SALFORD HUNDRED 



BOLTON-LE-MOORS 



BOLTON-LE-MOORS 



GREAT BOLTON 

 LITTLE BOLTON 

 TONGE-WITH- 



HAULGH 

 SHARPLES 



LITTLE LEVER 

 DARCY LEVER 

 BREIGHTMET 

 HARWOOD 

 BRADSHAW 



The ancient parish of Bolton has an area of 33,406 

 acres. A very large portion of it was formerly moor- 

 land, and much still remains in this condition in the 

 high lands in the northern half of the district. Of the 

 formation of the parish nothing is known. The lands 

 within it were in the I2th century held by three 

 distinct tenures, and as Lostock was intimately asso- 

 ciated with Rumworth, though the latter township 

 lies in another parish, it would appear that the 

 delimitation of the area, and the adhesion to Bolton 

 of the isolated portion Blackrod and Lostock goes 

 back to a remote period. On the other hand there 

 are indications that the township of Great Lever has 

 been separated from this parish to become part of the 

 manor-parish of Middleton. 



For the old county lay, fixed in 1624, Bolton, to- 

 gether with the township of Aspull in Wigan, was 

 divided into six portions contributing equally, viz. : 

 Bolton with its hamlets, Turton with Longworth, 

 Edgeworth with its hamlets, Harwood with its ham- 

 lets, Blackrod with Aspull, and Rivington, Angle- 

 zarke, and Lostock; each i i^s. \\d. when the 

 hundred paid j^ioo. 1 To the more ancient fifteenth 

 Bolton contributed 2 is. 8d. ; Turton, 1 5*. ; Edge- 

 worth, I2s. 6J. ; Harwood, izs. yd. ; Rivington, los. ; 

 Blackrod, \s. ; and Lostock was joined with Rum- 

 worth in I4/., out of 41 I4/. 4</. paid by the 

 hundred. 1 



Apart from the history of the town of Bolton, and 

 the manufacturing villages which have grown up 

 around it, there is nothing of historical interest to 

 narrate. With the exception of the Pilkingtons of 

 Rivington, the Bradshaws of Bradshaw, and the 

 Orrells of Turton, the local landowners of the medi- 

 aeval period were either non-resident or obscure. 

 ' Lusty lads, liver and light,' from Bolton-le-Moors 

 are in an old ballad said to have fought at Flodden 

 under Sir Edward Stanley. After the Reformation s 

 the district became strongly Puritan, there being very 

 few openly avowed recusants, 4 and it sided with the 

 Parliament in the Civil War. There was a visitation 

 of the plague in 1 62 3." Defoe, who visited the 

 district early in the 1 8th century, 'saw nothing re- 

 markable ' in the town of Bolton, but noticed that 

 the cotton manufacture had reached it ; the place did 

 not seem so flourishing and increasing as Manchester. 6 

 The later history of the parish has been that of the 

 growth of its trade and the inventions particularly 



TURTON 



EDGEWORTH 



ENTWISLE 



QUARLTON 



LONGWORTH 



RIVINGTON 



ANGLEZARKE 



BLACKROD 



LOSTOCK 



the local one of Crompton's mule by which its 

 manufactures were able to develop to their present 

 magnitude. 



The townships have (between 1894 and 1898) been 

 greatly altered by consolidations, and the old parish 

 now includes the following : Bolton, Little Lever, 

 Belmont, Turton, Edgeworth, Rivington, Anglezarke, 

 and Blackrod. The new township or civil parish of 

 Bolton includes not only the old Great and Little 

 Bolton, Tonge-with-Haulgh, Darcy Lever, Lostock, and 

 the southern end of Sharpies, but also a considerable 

 part of the adjacent parish of Deane. 



The geological formation consists throughout the 

 parish of the Carboniferous Series. For some distance 

 around the town of Bolton the Coal Measures are in 

 evidence ; in the townships of Harwood, Bradshaw, 

 and the southern portions of Turton and Sharpies the 

 Lower Coal Measures, and in the remaining portions of 

 the parish the same series intermixed with the under- 

 lying Millstone Grit. 



The agricultural land in the parish is at present 

 occupied as follows : Arable land, 1,369 acres ; per- 

 manent grass, 17,003 ; woods and plantations, 218. 

 Details are given thus : 



Bolton . . . 

 Bolton . . . 

 Astley Bridge . 

 Belmont 

 Bradshaw . 

 Edgeworth . 

 Entwisle 

 Harwood . 

 Longworth 

 Tonge . 

 Haulgh . . . 

 Turton . 

 Darcy Lever . 

 Little Lever . 

 Breightmet . . 

 Quarlton . . 



Arable 



.'59 



6 

 i 



30 

 1 1 



18 



i 



2 



'3 

 29 



66 



33 



Grass 



acres 

 78 

 4,124 



963 



I,H7 

 8 79 



1,742 



949 

 987 



841 



402 



24 



2,798 

 294 



378 

 709 

 688 



Woods, 

 &c. 



94 



3 



29 



7 

 '9 



Many of the natives of the parish have achieved 

 distinction in one way or another. Of these some 

 are noticed in the accounts of the townships with 

 which they were connected. In addition the following 



1 Gregson, Fragments (ed. Harland), 



22. 



2 Ibid. 1 8. Exactly the same town- 

 ships will be found in the r/ubsidy roll of 

 1332; Exch. Lay Subs. (Rec. Soc. Lanes, 

 and Ches.), 29, &c. It would seem that 

 Bolton included Great and Little Bolton, 

 Haulgh, Tonge, Breightmet, and Sharpies; 

 Turton included Longworth also ; Edge- 

 worth, Entwisle and Quarlton ; Har- 



wood, Bradshaw ; and Rivington, Angle- 

 zarke. There seems nothing to show how 

 the Levers were assessed probably with 

 Bolton. 



8 The letters of George Marsh show 

 that there were a number of Protestants 

 in the Bolton district in 1554 ; Foxe's 

 Acts and Monts. (ed. Cattley), vii, 63, 66, 

 67. 



4 The following in 1630-2 compounded 



235 



for the two-thirds of their estates which 

 should have been sequestered for recu- 

 sancy : Turton Alice Orrell, 20 a year; 

 Blackrod William Norris, ^2, and Mar- 

 garet Rogerley 4.. 



* Baines, Lanes, (ed. 1868), i, 552 ; the 

 burials at Bolton in that year were nearly 

 500, or four to five times the average. 



6 Tour Through Great Britain (ed. 

 1738), iii, 180. 



