A HISTORY OF LANCASHIRE 



Infirmary has an endowment of ^£1,325 a year, gave ^f 193 a year to the park.*" There are two 

 to which is added £^i^, the gift of Samuel Old- small church endowments."* For the new town- 

 ham.'"" The educational endowments amount to ship of Mossley an inquiry was held in the year 

 £iS7>"" and the above-named Samuel Oldham 1899.** 



ECCLES 



BARTON 

 WORSLEY 



PENDLETON 

 PENDLEBURY 



CLIFTON 



The ancient parish of Eccles measures about 7 

 miles across, from the Irwell south-west to the Glaze- 

 brook, and has an area of 22,004. acres. The position 

 of the church, from which the parish takes its name, 

 was fairly central for the portion of the district 

 habitable in former times, while the great area of moss 

 land in the west was still unreclaimed, being close to 

 the boundary between Pendleton, Pendlebury, and 

 Clifton on the east, and the large areas of Worsley 

 and Barton on the west. The general slope of the 

 surface is from north to south, the highest land, about 

 300 ft. above sea level, being in the stretch of higher 

 ground between Worsley and Kearsley. 



The parish was anciently divided into three ' quar- 

 ters ' — Barton, Worsley, and Pendleton, assessed for 

 the county lay of 1624 at £^ igs. 8^d., £z iSs. -^d., 

 and j^3 5/. \\d. respectively, when the hundred paid 

 £100} For the 'fifteenth' the townships paid as 

 follows : — Barton, including Farnworth, £\ 121. ; 

 Worsley, ^^i is. ; Pendleton, 1 3/. 6d. ; Pendlebury, 

 5/. ; Clifton, 7/., or £^ i8s. 6d. out of;^4i 14/. 4.d. 

 for the hundred.' 



Though the parish is of great extent, and lies near 

 Manchester and Bolton, its particular history has been 

 uneventful. There was a skirmish at Woolden in the 

 Civil War, and in 1745 the Young Pretender's army 

 passed through in its advance and retreat. The 



geological formation of the southern and central part 

 of the parish consists of the New Red Sandstone, the 

 northern part of the Permian Rocks and Coal Mea- 

 sures. Coal mines have been worked from the 1 6th 

 century, and perhaps earlier. In the 1 8th century 

 the Worsley navigation schemes led to a great develop- 

 ment of mines, and later of manufactures, and Eccles 

 and Pendleton have shared in the growth of Man- 

 chester trade. The following is the apportionment 

 of agricultural land within the ancient parish : Arable 

 land, 7,587 acres ; permanent grass, 5,914 ; woods 

 and plantations, 716.^ 



Chat Moss remained waste until the beginning of 

 the last century.* Defoe, who passed it on the way 

 from Warrington to Manchester early in the i8th 

 century, has given a description of it. It stretched 

 along the road for 5 or 6 miles, the surface looked 

 black and dirty, and it was ' indeed frightful to think 

 of, for it would bear neither horse nor man, unless in 

 an exceeding dry season, and then so as not to be 

 travelled over with safety.' The land was entirely 

 waste, 'except for the poor cottagers' fiiel, and the 

 quantity used for that was very small." Leland and 

 Camden tell of a great eruption of the moss in the 

 time of Henry VIII.' The carrying of the Liverpool 

 and Manchester Railway over Chat Moss in 1830 was 

 considered a great triumph of engineering.' The 



for coals and clothing at Christmas time 

 for the poor of Audenshaw. He desired 

 it to be considered an ecclesiastical charity. 



Thomas Turner Broadbent in 1896 

 bequeathed the residue of his estate, after 

 the expiry of certain interests still [1S99] 

 existing, to the foundation of a conva- 

 lescent hospital. 



201 Full details of these endowments arc 

 given in the Ref. of 1899, pp. 15-19. 



2™ John Newton, 1731, ;^3 rent-charge 

 on an estate called The Crime in Ashton, 

 for teaching six poor children. 



John Walker, 1755, £6 is. 41/., for 

 buying books and teaching the Catechism. 



Edward Wright, 1882, £z 171., for 

 Bibles for the children attending the 

 parish church schools. 



George Heginbottom, 1879, ^^40 ex- 

 hibition, at Owens College, tenable for 

 three yearj 



Titus Tetlow, 1890, ^212 171. 4^., 

 exhibitions. Sec, for Aihton-under-Lyne 

 Mechanics' Institution. 



Samuel Broadbent, 1891, ^^3, for the 

 Woodhouses British Schools. 



Helen Swallow, 51. gd., for the Sunday 

 School. 



Froghall School, 1824, ^23 31. ^d. ; 

 the school was discontinued in 1840, and 

 the income is paid to Hey Church of 

 England Schools and to Austerlands School 

 in Saddleworth. 



Edward Hobson, 1764, ;fz66 los. 31/., 



for Audenshaw (British) School, and for 

 exhibitions. 



«I3 Ref. 16. 



«i< For St. John the Baptist's, Hey, 

 ^11 IIS. Sd.; for a Bible woman, St. 

 James's, Ashton, jTz i8j. 4^. 



205 The report was published in 1900. 

 Mossley, from its composite formation, 

 has a share in some charities of Ashton- 

 onder-Lyne, Mottram in Longdendale, and 

 Rochdale. 



^ Gregson, Fragments (ed. Harland), 22; 

 the third quarter's contribution was 

 divided thus : Pendleton, ^i i6s. 9J1/, ; 

 Pendlebury, 101. z^d. ; Clifton, 181. 4fi/. 



2 Ibid. 18. For other assessments see 

 Manch. Sess. (Rec. See. Lanes, and Ches.), 

 i, 13 — House of Correction, 1616 ; and 

 60 — ox. lay, 16 1 8. 



^ The details given are : — 



Arable Grass Wood, &c. 

 Acres Acres Acres 



35 



471 



* An effort was made to reclaim part by 

 William Roscoe in 1805, but it did not 

 succeed. Edward Baines then made a 



further trial, with better success ; see hi» 

 Hist, of Lanes, (ed. 1836), iii, 133-5. 



' Tour Through Gt. Brit. (ed. 1738), iii, 

 170-1. 



* A full account will be found in Lanes, 

 and Ches. Antiq.Soc. xx, 139—44 ; see also 

 Trans. Hist. Soc. xviii. The outbreak 

 took place in 1526 ; it choked the Glaze- 

 brook and covered 60 acres of arable land 

 on each side, overflowed the dam of Cul- 

 cheth Mill, and prevented the passage of 

 the ferry at HoUinfare for some days. Le- 

 land calls it ' Chateley More ' ; Itin. vii, 4&. 



' A description of the railway, published 

 in 1830, speaks of the 'far-extended 

 waste ' of ' this black and spongy tract,' 

 and says : ' The line extends over it a 

 distance of 4I miles, about a quarter of a 

 mile of which, at each end, is moss em- 

 bankment, which now stands well, though 

 vast quantities of material disappeared^ 

 particularly at the east border, in the 

 quick and faithless depths of the moss 

 before it was thus established. It was 

 long doubted whether a road was practic- 

 able over this soft and watery expanse, 

 upon many parts of which it was unsafe t& 

 tread ; and its great depth — from 20 to 34 

 feet — together with its extent, precluded 

 all idea of piling. The engineer, however^ 

 overcame every difficulty, and established 

 upon it the incrustation of a road. The 

 moss is higher than much of the land 

 round it, and draining was resorted to. 



352 



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