 

 (i) Prescot, Whiston, and Rainhill ; (ii) Eccleston 

 and Rainford ; (iii) Windle and Parr; (iv) Sutton. 

 Farnworth Division, paying the other nineteen parts, 

 had four quarters and a half, viz. (i) Widnes with 

 Appleton ; (ii) Bold ; (iii) Cuerdley and Cronton ; 

 (iv) Ditton and Penketh ; each of these quarters paid 

 the same amount, and the half quarter was Great 

 Sankey, which paid half of what a quarter paid. 

 There were further rules for the division of the con- 

 tribution from each quarter among the separate town- 

 ships. 1 The more ancient fifteenth was levied thus : 

 Whiston 2O/., Sutton 40^. 8/, Eccleston z()s. 8<, 

 Rainhill 26s. 6y., Windle 2 5 s. 6y., Parr 141. 4^., 

 Rainford 23*. 4^., and Widnes with Appleton 49;. 4^., 

 Ditton 4cu., Bold 59*. 6J</., Cuerdley 34^. 6J</., 

 Sankey with Penketh 35*. 8J., Cronton 2js. $d.' 



The history of the parish has been comparatively 

 uneventful. No Roman or other early remains have 

 been found here. The Bolds were for long the lead- 

 ing family resident in it ; Sir John Bold was governor 

 of Conway Castle in the first part of the fifteenth 

 century. By 1600 the family had conformed to 

 Protestantism, and during the Civil War the youthful 

 squire adhered to the Parliament, but seems to have taken 

 no active part in the strife. The Ecclestons and 

 many of the smaller families persevered in professing 

 the Roman Catholic faith,' and suffered accordingly, 

 alike from king and Parliament ; John Travers was 

 executed in 1586 for his share in the Babington plot, 

 and the Jesuit father Thomas Holland for his priest- 

 hood in 1642. On the other hand, Roger Holland 

 was burnt at Smithfield in 1558. Generally speak- 

 ing, the gentry took the royal side in the Civil War, 

 including Protestant families like the Ashtons of Pen- 

 keth. Nonconformity was, however, very prevalent 

 in the seventeenth century, and the Revolution seems 

 to have been accepted without demur, so that the 

 risings of 1715 and 1745 found no noteworthy sup- 

 porters, except perhaps Basil Thomas Eccleston. 

 In modern times great manufacturing towns have 



1 Grcgson, Fragments (ed. Harland), 

 16, 22. The whole parish paid 7-48 th 

 of the contribution required from the 

 hundred. 



1 Ibid. 18; a total of 21 6s. s/. 

 when the hundred paid 106 91. f>d. 



8 John Lister, a seminary priest, was 

 captured at Prescot in 1585, very soon 



grown up at St. Helens and Widnes, which have 

 altered the character of the district. The town of 

 Prescot has also some manufactures, though it has lost 

 its ancient relative importance. 



The agricultural land in the parish is (1905) 

 occupied as follows : Arable land, 25,130 acres ; per- 

 manent grass, 3,146 ; woods and plantations, 928.* 



The most noteworthy of its natives appear to be 

 William Smith, bishop of Lincoln, co-founder of 

 Brasenose College, Oxford ; Archbishop Bancroft ; 

 and John Philip Kemble, the Shakespearian actor. 



Pennant, who crossed the parish from Warrington 

 to Knowsley in 1773, after noticing the Sankey 

 Canal and mentioning Bewsey Hall and Bold Hall, 

 proceeds : ' The parish of Prescot commences at 

 Sankey Bridges : eight miles further is the town, 

 seated on a hill, and well-built and flourishing ; the 

 intervening country flat and full of hedge-rows ; and 

 the whole parish rich in collieries.' * The Rev. William 

 MacRitchie, a Presbyterian minister, passed through 

 it in 1795 on his way from Liverpool and writes: 

 ' Breathe again the air of the country. See on the 

 rising grounds above a view of Cheshire and the 

 Welsh mountains towards Snowdon and Anglesey. 

 At Prescot pass by, on the left, Knowsley, seat of 

 Lord Derby. A large pottery work carried on at 

 Prescot of clay found in its neighbourhood.' 6 



The church of our Lady stands on the 

 CHURCH south side of the town, where the ground 

 falls considerably to south and west. It 

 has a chancel with south vestry, north organ- 

 chamber and vestry, a nave with aisles and a west 

 tower and stone spire. The chancel is of the same 

 width as the nave, 28 ft., and is 56 ft. long, the nave 

 being 96 ft. long. Little evidence remains of the 

 early history of the building, but the base of the south 

 wall of the chancel may be ancient, and the north 

 vestry is probably of the fifteenth century. With 

 these exceptions the whole church was rebuilt in 1610 

 in a plain Gothic style, and the west tower dates from 

 1729, apparently replacing an older tower, while in 

 1 8 1 8 the aisles were enlarged and altered. The outer 

 stonework of the church is entirely modern, and the 

 south vestry is an addition of 1900. In spite of the 

 many modern alterations the church is of considerable 

 interest. The chancel has a set of black oak stalls 

 dated 1636, three returned on each side of the 

 entrance to the chancel, three against the south wall, 

 and two against the north. All have misericordes, 

 but the carving beneath the seats has been removed. 



341 



