A HISTORY OF LANCASHIRE 



estate to Adam Mort of Dam House in Tyldesley, 

 gent., 1 in whose line it descended with the other 

 family estates.' 



SHUTTLEWORTH was for several centuries in 

 the possession of the Shuttle worth family. Thomas 

 de Shuttleworth held it in 

 1315* and was father of Wil- 

 liam and Robert, living in 

 I3S3-* William had sons- 

 Thomas, living in 1371 ; and 

 Roger, 5 who married Alice 

 daughter of Adam de Kinken- 

 hale, by whom he had John 

 and Thomas. 6 During the 

 fifteenth century the descent 



is not clear, but in I 504 Hugh SHUTTLEWORTH. Ar- 



Shuttleworth did homage for gent, thru -weaver's 

 his lands here, 7 and again shuttles sable with threads 

 in 1523,' and was probably r - 

 father of Richard who held 



the estate of the lord of Warrington in 1548, by 

 the yearly quit-rent of \i.d? Before 1587 Richard 

 was succeeded by another Hugh 10 (died 1606), 

 father of Richard, who died in 1620 seised of the 

 thirty-second part of the manor, 4 messuages, a free 

 fishery in the waters of Bedford and Glazebrook, 

 moss on Chat Moss, the liberty of a mill, and to 

 be hopper-free in all mills in Bedford, all of which 

 he held of John, earl of Bridgewater, by fealty and 

 I2<z". rent. Richard his son was aged thirty years" 

 in 1620, and died at Dublin about 1647. He was 

 the father of Richard, who married Frances, one of 

 the daughters and coheirs of Richard Urmston of 

 Westleigh, in whose right his eldest son became 

 owner of a fourth part, and ultimately of the whole 

 of the manor of Westleigh, and the parsonage of 

 Leigh known as the Kirk Hall. He died in or about 

 1650, when his son Richard was eight years of age. 12 

 The latter appears to have taken some part in the 

 Stuart rebellion of 1715, in consequence of which his 

 estates were forfeited to the crown and subsequently 

 dispersed. 13 He had a brother John, whose children 

 were Ricrurd, living 1697, a Frances then the wife 

 of John Sampson, and a sister Margaret, in 1697 

 the widow of John Billinge of Grave Oak in Bedford, 

 gent. 



LIGHTO4KS is mentioned in a plea in 1356 in 

 which John son of John del Lightokes obtained a 

 verdict that William de Atherton, to whom Gilbert 

 de Kighley had demised the manor of Bedford for 

 a term, had pulled down a mill and rebuilt it upon 

 land of the said John to his disseisin. 14 In the seven- 

 teenth century this estate was in the possession of 



Henry Travers or Travice, who by his will dated 

 1624 gave zoo in trust, the interest to be bestowed 

 yearly upon forty poor persons of the parish." He 

 died in 1626, his widow Agnes 16 placing a memorial 

 brass upon one of the pillars of the parish church to 

 his memory. The estate appears to have been sold 

 to Sir Henry Sclater, grandson of Richard Sclater of 

 Keighley, Yorkshire, who entered his pedigree as of 

 Lightoaks, at Sir William Dugdale's Visitation of 

 1664-5. " I" 1700 Thomas Sclater, younger sen 

 of Sir Henry and Mary his wife, with Alexander 

 Radcliffe, gent., conveyed the manor or capital mes- 

 suage of Lightoaks with 1 1 5 acres of land, meadow, 

 and pasture and 140 acres of moss and heath, and 

 tithes of grain, hay, and flax in the parish of Leigh to 

 feoffees, 18 probably for sale. 



Graveoak, now a farmhouse, was in 1656 the 

 residence, and probably the property of George 

 Bradshaw, gent., and in 1690 of John Billinge, 

 gent. 



The estate of ECKERSLET" is first mentioned in 

 a deed of partition of lands made in 1371 between 

 Hugh of the Crosse and Katherine his wife, who took 

 the capital messuage of Eckersley and half the land 

 lying on the western side, whilst John de Halghton 

 and Siegrith his wife took two-thirds of the barn and 

 the reversion of another third part dependent upon 

 the death of Joan, wife of Simon de Byrom, with the 

 other half of the lands in the field and in the hey of 

 Eckersley.* In 1452 Nicholas Halghton was in pos- 

 session of the estate." In 1795 the duke of Bridge- 

 water purchased part of this estate, then known as 

 Limerick farm, from a Miss Houghton, and his 

 trustees afterwards purchased another estate here from 

 Sir Henry Dukinfield." 



In 1678 Francis Bradshaw, esq., and John Lea- 

 thwaite, gent., both of Bedford, were indicted at 

 Wigan for recusancy." 



The principal landowners in 1787 were the Rev. 

 Dr. Baldwin, John and James Green, Thomas Patten, 

 William DumbelPs executors, Alexander Radcliffe, and 

 the executors of Atherton Legh Atherton. 24 



The church of St. Thomas, built in 1840, was a 

 structure of brick. A new church has been erected 

 upon the old site and is now (1906) nearing com- 

 pletion. The registers commence in the year 1 840. 

 The living is a vicarage, net yearly value 300 with 

 residence, in the gift of the vicar of Leigh. Large and 

 commodious elementary schools have recently been 

 built at Butts End in connexion with the church. 



Those who adhered to the Roman Church at the 

 Reformation were occasionally able to hear mass at 

 Hopecarr, the house of the Sale family, the Parsonage, 



1 Towneley MS. C. 8, 1 3 (Chet. Lib.), 

 p. 866. Adam Mort at his death in 

 1631 also held here 2 messuages, 40 acres 

 of land late of the inheritance of Thomas, 

 Lord Gerard of Bromley, and another 

 messuage and 1 2 acres of land late of the 

 inheritance of Leonard Asshawe, esq.; 

 ibid. 



See the account of Astley. 



De Bane. R. 207, m. 77 ; 217, m. 

 161. 



1 Duchy of Lane. Assize R. 



s Duchy of Lane. Assize R. 2, pt, i, 



' Hist, and Gen. Notes, i, 85. 

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

 pt. i, 13, 17. 



8 Out. Soc. Ixxxvii, 432. 



the 



Lord Ellesmere's Rentals. 



11 Duchy, of Lane. Inq. p.m. xxii, 

 26; Rec. Soc. xvi, 1 66. 



n John Shuttleworth, younger brother 

 of the Richard who died c. 1650, entered 

 his pedigree at Dugdale's Visitation in 

 1664 j Chet. Soc. Ixxxviii, 270. 



18 See the account of Leigh. 



" Duchy of Lane. Assize R. 5, m. 14. 



Hist, and Gen. Notes, i, 382. 



tithes of the lower side of Bedford for 

 eight years before 1650. Parl. Surv. ; 

 Hist, and Gen. Notes, i, 40. 



J 7 Chet Soc. Ixxxviii, 256. 



18 Pal. of Lane. Feet, of F. bdle. 244, 



434 



heirs of Agnes Travis, widow, deceased, 

 and others. 



19 Ekelia, 1258 ; Ekersleght, 1371. 



30 Deed in possession of Mr. Vaudrey 

 of Manchester, in 1887. 



81 Ibid. 



Ex inform. Mr. Strachan Holme. 



88 Kenyan MSS. (Hist. MSS. Com. xiv, 

 Rep. App. iv), no. William Sale of 

 Hopecarr, Thomas Hulme and Margaret 

 his wife, and Margaret Whittle, also John 

 and Margaret Billinge of Manchester, 

 as ' Papists ' registered estates here in 

 1717, and Alice Sale, mother of Wil- 

 liam, registered one in Astley ; Engl. 

 Cath. Non-jurors, 98, 152. 



84 Land-tax returns at Preston. 





