WEST DERBY HUNDRED 



Yorkshire. 1 A few years after the dissolution of 



that house it was sold by the crown to Richard 



Brooke,' said to have been a Hospitaller, who after 



the suppression renounced his 



vows, married, conformed to 



the new religious system, and 



founded the house of Brooke 



of Norton Priory.* Cuerdley 



manor, with practically all the 



land in the township, has 



descended regularly to the 



present head of the family, 



Sir Richard Marcus Brooke, 



baronet. 4 Manor courts were 



still regularly held about 1 830.' 



Apart from occasional dis- grailcJ per tale gules and 

 putes between members of the 

 Grelley family, 6 or between 



the lords of the manor and their tenants,' the history 

 of the township has been obscure and uneventful. 



Among the freeholders whose names occur at 

 different times are Holand and Ireland, 8 Bury, 9 and 

 Smith. 10 To this last family belonged William 

 Smith, bishop of Lincoln, 1495 to 1515, the founder 



PRESCOT 



of Farnworth Grammar School, and co-fjunder of 

 Brasenose College, Oxford. 11 



The hearth-tax list of 1662 shows that John 

 Houghton and John Rutter were the principal 

 residents." 



DITTON 



Ditton, 1 193. 



On the south, Ditton Brook and the low-lying 

 marshy ground along it must once have formed a 

 definite physical boundary for the township. In the 

 east-central portion is Ditton village, with Ditchfield 

 to the west and Hough Green to the north. The 

 eastern and northern boundaries are formed in great 

 measure by two small brooks, Moss Brook dividing 

 Ditton from Widnes, and what was formerly called 

 Halliwell Brook from Cronton. 



The country is flat and divided into pastures and 

 arable fields where wheat and oats are generally grown 

 on a clay soil. There are but few trees and scanty 

 hedges, for the locality is too close to the manufac- 

 turing town of Widnes to escape the inevitable effects 

 of smoke and chemical fumes. Around Hough Green 

 the lower mottled sandstone of the bunter series 



