A HISTORY OF LANCASHIRE 



portions. 6 The townships had by that time become 

 distinct, 6 and Bishop Gastrell in 1717 reckoned them 

 as eleven, arranged in four quarters Garstang, 

 Claughton, Barnacre and Wyresdale ; Pilling was in 

 the first-named quarter. 7 



Garstang is midway between Preston and Lan- 

 caster, on the ancient road to Scotland, and has thus 

 witnessed many stirring events, such as the devas- 

 tating raid by the Scots in 1 322,* but ancient remains 

 are scanty. 9 



There was a visitation of the plague in ij^g-jo. 10 

 In 1444 William Marsden and others were charged 

 with having broken into a fulling mill at Garstang 

 and stolen forty ells of woollen cloth called russet, 

 value 40^., the goods of John Ingoll, 11 



Leland, journeying north about 1535, says : ' After 

 I rode over Brock water, rising a vi miles off in the 



Garstang out of the hills on the right hand and 

 cometh by Greenhalgh, a pretty castle of the lord of 

 Derby's, and more than half a mile thence to Garstang 

 in Amounderness. Some saith that Garstang was a 

 market town.' lf 



The district was hostile to the Reformation 1S and 

 favourable to the king's cause in the Civil War, 

 though some companies were raised for the other 

 side. 14 Greenhalgh Castle was one of the two impor- 

 tant fortresses remaining till 1645 to give trouble to 

 the Parliamentarians. Their historian gives the 

 following account of its surrender : 



Colonel Dodding with his regiment, with Major Joseph 

 Rigby's companies, laid close siege to Greenhalgh Castle, keep- 

 ing their main guard at Garstang town, into which [castle] 

 were gotten many desperate Papists. Their governor was one 

 Mr. Anderton. They vexed the country thereabouts extremely, 

 fetching in the night time many honest men from their houses, 



WINMARLEIGp- 



**" Tyro* .^"' 



GARSTANG. 



hills on the right hand and goeth at last into Wyre. 

 Calder rising about the same hills, goeth also into 



Tjrr T J . T> M.I. > J r Winter. me country was pui iu cALiauiuiuai^ luaigra in 



Wyre; I rode over it. By the town's end of maintaining the north r ern me n, who made a prey without pity, 



Garstang I rode Over a great Stone bridge on Wyre 8UC h abundance of provision they weekly destroyed. The 



ere I came to it. Wyre rises a viii Or ten miles from Leaguers had thought to have undermined the castle and blown 



making a commodity of it. They sallied out oft upon the 

 Leaguers and killed some. They stood it out stoutly all that 

 winter. The country was put to extraordinary charges in 



5 Gregson, Fragments (ed. Harland), 

 19 ; Garstang paid 6, Catterall igs. %d., 

 Claughton lit., and Bilsborrow 141. \d. 

 towards the hundred's total of 56 4*. %d. 



6 A schedule of tenants in the manor 

 of Nether Wyresdale in 1604 names 

 Barnacre and Bonds as separate town- 

 ships ; Fishwick, Garstang (Chet. Soc.), 

 47-8. 



7 Notitia Cestr. (Chet. Soc.), ii, 409. 



8 John the Tailor of Kirkland, flying 

 from the Scots, complained of being 

 robbed near the Lostock in Leyland ; 

 Coram Rege R. 254, m. 42. 



9 Fishwick, op. cit. 2-4. 



10 Engl. Hist. Rev. v, 526, 528. The 



archdeacon of Richmond alleged that 2,000 

 had died, but the jury allowed only 3 

 out of his claim for 13 for probate dues. 



11 Pal. of Lane. Plea R. 6, m. 22*. 



u I tin. v, 97. 



13 The patent rolls of the early years of 

 James I show a number of sequestrations 

 for recusancy in the parish, e.g. Oliver 

 Cottam in Barnacre and Bilsborrow ; 

 Pat. 6 Jas. pt. xxi. 



In 1630-2 the following compounded 

 by annual fines for the two thirds of their 

 estates liable to sequestration for recu- 

 sancy : Barnacre John Bee jTz, Robert 

 Layfield ,3 ; Catterall Robert Shire- 

 burne 20 ; Kirkland John Butler 



292 



,3 6s. %J. ; Pilling John Bradshaw (for 

 his wife) 5, Thomas Dalton 3 6s. 8J.; 

 Winmarleigh Thomas Molyneux ^5 ; 

 Wyresdale William Baines ^2, Thomas 

 Parkinson 3, William Parkinson 

 z 131. 4-d. ; Trans. Hist. Soc. (new ser.), 

 xxiv, 175, &c. 



Large numbers refused to sign the Pro- 

 testation of 1641 ; Fishwick, op. cit. 

 26472. For the case of William Capes 

 see Cal. 5. P. Dom. 1638-9, pp. 156, 171. 



14 ' Mr. Fyfe that dwelt at Woodacre, 

 Mr. Christopher White of Claughton, 

 Mr. Whitehead of Garstang town ; these 

 raised their companies within Garstang 

 parish ' ; War in Lanes. (Chet. Soc.), 42. 



