SALFORD HUNDRED 



hood, was at one time occupied as a hat manufac- 

 tory. 56 



HORSEDGE, like Coldhurst, belonged to the 

 Knights of St. John of Jerusalem. 67 The tenants 



PRESTWICH WITH 

 OLDHAM 



were families named Taylor M and Hopwood. 49 The 

 inheritance of the former passed to the Nuttalls and 

 Radclyffes of Foxdenton. Whetstone Hill and Derker 

 lie to the north-east of Horsedge. 60 



him a shilling as his whole share of the 

 inheritance ; if so, the father must have 

 relented very quickly. He was appointed 

 master of Emmanuel in 1584, took part 

 in the Hampton Court Conference in 

 1604, and in the translation of the Bible 

 in 1611. He resigned the mastership in 

 1622, and died in 1640. He wrote a 

 treatise on Justification ; see Diet. Nat. 

 Biog. 



56 It is named by Bishop Gastrell in 

 1717, and was taxed for nineteen windows 

 in 1728 ; Shaw, op. cit. 293. 



Edwin Butterworth (Oldham, 32) states 

 that Bent Hall was in 1747 the property of 

 the Rev. Samuel Sidebottom, who married 

 Mary daughter of Alexander Radclyffe of 

 Foxdenton ; and that in 1758 it was 

 occupied by John Clegg, hat manufacturer. 

 The owner in 1856 was John Rowbottom. 



An illustrated sheet pedigree of the 

 Cleggs of Bent House was issued in 1840 ; 

 Richard Clegg son of James, son of the 

 above-named John, being the head of the 

 family. The Cleggs acquired Westwood, 

 formerly the property of the Whitehead 

 family ; E. Butterworth, op. cit. 48, 49. 



There was also a Lower Bent Hall, 

 owned by a family named Taylor ; Butter- 

 worth, ut sup. 



67 This appears from the inquisition cited 

 below. The land lay on the north side 

 of High Street and Yorkshire Street, and 

 the name is preserved in Horsedge Street. 

 There were seven crosses around it, and it 

 was deposed in 1620 : 'I did very well 

 know seven crosses called Seven Holy 

 Crosses, and also called St. John's Crosses, 

 to be bounds and meres at Horsedge lands. 

 I did know them all, either broken or 

 whole, and do yet know the places where 

 every of them stood. As first, a stone 

 cross stood at the end of Greenacres Moor ; 

 the next, a wooden cross, stood at Hors- 

 edge stile ; the next, a stone cross, upon 

 the north-east side of the Edge, called the 

 Cross under the Edge ; the next, a wooden 

 cross in Grimby, Called Grimby Cross ; the 

 next, a stone cross, called Pighill Stile 

 Cross ; the next, a wooden cross, in the 

 Town end ; and the last and seventh, a 

 stone cross in the end of the Shoot, being, 

 as I judge, very mean of distance from the 

 first cross of Greenacres moor with the 

 rest of all the crosses, which be one from 

 another of equal distance ' ; from the will 

 of John Newton, collier, printed in Old- 

 ham Notes and Gleanings, ii, ui,from the 

 Raines MSS. xxiv, 88. 



58 Horsedge Hall was to the north-east 

 of the church. The inquisition of John 

 Cudworth (1556) already cited shows 

 rents from John Taylor of Over Horsedge 

 and John Hopwood of Nether Horsedge. 



John Taylor died in 1574 holding land 

 called Redleigh of Robert Tetlow and 

 John Cudworth by fealty and <)d. rent, 

 an acre at Okeden in Chadderton of the 

 three lords of the town ; also the capital 

 messuage called Horsedge in Oldham with 

 40 acres of land, &c., of Queen Elizabeth 

 by fealty and -j\d. rent. The inquisition 

 was not taken until 1619 by which time 

 the Hospitallers' lands had been granted to 

 the Earl of Derby and Edmund Taylor, 

 the son and heir, was sixty-seven years of 

 age ; his son Edmund was living ; Lanes, 

 nq. p.m. (Rec. Soc. Lanes, and Ches.), ii, 

 '53- 



Edmund Taylor in 1596 granted a 

 kase of a close called the Pighill (J acre) 

 in Horsedge to Roger Taylor, clothier, at 

 a rent of 5*. and a day's ' shearing ' in har- 

 vest ; 40 marks was paid ; Shaw, Oldham, 

 39. Edmund Taylor was returned as a 

 freeholder in 1600 ; Mite. (Rec. Soc. 

 Lanes, and Ches.), i, 247. 



In 1622 Robert Tetlow of Werneth 

 and Edmund Taylor of Horsedge claimed 

 an estate in 'so much of the open land 

 called Oldhulme at Oldham as it is 

 divided within the crosses,' as also wastes, 

 &c., within Oldham, Werneth, and Green- 

 acres. They wished to inclose and im- 

 prove the lands, and had agreed with the 

 freeholders to allow them reasonable 

 shares, but the lords of the adjoining 

 manors of Chadderton and Royton ob- 

 jected ; Shaw, Oldham, 59. 



In the time of Charles I it was stated 

 that Edmund Taylor, who had leased his 

 capital messuage and demesne lands of 

 Horsedge, John his son, John Heap 

 (brother-in-law of the latter), and John 

 Jackson had broken down a stable belong- 

 ing to Horsedge Hall, taken the tenant's 

 cows and horses kept there, and driving 

 them into Derbyshire, sold them at Ash- 

 bourne Fair. John Bretland, who had 

 married Katherine daughter of Richard 

 Nuttall another daughter was Elizabeth, 

 perhaps the wife of John Taylor became 

 surety for them, and they were acquitted, 

 but 35 had to be paid as compensation 

 to the tenant. The value of Horsedge 

 was given as 30 a year ; Duchy of 

 Lane. Plead, ccix, B, 26. See also Lanes, 

 and Ches. Rec. (Rec. Soc. Lanes, and Ches.), 

 ii, 249. 



Elizabeth, widow of John Taylor, in 

 1649 compounded for her husband's 

 delinquency ; he had assisted the king in 

 the ' first war ' ; Cal. of Com. for Com- 

 pounding, iii, 2043. She was concerned in 

 a dispute as to the tithes of Horsedge in 

 1659 ; Exch. Dep. 32. 



In 1663 an agreement was made as to 

 the purchase of a third part of Horsedge 

 Hall, with its common of pasture, tur- 

 bary, mines of coal, slate, &c., by Eliza- 

 beth Taylor, widow, from her daughter 

 Katherine wife of Adam Bankes of Wigan, 

 mercer ; it appears that Katherine was 

 daughter and co-heir of John Taylor son of 

 Edmund; Shaw, op. cit. 161. A further 

 agreement in 1668 shows that the other 

 daughters, then unmarried, were named 

 Elizabeth and Eleanor ; ibid. 170. Eliza- 

 beth soon afterwards married William 

 Langley of Whittle ; ibid. 173, 175. By 

 1674 Eleanor had married Thomas Nuttall 

 of Tottington ; 181. William Langley of 

 Horsedge was buried at Oldham in 1689 ; 

 204. In 1697 Elizabeth Langley, widow, 

 mortgaged her moiety of Horsedge ; 219, 

 229,232. In 1705 William Langley of 

 Netherwood Hall, Darley, son and heir of 

 Elizabeth, sold his moiety of Horsedge to 

 Thomas Nuttall of Tottington, who thus 

 acquired the whole ; 240. By his will, 

 dated 14 Mar. 1726-7, he gave his estates 

 to his granddaughter Margaret daughter of 

 Adam Bagshaw by Margaret, only child 

 of the testator ; with remainder to his 

 kinsman Thomas son of William Langley 

 of Thornscow, Yorkshire. He also left 

 money for the poor of Oldham and the 

 school there ; ibid. 286-89. Margaret, 



99 



the heiress, married in 1731 Robert Rad- 

 clyffe of Foxdenton, and conveyed Hors- 

 edge to that family 5 Burke, Commoners, iv, 

 403. 



Canon Raines states that the Langleys 

 continued to have a moiety of the estate, 

 which was in 1 849 the property of Joseph 

 Jones of Walshaw House ; Notitia Cestr. 

 ii, 116. Some Horsedge deeds from 

 Raines MSS. (Chet. Lib.), xxiv and 

 xxxvii, are printed in Oldham Notes and 

 Gleanings, ii, 164, 165, 169 ; iii, 29. 



69 In 1517 James son and heir of John 

 Hopwood of Horsedge sold to Edmund 

 Ashton of Chadderton a close of land 

 called the Pighill, near Horsedge Moor ; 

 and a little later sold other lands, includ- 

 ing Walshaw, Lower Raude, and the 

 Spring ; Raines D. (Chet. Lib.), bdle. 4, 

 no. 49-57. 



It has been stated above that James 

 Ashton in 1612 held lands, formerly the 

 Hospitallers', by a rent of 6 \d. The Rad- 

 cliffes of Foxdenton held another portion 

 by a rent of ^d. 



Edmund Hopwood and Joan his wife 

 in 1570 and 1587 sold small pieces of 

 land to Ralph Walker ; Pal. of Lane. 

 Feet of F. bdle. 32, m. 13 ; 49, m. n. 



There was in the i8th century a family 

 of Hopwood at Bent Brow ; E. Butter- 

 worth, Oldham (ed. 1856), 33. At Lower 

 Horsedge, Greenacres, and Swineclough 

 lived the Ogden family, of whom came 

 Samuel Ogden, a celebrated Nonconformist 

 minister, ejected from Mackworth in 

 1622 ; he died in 1697 ; ibid. 55 ; Diet. 

 Nat. Biog. 



The New House in Greenacres was, with 

 other property, granted on lease by Isaac 

 Ogden in 1698 to Katherine Percival of 

 Royton ; Manch. Free Lib. D. 108. 



Edmund Ogden in 1702 purchased from 

 Henry Lyon, John Lyon, Isaac Lyon, and 

 Sara his wife two messuages and lands 

 with appurtenances in Crompton and 

 Oldham; Hulme D. 116-17. 



60 Whetstone hill is one of the most 

 ancient homesteads in the township. The 

 Kershaw family have been seated here a 

 considerable period ' ; E. Butterworth, Old- 

 ham, 60. Dirtcar, now Derker, was 

 owned by John Buckley in 1758, and by 

 James Greaves in 1856 ; ibid. 42. 



Broadbent's and Hopkin Fold were other 

 houses in the vicinity. Some Hobkin 

 deeds from the Raines MSS. xxiv, are 

 printed in Oldham Notes and Gleanings, ii, 

 171, 181 ; they relate the marriage of 

 Edmund son of Edward Hobkin, 1526-9. 

 Richard Hobkin of Oldham contributed 

 to a subsidy in 1523 for lands; Shaw, 

 Oldham, 15. A settlement of two 

 messuages, &c., in Oldham was made by 

 Edward Hopkin in 1537, Margaret and 

 Edmund Hopkin being tenants for life ; 

 Pal. of Lane. Feet of F. bdle. 1 1, m. 59. 

 For disputes as to their lands see Duchy 

 Plead. (Rec. Soc. Lanes, and Ches.), ii, 

 83-7, 216-18. Edmund Hobkin occurs 

 in 1552; Shaw, Oldham, 19. He sold 

 four messuages, &c., to Thomas Radcliffe 

 in 1556 ; Pal. of Lane. Feet of F. bdle. 

 1 6, m. 36. Arthur Hopkin of Hopkin 

 Fold in 1649 leased or mortgaged the 

 Great Hardfield to Henry Wrigley of 

 Chamber; Shaw, op. cit. no. Hop- 

 kin Green was formerly near Oldham 

 Church. 



