A HISTORY OF LANCASHIRE 



held at Warrington in 1523 for this land. 1 Rowland 

 Stanley, his grandson, held his lands here for ^s. \od. 

 per annum in 1548,* and sold them in 1560 with 

 the mesne manor of Westleigh Old Hall to Sir 

 William Norris, lent. 3 In 1565 Norris sold twelve 

 messuages and zoo acres of land here and in West- 

 leigh to Thomas Charnock, esq., whose grandson sold 

 them in 1632 to Sherington and Blower as already 

 stated.' 



The Atherton family acquired lands here at an 

 early date, but they were sold in 1547 to Lawrence 

 Asshawe of Shaw Hall, 5 and passed with his Bedford 

 estate. 6 



The family of Renacres were long in possession or 

 a small freehold estate which Nicholas Renacres held 

 in 1514' and 1523,* and Richard in 1 548, by a 

 yearly free rent of id? In 1565 Richard son and 

 heir of the last-named, acknowledged that he held 

 his lands 1 ere of Thomas Butler, esq., by knight's 

 service. 10 Richard Renacres of Pennington, gent., 

 Joan his wife and John their son were parties to a 

 fine of lands heU here in 1586.'' Perhaps from this 

 family descended John Ranicars of Bedford, gent., 

 who acquired the Old Hal of Westleigh in right of 

 his wife Ellen, daughter and heir of Edward Green. 1 ' 



A venerable Elizabethan edifice, formerly known 

 as the Pyle or PEEL, in Pennington, and now as 

 Urmstons in the Meadows, or 

 i'th' Meadows, was formerly 

 the home of a branch of 

 the Urmston family. In 1589 

 Richard Norris of West Derby, 

 gent., leased a messuage in 

 Pennington to Richard Urmston 

 of the Pyle in Pennington, 

 yeoman, Jane his wife, and 

 Richard his son. 13 This estate, 

 with another known as Daven- 



ports, now Davenport House, 



annulet! in pale and as 



was purchased by John Gwillym 

 sometime before 1689, the last- 

 named from Samuel Byrom. 

 He died before 1692, when his property was adminis- 

 tered by his executors, and in 1 700 by the guardians 

 of his daughter Jane, who married John Greaves of 

 Manchester. 14 Their son Edward Greaves of Culcheth, 

 Newton Heath, was in possession in I784. 15 It is 

 now the property of Mr. Milnes-Gaskell. 16 



The family of Pemberton held a considerable 

 estate here known as ETHERSTON HALL 11 at the 

 beginning of the fifteenth century. In 1415 the 

 feoffees of Richard Pemberton, of Tunstead in 

 Pemberton, gave to his relict, Alice, for her life, all his 

 messuages in Pennington and the reversion of other 

 messuages which Joan the wife of Richard Pilkington 



PEMBERTON. Ar- 

 gent, a chevron between 

 three buckets sable, hoofed 



held in dower after the death of Adam Pennington, 

 formerly her husband, the reversion to Hugh son of 

 Thomas son of the said Richard Pemberton and his 

 heirs male, with remainders to Thurstan brother of 

 Hugh. 18 Richard Pemberton's 

 estate consisted of lands called 

 Ethereston, the Thornes, the 

 Crembill and Flaxfeld, a mea- 

 dow called the Haghesmede, 

 other lands called Farthill, the 

 Foldes, an acre of meadow 

 called the Harshokes, a croft 

 called Shotycroft, a plat called 

 the Stokemede, all which he 

 held at the time of his death 

 early in 1415 of William 

 Boteler, chr., of Warrington by 

 knight's service. 19 There is <"" 

 reason to believe that these 



lands had formed part of the demesne of Pen- 

 nington and had descended to the Pembertons by 

 marriage with a kinswoman of Adam de Penning- 

 ton. 10 George Pemberton held the estate of Sir 

 Thomas Butler in the latter part of the reign of 

 Henry VIII,' 1 but it did not long descend in his 

 family, passing to the Leylands of Morleys, of whom 

 Sir William Leyland, knt., died in 1547, seised of 

 lands and tenements here, which he held ' of the 

 heirs of Adam de Pennington.' ** Subsequently it 

 descended with the estates of the Tyldesleys of 

 Morleys. Early in the last century it was the 

 property of Thomas Jones, who rebuilt the hall in 

 1826, and by his executors was sold to the Trustees 

 of Clarke and Marshall's Charity in Manchester, who 

 are the present owners.* 3 



William Bolton, innkeeper, Anne Eaton, of South- 

 worth, Robert Greenough, Margaret Hodgkinson, and 

 John Urmston registered estates as ' Papists ' in 

 1717." 



In 1787 James Hilton owned nearly one-fourth of 

 the township. 14 



Christ Church, erected in 1854, is a building of 

 stone in the perpendicular style, consisting of chancel, 

 nave, aisles, south porch, and an embattled western 

 tower containing one bell. The registers date from 

 the year 1854. The living is a vicarage of the net 

 yearly value of ^300 with a residence, in the gift of 

 the Simeon trustees. 



The Roman Catholic church of the Sacred Heart, 

 opened in 1904, is in Windermere Road. 



Richard Bradshaw bequeathed 5 



CHARITIES by his will in 1681 for the relief of 



the poor. James and Randell Wright 



in 1679 gave 40 to trustees to be devoted to the 



maintenance of the schoolmaster in Leigh Grammar 



i Warr. Ct. R. (Chet. Soc. Ixxxvii), 43 1. 



" Pal. of Lane. Feet of F. bdle. 1 3, 

 m. 142. a Ibid. bdle. 22, m. 20. 



< Clowes D. box ii, 67. 



'Pal. of Lane. Feet of F. bdle. 13, 

 m. 297. 



6 Duchy of Lane. Inq. p.m. xvi, n. n. 



^ Warr. Homage R. (Rec. Soc. xii), 41. 



8 Chet. Soc. Ixxxvii, 432. 



9 Pal. of Lane. Feet of F. bdle. 1 3, 



'> Warr. Homage R. (Rec. Soc. xii), 39. 

 11 Pal. of Lane. Feet of F. bdle. 48, 

 35, m. 209. 

 at of Westleigh Old 



18 Clowes D. box ii, No. 40. Richard 

 Urmston of Westleigh, esq., and John 

 Urmston of Kinknall, gent., were attor- 

 neys to deliver seisin. 



" In 1721 John Greaves and Jane his 

 wife, in her right, obtained a verdict 

 against John Richardson and James Hil- 

 ton, who claimed a pew in Leigh church 

 as appurtenant to messuages formerly the 

 property of Samuel Byrom, formerly of 

 Byrom, esq., named ' Seth Radcliffe ' and 

 ' Dunstars ' ; which last the defendants 

 had purchased from Mrs. Parr, widow, 

 who had shortly before purchased the 

 reversion from Samuel Byrom and Lady 

 Eliz. Otway with the said pew. The 



pew was declared to be the property of 

 the owners of Davenport Hall. Exch. of 

 Pleas, 7 Geo. I. mm. 5-51. 



15 Rose, op. cit. pass. 



" Ex inform. Mr. W. D. Pink. 



17 Etheriston 1338. 



18 Towneley MS. GG. 2626; Add. 

 MS. 32105, 150*. 



19 Inq. p.m. (Chet. Soc. xcv), 103. 



> See above. 



> l Pal. of Lane. Feet of F. bdle. 13, 



** Duchy of Lane. Inq. p.m. ix, n. 43. 

 28 Ex inform. Mr. W. D. Pink. 



43 



