SALFORD HUNDRED 



BURY 



BURY 



ELTON 



HEAP 



BURY 



WALMERSLEY - WITH 



SHUTTLEWORTH 

 TOTTINGTON HIGHER END 



TOTTINGTON LOWER END 

 MUSBURY 



COWPE, LENCH, NEWHALL 

 HEY, HALL CARR 



The parish of Bury, of which two townships 

 Cowpe-Lench and Musbury lie in the hundred of 

 Blackburn, has an area of 24,915 acres. The Irwell 

 flows southward through the middle of it, and it is 

 bounded by hills on the east, west, and north, those 

 in Tottington attaining elevations of 1,200 to 

 1, 500 ft. The Carboniferous Rocks occur through- 

 out the parish. At Bury, Elton, and Red vales the 

 Coal Measures cover a considerable area ; elsewhere 

 the Lower Coal Measures occur, except between 

 Walmersley and Birtle, where the Millstone Grit is 

 thrown up by faults. 



Anciently there were only two manors or town- 

 ships in the parish, but these were later subdivided, 

 the old ' hamlets ' becoming townships ; and in recent 

 years great changes have been made in the boundaries 

 to accord with the changes that have taken place in 

 the distribution of the population and the resulting 

 progress of local government. To the county lay of 

 1624 Bury and its hamlets paid 6 i6s. 6V., and 

 Tottington 3 8/. ^d., when the hundred contributed 

 j^ioo. 1 To the fifteenth the payments respectively 

 were z $*. ^d. and 15^. 8</. out of 41 \\s. \d? 



There is evidence in the history of the town of 

 Bury of the disturbances raised by Adam Banastre in 

 the time of Edward II, Henry de Bury being killed by 

 his emissaries. Many people of the district no doubt 

 accompanied the Pilkingtons, whose fortified dwelling 

 stood in the town, to the foreign wars, as well as to 

 the fatal fields of Bosworth and Stoke. There were 

 also domestic wars nearer home ; for about 1447 a 

 number of the people of Butterworth and Spotland, 

 having gathered a company of sixty ' malefactors,' came 

 to Bury arrayed in manner of war, with a white 

 banner carried before them ; they then marched off 

 to Hundersfield in Rochdale, where the demonstra- 

 tion ended in the death of one Roger Smethley. It 

 seems to have been intended to intimidate the Holts.* 



The Reformation appears to have passed by with- 

 out any resistance or opposition, the people here, as 

 in the neighbourhood, soon becoming favourable to 

 the Puritans. On a certain Sunday of July 1588 

 the town was disturbed by a number of Oldham men, 

 who, in time of divine service, made * foul disorders ' 

 by galloping horses in the street, shouting and piping ; 

 *a lamentable spectacle in the place of preaching 

 ministry,' as the narrator remarks. 4 About the same 

 time the mining industry comes into notice, by a 

 dispute concerning ' mines, delphs, and pits of coal.' ' 



The making of woollen yarn had been mentioned by 

 Leland fifty years earlier. 



In the Civil War the lord of Bury took the lead on 

 the king's side, and the rector was also a Royalist, 

 while John Greenhalgh and Edward Nuttall dis- 

 tinguished themselves in the same cause. A conflict 

 is reported to have taken place close to the town of 

 Bury on 14 August i648. 6 The restoration of 

 Charles II was cordially welcomed in Bury, 7 but the 

 revolution appears to have been acquiesced in as 

 readily, and nothing is known of any Jacobite sym- 

 pathizers in the risings of the 1 8th century. 



In 1798, during the French War, a volunteer 

 force was created under the name of the Loyal Bury 

 Volunteer Association. 8 A rifle corps was formed in 

 1859, an ^ l ^ e town is now ^e head quarters of the 

 5th Battalion Lancashire Fusiliers (Territorials). 9 



Bury has had its share in the great development of 

 Lancashire manufactures, and here, as elsewhere, dis- 

 tress in times of bad trade produced disturbances, of 

 which the most notable examples were the riots of 

 l826, 10 and the ' plug drawing ' of 1842. The agri- 

 cultural land in the parish is now apportioned thus : 

 Arable land, 1,315 acres; permanent grass, 12,691 ; 

 woods and plantations, 61. The following are 

 details : 



1 Gregson, Fragments (ed. Harland), 22. 



2 Ibid. 1 8. 



8 Pal. of Lane. Plea. R. n, m. 32. 

 4 Hist. AfSS. Com. Rep. xiv, App. iv, 



572- 



* Ducatus Lane. (Rec. Com.), iii, 258. 



6 B. T. Barton, Hist, of Bury, 35. The 

 writer admits that the story is merely 

 traditional; the 'castle' is said to have 

 been finally destroyed at this time. It 

 was said that for many successive years 

 all the grain grown on the place of con- 



flict in Bury Lane (now Bolton Street) 

 was ' streaked as if with gore,' due to the 

 blood shed there. Butcher Lane is said 

 to have been named from a butcher who, 

 being pursued in the fighting, made his 

 horse leap across both the hedges border- 

 ing the lane ; ibid. 44. The name, how- 

 ever, occurs earlier. 



It may be added that the History quoted 

 was a compilation from earlier writers and 

 was issued in 1874. The author died in 

 1896. 



123 



The worthies of the parish include Henry Dunster, 

 1609-59, the first president of Harvard ; Captain 

 William Kay, who took part in the defence of Lathom 

 House in 1644, and died a prisoner for debt in 

 Lancaster Castle in 1670 ; Edward Rothwell, a Non- 

 conformist divine, who ministered in Bury, Holcombe, 

 and the district, and died in 1731 ; John Warburton, 

 1682-1759, book collector ; Josiah Nuttall, naturalist, 

 1771-1849; John Ainsworth, local historian, born 

 near Chamber Hall, 1777-1858 ; 10a James Bateman, 

 botanist, born at Redvales in 1811, and died at 

 Worthing in 1897 ; Sir James Phillips Kay-Shuttle- 

 worth, bart., a founder of the system of school inspec- 

 tion, 1804-77; his brother, Sir Edward Ebenezer 

 Kay, judge, 1822-97 ; Sir John Holker, politician 



7 For an account of the festivities see 

 Manch. Guardian Local N. and Q. no. 

 577, quoting Parl. Intelligence, no. 27 

 (2 July 1660). 



8 Barton, Bury, 71. 



9 There is a full account of the local 

 force in T. H. Hayhurst, Bury and 

 Rossendale Volunteer Movement (Bury 

 1887). 



lu Barton, op. cit. 163. 



lOa Bury Library Quart. July 1906, 



P-55- 



