A HISTORY OF LANCASHIRE 



The living is a vicarage in the gift of the vicar of 

 Blacicburn. The church of St. Philip, Griffin, was 

 built in I 880," at which date the registers commence. 

 The living is a vicarage in the gift of five trustees. 



The Nonconformist places of worship ire men- 

 tioned in the account of Blackburn. 



PLEASINGTON 



Plesinton, 1208, xiii cent. ; Plessington, Plesyng- 

 ton, xiii-xvii cent. 



The township lies within a wide bend of the River 

 Darwen, which flows round or near the southern and 

 western boundaries,, whilst the tributary Arley Brook 

 flowing through Woodfold Park forms the northern 

 limit. To the east lies the town of Blackburn, and 

 from the high ground called Revidge to the north of 

 the town a ridge spreads i\estward through W'itton 

 Park into this township with an elevation approach- 

 ing 700 ft. above the ordnance datum at Yellow Hill 

 on Pleasington Moor, from which the ground slopes 

 downward to the River Darwen and its tributary, with 

 woodland declivities in Woodfold Park, below Alum 

 Scar, and at the confluence of these waters. On the 

 south-eastern slope the subsoil consists of the Coal 

 Measures, elsewhere of the Millstone Grit. The soil 

 varies from sand to clay. A small area of land is 

 under the plough, but the greater part consists of 

 meadow and pasture.' The area is 1,701 acres, and 

 the population in 1 90 1 numbered 461 persons.' A 

 considerable area of land lies within the park in- 

 cisures of Pleasington Hall, Woodfold Park and 

 Feniscowles Hall. The latter park, occupying un- 

 dulating and well-wooded ground by the River Darwen, 

 is now used as a pleasure ground. Immediately to the 

 north runs the Liverpool, Blackburn and Accrington 

 line of the Lancashire and Yorkshire Railw.iy Com- 

 pany, with a station near the north-eastern corner of 

 the park. There are no main roads, but numerous 

 country lanes intersect the township. There is a large 

 residential population and an entire absence of manu- 

 factories. The township was included in the parish 

 of Feniscowles in 1842.' 



The alum mines, which were formerly worked at 

 Alum Crag, near the confluence of the Arley or Alum 

 House Brook with the River Darwen, were once of 

 some celebrity. In 1 6 1 7 when James I was at 

 Hoghton Tower he visited these mines. They were 

 worked with varying success until the latter part of 

 the I 8 th century.* 



^^ For district see Land. Gaa. 11 Mar. 

 iSSi. A school had been built in 1870 

 and used as a chapel. 



^ The agricultural returns for 1905 

 give arable land 1 5 acres, permanent 

 grass 1,211 acres, woods and plantations 

 66 acres. 



^ The new survey gives l,"03 acres, of 

 which 20 are inland water j Census Rep. 

 1 901. 



^ Lond. Gax. 2533. 



* Abram, Hist, of Blackburn, 625. 



' Diet. Nat. Biog. ; Plantagenet Harri- 

 son, Torks., i, 24.9. He and his descend- 

 ants had land in Amoundemess. 



" Diet. Xjt. Biog. ; Abram, op. cit. 

 615 J Pal. Note Bk. v, i. 



' Final Cone. (Rec. Soc. Lanes, and 

 Ches.), i, 36. Henry de Pleasington 

 was one of the judges of the baronial 

 court of Clitheroe in 1 196, when a line 

 was levied touching lands in Cliviger ; 



Kirkstall Couch. (Thoresby Soc, viii), 



194- 



^ In 1349 Adam de Hoghton, kt., 

 granted to Robert de Cunliffe and Edayne 

 his wife, relict of Adam de Blackburn of 

 Showley, for ,^20 the wardship and mar- 

 riage of Robert son of Adam and Edayne, 

 which Adam held the manor of Pleasing- 

 ton by knight's service at * mesne ' 

 between Adam de Hoghton and John de 

 Winckley, tenant In demesnej Add. MS. 

 32106, no. 737. 



There are no indications of the various 

 steps which led to the complex tenure of 

 the manor in 1349 ; there is nothing 

 unusual in this complexity. 



** Kirkstall Coueh. 201 ; Final Cone, i, 

 80,87. In 1228 Amabel relict of Henry 

 de Pleasington resigned her claim of dower 

 in 3 oxgangs of land in Pleasington to 

 Elias dc Pleasington, who gave her 201, ; 

 Curia Reg. R. 9S, m. 8 d. ; 99, m. 10. 



266 



Sir Robert de Pleasington, chief baron of the Ex- 

 chequer, is said to have belonged to the family who 

 took their name from the place ; he died in i 393.' 

 Henry Ainsworth, the Brownist of Amsterdam, a 

 great Rabbinist, has usually been called a native of 

 this place, but appears to have belonged to Swanton 

 Morley in Norfolk.' 



The township is governed by a parish council. 



The tenure of this manor appears to 

 M^XOR have been originally by thegnage, after- 

 wards converted to military tenure. In 

 the time of John the manor w.is held of the lord of 

 Billington as one plough-land by 8/. yearly rent, from 

 which fact it may be assumed with some degree of 

 certainty that it formed part of the tenement which 

 Efward de Billington, brother of Hugh son of Leofwln, 

 lord of Altham and Clayton-le-Moors, held in the 

 time of Henry II. Elias de Billington son of Efward 

 was living in i 208, but his brother Henry de Plea- 

 sington was then recently dead. In that year Elias 

 de Billington acknowledged in the king's court at 

 Lancaster that a plough-land in PLEJSINGTON and 

 a small tenement in Billington were the right of Elias 

 de Pleasington ' son and heir of Henry de Pleasington. 

 After a lapse of 140 years the manor is found to be 

 held by the heirs-general of Henry de Pleasington as 

 tenants in demesne of Blackburn of Showley, who was 

 then the mesne tenant holding in turn of the Hoghtons 

 of Hoghton by 'service of chivalcr." 



Elias de Pleasington and Adam his brother gave 

 lands in Huncote to Kirkstall Abbey about the year 

 1241.'" Elias had issue by Alice his wife — Henry, 

 Robert (possibly ancestor of the Pleasingtons of Gar- 

 stang) and Richard. Henry was living in 1269, and 

 a few years later gave to Stanlaw Abbey the site for a 

 barn in Hungrehul field by the Haybonk, two oak 

 trees in his woods to be taken yearly for the repair of 

 the monks' houses in Blackburn, dead wood for fue! 

 there, and free liberty for twenty swine to run in the 

 woods at the time of mast-fall.' He married firstly 

 Amabel daughter of Roger the parson of Blackburn, 

 by whom he had issue Roger and Elias, who each 

 appear to have held half the manor ; and secondly 

 Diana, by whom he had Robert and others.'" In 

 1295 Roger de Pleasington granted part of his lands 

 to Richard de Redevalys in trust and died soon 

 after. Elias his brother survived and was probably 

 the father of Alice, who had become the wife of John 

 de Winckley before 1302, when the latter recovered 

 from Elias three messuages and 2 oxgangs of land 



9 Orig. R. 43 Hen. Ill, m. 2 ; ff^Aalley 

 Coueh. (Chet. Soc), io6. Afterwards 

 his relict Diana and his son Roger con- 

 firmed the grant. 



'" Assize R. 408, m. 72. Roger passed 

 36 acres of land and two mills in Plea- 

 sington and Livesey by fine in 1296 to 

 Richard de Redyvals, Final Cone. (Rec. 

 Soc. Lanes, and Ches.), i, 182, who after- 

 wards gave them to Alice widow of Roger; 

 Dods. MSS. liii, 25. 



In 1292 Diana demanded her dower in 

 the lands of Henry her late husband in 

 Pleasington, Livesey and Billington from 

 Henry dc Blackburn and Elias dc Plea- 

 sington ; Assize R. 408, m. 1 1 d. 



Henry de Pleasington gave to hit 

 daughters Alice and Beatrice a plat of 

 land bounded north by Elesburne, cast by 

 Fulthagh Brook, south by the 'menigale' 

 which comes from Billingehurst, and west 

 by Dernelegh-brook'f head ; Townelev 



