BLACKBURN HUNDRED 



BLACKBURN 



conveying his estate in 174.7 to the governors of 

 Blackburn Grammar School. These and other 

 freeholding families are noticed by Mr. Abram." 



Many place-names now lost are recorded in the 

 Southworth deeds. One of some interest is the 

 Hermitage, commemorating a plat of land once held 

 by a hermit.^' The road from Blackburn to Mellor 

 village was named Staingate ; the land between it 

 and the road to ' Scholfley ' (Showley) was called 

 H.iukeschaw ; from the brook between Blackburn and 

 Mellor, called ' Hauekesshae ' Brook, ran the ditch 

 ' del Hackinbothe.' Showley Brook seems to have 

 been named ' Blakebroc ' ; Eissilache formed the 

 boundary against the ' forest ' of Ramsgreave, and 

 was connected with Blakebroc by ' le sike de Bere- 

 schahe.' Tottering Brook was named the ' sike of 

 Stonilode.' Between Staingate and the road to 

 Showley, and beneath Mellor Moor, lay ' Haukeshae 

 ruding.' On the road near Lower Abbot House there 

 was a ' lidyate ' to prevent cattle stra)'ing into Balders- 

 ton ; to the east of this road was a large inclosure 

 called ' Le Heye.' Near-adjoining were ' Le Armet- 

 riding,' inclosures in ' Brendehurst,' whilst ' Bose- 

 burn ' was, as now, the boundary against Balderston. 



In 1626 Richard Abbot, described as a convicted 

 recusant, paid double to the subsidy ; his wife, 

 William Ireland, John Elswick, Thomas Crosse and 

 their wives, and Hugh Welchmond were non- 

 communicants." In 1666 there were seventy-nine 

 hearths taxed in Mellor ; Leonard Clayton, clerk, of 

 Shorrock Green, had seven, Thomas Abbot, clerk, 

 of Abbot House, had five.'" 



The church of St. Mary was built in 1829, by 

 Parliamentary grant, on a site given by Henry Sudell 

 of Woodfold Park.'' The tower contains a clock 

 and eight bells, the gift of Daniel Thwaites ; the 

 east window of stained glass was erected in 1 871 by 

 Henry Hargreaves of Mellor House as a memorial to 

 relatives There are other memorial windows and 

 fittings given in memory of various local personages. 

 The registers date from the year 1830. The living 

 is a vicarage in the gift of the vicar of Blackburn. 



The followers of Wesley first held services during 

 the latter part of the 1 8 th century in a room at 

 Abbot House, and later in the disused windmill on 

 Mellor Moor. In 1 790 the Society belonged to the 

 Blackburn Circuit. A small chapel built in 1802 

 was twice rebuilt before a new building was erected 

 in 1893 ; it was enlarged in 1900. A second 

 Methodist society was founded here in I 847, services 

 being held in a room at Mellor Brook Mill until 

 1852, when the present Mellor Brook Wesleyan 

 Chapel was erected.'* 



WITTON 



The ancient township adjoins the town of Black- 

 burn on the east and is divided from it for some 

 distance by the River Blackwater, a tributary of the 

 River Darwen, over which the township extended 

 and included the district now called Griffin. To the 

 south the boundary passed over the River Darwen, 

 extending as far as the limits of Livesey. From these 

 waters on the south and east and from Arley Brook 

 on the north the land rises some 450 ft. to 500 ft. up 

 the slopes of Billinge Hill to an elevation at the summit 

 of 807 ft. above the ordnance datum, from which 

 in clear weather views may be obtained of Ingle- 

 borough and Penyghent in Yorkshire, Black Coombe in 

 Cumberland, the mountains on the coast of North 

 Wales and the Isle of Man. On the south-eastern 

 slope the subsoil consists of the Coal Measures ; on 

 the opposite slope of the Millstone Grit. The area 

 of the township is 700 acres, of which 125 acres 

 have been added to the municipal borough and civil 

 parish of Blackburn by the Blackburn Borough Exten- 

 sion Act, 1877, and the Blackburn Corporation Act, 

 1901. By the Blackburn Corporation Act, 1892, 

 and the Act of 1901 the portions of this township 

 added to the borough were included in the civil 

 parish of Blackburn,' and this township reduced to 

 its present area of 575 acres.' The population of 

 the reduced township in 1901 numbered 237 

 persons. 



About the end of the i8th century more than 

 half of the ancient township was inclosed to form 

 Witton Park. The portion of the township now 

 included in the borough of Blackburn has become 

 very populous ; of the remainder more than three- 

 fourths consists of meadow and pasture, and nearly 

 one-fourth of woodland ' scattered over Witton Park 

 and Billinge Hill. There are a number of large 

 cotton mills at Griffin in the ancient township, but 

 none within the modern area. Witton Stocks, now 

 within the borough of Blackburn, was the site of the 

 town stocks which existed until some time after i860. 

 The high road from Blackburn to Preston passing 

 through Walton-le-Dale intersects the south-eastern 

 part of the township. Cherry Tree station on the 

 Liverpool, Blackburn and Accrington line of the 

 Lancashire and Yorkshire Railway Company serves 

 the central part of the township, and Mill Hill station 

 on the same line the Griffin district ; both are in the 

 adjoining township of Livesey. 



The name Griffin applied to that part of Witton 

 lying between Redlam and the River Darwen was 

 derived from a public-house named the ' Griffin's 



*' Abbot of Abbot House, Aspden of 

 Arley, Astley, Clayton of Shorrock Green, 

 Haydock, Hoghton, Osbaldeston, Stanley, 

 Walmsley, Ward and Whithalgh ; Black- 

 burn, 589-95. Charles Brereworth held 

 a tenement here of Thomas West lord 

 of Manchester in 1473, which de- 

 scended to John son and heir of Evan 

 Brereworth in 1503 ; Mamecestre (Chet. 

 Soc. Iviii), 495 ; Add. MS. 32106, 

 fol. 281A. 



In 1505 William Harrington held a 

 tenement of John Southworth, kt. In 

 1573 John Southworth of the city of 

 London, son of Christopher Southworth, 

 late of Mellor, deceased, released to 

 John Southworth, kt,, his interest in the 

 messuage called Harrington House in 



Mellor, then in the occupation of Adam 

 and Thomas Southworth ; Towneley MS. 

 HH, no. 2022-3. 



^* John Deuyas gave to Robert son of 

 John de Mellor a plat of land which the 

 hermit formerly held lying between Bose- 

 burn and le Lidyate upon the king's 

 highway, and between Balderston and the 

 Hey;TowneleyMS. HH, no. 1762. The 

 grantee afterwards resigned the land to 

 Nicholas Deuyas, who gave it, with the 

 appurtenances within the hedge called 'le 

 Ryngherd,' except the culture called ' le 

 Hermitage,' to Alice daughter of Henry 

 de Hoghton ; HH, 1780. 



^ Lay Subs. Lanes, bdle. 131, no. 317. 

 John Crosse, younger son of John Crosse 

 of Mellor, petitioned in 1652 for the dis- 



263 



charge of his estate in Mellor and Show- 

 ley left to him by his father and seques- 

 trated when he was ten years old on pre- 

 tence that he was educated in popery. 

 He took the oath and his petition was 

 allowed \ CaL Com. for Comp. 3041. 



™ Lay Subs. Lanes, bdle. 250, no. 9. 

 James Walmesley and William Warde 

 each had three. 



81 A district was assigned to it in 1 842 ; 

 Lond, Gaz. 20 Sept. 



32 Abram, Blackburn, 595. 



1 Census Rep. 1891, I901. 



2 Including 4 acres of inland water. 



° The agricultural returns for 1905 

 give arable land J acre, permanent grass 

 360 acres, woods and plantations 130 

 acres. 



