WEST DERBY HUNDRED 



LEIGH 



The oldest Nonconformist chapel is in Tyldesley Brook, which, uniting in the adjoining township with 

 Square, generally known as 'Top Chapel.' It was Bedford and Pennington Brooks, acquires the name of 

 built in 1789 by the countess of Huntingdon's Con- 

 nexion. 



There are also chapels of the Congregational, 

 Primitive Methodist (built in 1828), Baptist, Welsh 

 Congregational, Welsh Calvinistic, and Independent 

 Methodist connexions. 



For a century or more after the Reformation the 

 ancient rites were continued in secret at Morleys as 

 opportunity afforded. 1 It was at this place that the 

 Ven. Ambrose Barlow was arrested on Easter Sunday 

 morning, 25 April, 1641, after he had said mass and 

 preached to his congregation of some hundred per- 

 sons.' After a long interval mass was again said 

 in the neighbourhood, but this time at Tyldesley 

 in 1865 in a hayloft over a stable behind the 

 'Star and Garter.' A personal appeal to the late 

 Lord Lilford resulted in the acquisition of a site, on 

 which the church of the Sacred Heart was built and 

 opened in 1869. The school chapel of the Holy 

 Family at Boothstown was opened in 1897.* 



ASTLEY 



Astleghe, 1200-20; Asteleye, 1292 ; Astlegh, 



xiv xv cent. 



This mainly agricultural township of 2,685 acres 4 

 of open country, but thinly timbered, lies on the 

 northern side of Chat Moss, of which about 1,000 

 acres are included in it, on ground gently rising 

 towards the north-east. The village is traversed by 

 the main road leading from Leigh to Manchester, and 

 stands three-quarters of a mile to the north of the 

 Bridgewater Canal from Worsley to Leigh, which 

 traverses the township from east to west. The 

 hamlet of Astley Green lies scattered along a straight 



Brooks, acqu 



Glazebrook before its confluence with the River 

 Mersey. 



The commons of Astley, including part of Chat 

 Moss, were enclosed under an award dated 16 Octo- 

 ber, 1765.' 



The township was formed into a parish 10 January, 

 1 843, and is governed by a parish council. 



At the Conquest ASTLET was one of 

 MANOR the thirty-four unnamed manors in the 

 hundred of Warrington, and was held by a 

 dreng owing suit and service to the chief manor of 

 Warrington. Before the date of Domesday it had 

 been included in the barony of the constable of 

 Chester within the Lyme, afterwards known as the 

 lordship of Widnes, then held by William Fitz Nigel, 

 the earl of Chester's constable. The first recorded 

 tenant of the manor who also held the neighbouring 

 manor of Tyldesley occurs about the end of the 

 twelfth century as Hugh son of Henry de Tyldesley.' 

 In 12 12 he was returned in the Inquest of Service as 

 tenant of the manor under Roger, constable of 

 Chester, by the service of the tenth part of one 

 knight's fee. 8 He gave to Cockersand Abbey lands 

 here called Dicfurlong and Morleghe, the moiety of 

 Birches, a ridding by the brook, half the wood 

 between the brook and Blakelache, and the moiety 

 of the Spenne which lay between Gartemoss and 

 Blakemore, and in other places. 9 



Henry de Tyldesley, lord of Tyldesley, was a juror 

 on the inquest of the Gaston Scutage in I243, 10 and 

 probably survived until after 1265." His successor, 

 another Henry, was defendant in a plea at Lancaster 

 in 1292," and father of a third Henry, to whom he 

 gave the manor of Tyldesley, and of Hugh," to whom 

 he gave this manor. 



On 2 September, 1290, Geoffrey Bussell and 



highway with level fields on either hand, consisting of Richard de Derbyshire, in right of their wives, 



meadow land and pasture, with occasional fields of 



potatoes and oats. This highway leads from the 



village of Astley towards Chat Moss, and to the Astley 



station on the Manchester and Warrington section of 



the London and North Western Railway, which is 



distant two miles from the village. The geological 



formation consists of the new red sandstone in the 



lower or southern half of the township, with permian 



rocks and coal measures to the north of the canal. 



There are large collieries in the northern part of the 



township, and an important cotton mill at Astley 



Green. In 1901 the population of the township, 



including Astley Green, Blackmoor, Higher Green, 



and Lower Green was 2,823. The soil consists of 



clay and sand, the subsoil of clay. In days gone by 

 the green fields afforded a pleasing contrast with 

 the brown and yellow hues of the adjacent moss. 

 Astley Wake is held yearly on the first Sunday in 

 October. 



Astley Brook traverses the township from the north- 

 east, and about the centre meets Black Brook or Moss 



established their right before the justices in eyre at 

 Clitheroe against Hugh son of Henry de Tyldesley, 

 lord of Astley, to the fourth penny of agistment and 

 the fourth acre of improvements made in this manor. 14 

 In 1301 the same Hugh recovered seven messuages, a 

 mill, and 282 acres of land, meadow, pasture, and 

 wood, in Tyldesley against Henry de Tyldesley, 

 apparently his brother. 15 In i 3 1 1 he held this manor 

 of the earl of Lincoln by the service of the eighth 

 (reetiut tenth) part of a knight's fee, a yearly rent of 

 \^d. for sake fee, and of doing suit to the three 

 weeks' court of Widnes. 16 



It is probable that Hugh son of Henry died with- 

 out issue, and that the manor reverted to his nephew 

 Hugh, lord of Tyldesley. In 1327 Hugh de 

 Tyldesley wa; one of the men of this hundred sum- 

 moned to join the king's forces on the marches of 

 Scotland, 17 and the year following was returned in an 

 extent of the castle of Halton as holding this manor 

 for the tenth part of a knight's fee. 18 His name 

 occurs both in Astley and Tyldesley in 1330 and 



i Ralph Parkinson, the domestic chap- 

 lain of Thomas Leyland, ' ministered the 

 communion to the people and sang mass 

 to his master' ; Foxe, Acts and Monuments 

 (ed. Cattley), viii, 564. 



Gillow, Sibliog. Diet. ofEngl. Calk. 



8 Liverpool Cath. Ann. 



* Including 14 acres of inland water ; 

 Census Rep. 1901. 



6 Pal. of Lane. Rec. at Lane. Caitle, 



including a map of Astley Common and 

 Chat Moss, and a plan of Astley Green, 

 Blackmoor and Marsland Green in allot- 

 ments ; Rec. Soc. Lanes, and Chei. vii, 55. 



Land. Gav. 



1 Cockersand Chartul. (Chet. Soc. New 

 Sen xliii), 714. 



8 Exch. K.. R. Knts'. Fees, bdle. i, 9, 

 m. y. ; Rec. Soc. Lanes, and Ches. xlviii, 9 

 and 43. 



445 



3 Cockersand Chartul. 710, 712. 



10 Testa de Nevill (Rec. Com.), 396. 



11 Lanes. Inj. (Rec. Soc. xlviii}, 232. 

 Rot. de quo War. (Rec. Com.), 230, 



607. 18 Ibid. 607. 



" Assize R. 1288, m. 14. 



'<* Lana. Feet of F. (Rec. Soc. xxxix), 

 197. M Inq. p.m. 4 Edw. II, n. 51. 



1? Rot. Scot. (Rec. Com.), i, ziia. 



l"Inq. p.m. z Edw. Ill, i, 61. 



