BLACKBURN HUNDRED 



MITTON (PART OF) 



great humanity, sympathy and concern for the good 

 of mankind . . . He particularly set his neighbour- 

 hood a-spinning of Jersey wool and provided a man to 

 comb the wool and a woman who taught them to 

 spin, whom he kept in his house and allotted several 

 rooms he had in one of the courts of Stonyhurst for 

 them to work in, and the neighbours came to spin 

 accordingly . . . from April 1699 to August 1701. 

 When they had all learnt he gave the nearest neigh- 

 bour each a pound or half a pound of wool ready for 

 spinning, and wheel, to set up for themselves ; which 

 did a vast deal of good to that north side of Kibble 

 in Lancashire.' 135 



The Duchess of Norfolk occasionally resided at 

 Stonyhurst in her husband's lifetime, and it became 

 her home in her widowhood, 1732 to I754. 136 She 

 held the estates in fee simple and bequeathed them 

 to the next-of-kin, the issue of her aunt Elizabeth, 

 sister of Sir Nicholas, who had married William 

 Weld of Lulworth in Dorset. Their grandson, 

 Edward Weld, who died in 1761, became lord of 

 Aighton, but did not reside there, 137 and his son 

 Thomas 138 in 1 794 gave the hall and 44 acres of 

 land around it to the Jesuits of the Liege Academy, 139 

 the successor of St. Omers, founded in 1592 ; and 

 they established the school there. Thomas Weld 

 had been a pupil of the college while it was stationed 

 at Bruges, 1762 to 1773, and had the satisfaction of 

 seeing his old school beginning to prosper in the 

 place he had given ; he died suddenly at Stonyhurst 

 I August 1 8 10, having travelled thither to be present 

 at the opening of new buildings. 140 His son Thomas 

 Weld, left a widower, was ordained priest in 1821 

 and was appointed a cardinal in 1829. He sold 

 considerable parts of the Aighton estates and died in 

 i837- 141 His trustees and heir sold the manor of 

 Aighton to the college in 1841, subject to a rent- 

 charge of 6 for the poor of Leagram. 142 The 

 college also acquired various parts of the estates as 

 they were sold. 



In 1836 courts for Aighton and Chaigley were 

 held by Cardinal Weld, 143 and the Aighton manor 

 court continued to be held down to 1900 by the 

 rector of Stonyhurst and the college trustees. 144 



Situated on the lower slope of Longridge Fell ' the 

 turrets of princely STONTHURST 148 rise amid a 

 pleasantly wooded country. Of the house 146 that 

 existed prior to the time of Sir Richard Shireburne 

 no portion now remains except a few fragments, here- 

 after referred to, which have been preserved. There is 

 enough evidence, however, in old prints and from other 

 sources to give some idea of the mediaeval mansion, 

 the principal part of which seems to have stood 

 somewhere about the north-east corner of the present 

 quadrangle. On this site there were standing well 

 into the I9th century a number of quaint and 

 ancient buildings 147 which when taken down revealed 

 traces of a structure said to have been of late I4th or 

 early 15th-century date. 148 The destruction of the 

 buildings known as the old infirmary, or Sparrow's 

 Hall, 149 on the north side of the quadrangle in 1856 

 brought to light what were thought to be traces of 

 the chapel for which a licence was obtained in 1372, 

 including some carved oak spandrels similar in style 

 to those in the roof of Mitton Church, which date 

 from the late years of the reign of Edward III, 150 

 and in a further demolition in the kitchen court in 1861 

 a portion of an old window with moulded oakmullions, 

 said to have been of late 14th-century date, which 

 had been hidden by an 18th-century structure put 

 up in front of it, was discovered. 



These fragments, though revealing very little as to 

 the size or appearance of the mediaeval house, seem 

 to indicate that a building of some importance 

 occupied part of the present site some 200 years or 

 more before the present building was begun by Sir 

 Richard Shireburne. To these buildings, whatever 

 they were like, Hugh Shireburne, the grandfather of 

 the Elizabethan builder, seems to have made con- 

 siderable additions about the year 1523, some 



13S Whitaker, ffhalley, ii, 491-2. Sir 

 Nicholas and his lady, among their other 

 charities, used to give ' on All Souls' Day 

 a considerable deal of money to the poor ; 

 Lady Shireburne serving them with her 

 own hands that day." 



The 'Stonyhurst Buck Hunt,' an old 

 ballad naming Sir Nicholas, the Duke of 

 Norfolk, Mr. Penketh and others, is 

 printed in N. and Q. (Ser. ij, x, 503. 

 Many interesting details of Sir Nicholas' 

 life and character will be found in Gerard, 

 op. cit. 40, 69-75. A note of Lady 

 Shireburne's nuncupative will is printed 

 in Payne's Rec. of Engl. Cath. 26. 



186 A settlement of the manors of 

 Aighton, Bailey, Chaigley, Dutton, Wis- 

 well, Carleton, Hambleton, Leagram and 

 Ribchester, with other Shireburne estates, 

 was made in 1719 by Thomas Duke of 

 Norfolk and Mary his wife ; Pal. of 

 Lane. Feet of F. bdle. 284, m. 81. In 

 1737 there was a recovery by Mary 

 Dowager Duchess of Norfolk ; Pal. of 

 Lane. Plea R. 544, m. 13. An estate 

 map of 1733 showing the Shireburne 

 lands at that time is now at Stonyhurst. 



The duchess married her kinsman the 

 Hon. Peregrine Widdrington, a Jacobite 

 who was 'out' in 1715; G.E.C. Com- 

 plete Peerage, vi, 56. 



187 For the later descents see Burke, 

 Commoners, i, 198-9 and Landed Gentry. 



138 Thomas Weld in 1777 was tenant 



of the hundred of Leyland ; the manor* 

 of Aighton, Bailey and Chaigley, Chorley, 

 Longton, Great Carleton, Hambleton, 

 Dutton, Ribchester, Wiswell, Howath 

 and Stidd ; the advowson of Mitton ; 

 lands, &c. ; Pal. of Lane. Plea R. 625, 

 m. lod. 16, 40 (recovery). 



139 He afterwards gave Hodder Place 

 and lands there. A formal deed of gift 

 was executed in 1809. See Gerard, op. 

 cit. 39, 91, 115, 136. 



It appears that Mr. Weld had in 1772 

 offered it to Bishop William Walton for 

 a residence, on condition that the Jesuit 

 chaplain should remain, but the offer was 

 declined. Afterwards in 1793 he would 

 have given it to the English students 

 expelled from Douay by the French 

 Revolution, again on condition that the 

 Jesuits should have charge ; Gillow, Bibl. 

 Diet, of Engl. Cath. iv, 327. 



140 Gerard, op. cit. 136. 



141 Ibid. 137 (there is a portrait, ibid. 

 92) ; Diet. Nat. Biog. He had a daughter 

 Mary Lucy, who married Lord Clifford 

 of Chudleigh. His brothers were Joseph 

 Weld of Lulworth and George Weld of 

 Leagram. 



143 End. Char. Rep. for Whalley (White- 

 well), 1902, p. 3. 



143 Baines, Lanes, (ed. i), iii, 371 ; the 

 dependency on Clitheroe was still recog- 

 nized. 



144 Information of Fr. J. Keating. 



145 Grindon, Lanes. 207, 331. 



146 In the following account of Stony- 

 hurst Hall use has been made of the 

 Rev. John Gerard's Stonyhurst College 

 Centenary Record, 1894, and also of the 

 articles by the Rev. C. S. Beauclerk in 

 the Stonyhurst Mag. 1885. The editors 

 also wish to put on record their thanks 

 to the authorities at the college for in- 

 formation and help most readily given. 



147 Gerard, op. cit. 47. 



148 ' One of these relics is still to be 

 seen, though removed from its original 

 position, in the shape of a round-headed 

 stone doorway, through which was the 

 passage from the house to the back pre- 

 mises. . . . It is now (1894) in the inner 

 dairy' ; ibid. 48. 



149 Sparrow's Hall (so called after 

 Mr. Sparrow, Mr. Weld's steward, who 

 resided there) was externally a building 

 of later and uncertain but probably 

 16th-century date, of little or no archi- 

 tectural interest. 



iso < When the ceiling was pulled down 

 an oaken roof was laid bare, the spandrels 

 of every panel being carved with roses. 

 At one end of the room was a recess ' ; 

 record of an eye-witness of the demolition 

 printed in the Stonyhurst Mag. i, 286. 

 All these spandrels have disappeared ex- 

 cept one, which, however, is not carved 

 with roses; Stonyhurst Mag. (1885), 

 101. 



