A HISrORY OF LANCASHIRE 



Talbot. .-Irgent 

 three Itons salient pur- 

 pure. 



was aged three at his father's death,"'" rcLclvcd knight- 

 hood in 1544 and died in 1559. Henry his son, 

 who succeeded at the age of 

 twenty-five," married in I 5 jO 

 Milicent daughter of John 

 Holcroft, kt., and died in 

 1570, leaving Thomas his 

 son, aged thirteen years. ^- 

 Thomas Talbot married 

 Elizabeth daughter and co- 

 heir of John Bradley of Bradley 

 Hall, was sheriff in 1588 and 

 1595, and died without heir 

 in 1598, having sold a por- 

 tion of his estate here in 

 1585.'' He was succeeded 



in 1598 by his brother John Talbot,''' who sold the 

 manor in 1601 to Thomas Walmsley of Dunkenhalgh, 

 judge of Common Pleas (1581), knighted in 1603,'* 

 from whom it has descended in the families of 

 Walmsley and Petrc until in 1852 it was left to the 

 father of the present owner, Mr. Oswald Henry Petre. 



Fernhurst, near Ewood, v.as the chief messuage of 

 theTalbots' part of the manor.'' In 1788 the Right 

 Hon. Lord Petre paid land tax amounting to 

 £6 ~s. \d. out of a total of £\ ^ \^i. g/. charged on 

 the township.'' In I 524 James Livesey and William 

 M.irsden were assessed to the subsidy in respect of 

 land ; twenty-nine persons were assessed upon goods 

 in 1543 valued at ^^71, and James Livesey upon 

 lands valued at £^?^ In 1626 the wife of William 

 M.ir;Jcn and the wife of William Duckworth were 

 returned as non-communicanti. In 1666 there were 

 ninety-one hearths taxed. -^^ 



For the Church of England St. James's was begun 

 in 1826 and completed in 1X29,'"' in vhich year the 

 registers commence. A parish was formed for it in 

 1842.*' The benefice is a vicarage in the gift of the 

 vicar of Blackburn. The National schools adjoining 

 the church, built in 1837, were rebuilt and enlarged 

 in 1873. The school at Guide, 1855-90, is licensed 

 for di\ine service. 



.A Methodist Society w.is founded here by John 

 Wesley, who preached in the place in 1759 and 1761. 

 Early preaching stations of the Wesleyan Methodist 

 Connexion were in a farm-house at Top o' th' Coal Pits 

 and at New Row (between Lower Darwcn and Livesey), 

 where a chapel was erected in 1828. The Wesleyan 

 Association, aftcriv.irds the United Free Methodists, 

 built a chapel replaced by the present one in 1873, when 

 the old one was taken by the Primitive Methodists.^^ 



The Congregational chapel was begun in 1884 

 and opened the following year.'" 



The Roman Catholic school-chapel of St. Edward 

 in Blackburn Road was opened in 1872. The present 

 church of the Sacred Heart and St. Edward was 

 opened in 1883. 



ECCLESHILL 



Eccleshull, xiii-xvi cent. 



Until the end of the i 7th century Mellor with 

 Eccleshill was treated as a joint township for fiscal 

 and administrative purposes, although the two places 

 are distant from each other 3 miles or more. The 

 township lies on the eastern side of the two Darwens 

 and of the river of that name, whose tributary, called 

 in its descent Hoddlesden, Grimshaw, or Davy Field 

 Brook, forms the eastern and northern boundary before 

 joining that river near the village of Lower Darwen. 

 From an elevation near the junction of the two 

 streams of 400 ft. above the ordnance datum the spur 

 of the moorland range which gives name to the place 

 reaches an elevation of 860 ft. at New Sett End on 

 the south side of the township. 



The subsoil consists of the Coal Measures, the soil 

 of clay. The situation is bleak and the land consists 

 entirely of meadow and pasture, and is devoid of 

 woodland or plantations.' The area of the township 

 is 797 acres. The south-western part of the town- 

 ship \Mi included in the municipal borough of Darwen 

 in 1879 or 1884. The remainder, containing 629 

 acres,- was constituted a civil parish in 1894 ; in 190 1 

 the population numbered 330 persons. The town- 

 ship was included in the ecclesiastical parish of Hod- 

 dlesden in 1863. The main road from Blackburn to 

 Bury and Manchester traverses the length of the 

 township with branch roads to Hoddlesden and 

 several to Darwen. The Bolton, Blackburn and 

 Hellilield branch of the Lancashire and Yorkshire 

 Company's railway skirts the township and the Hod- 

 dlesden branch line passes through it. The nearest 

 station is at Darwen. There are iron-works, a 

 colliery, a cotton factory, fire-brick, sanitary tube and 

 glazed brick manufactory and brick-works, and the 

 township abounds in beds of coal which are known to 

 have been worked for three centuries,'' also beds of 

 fire-clay and of various kinds of stone. The popula- 

 tion is chiefly located at Waterside, between Hod- 

 dlesden and Grimshaw, where the cotton factory is 

 situated. 



A stone cross 2 ft. high, with some Roman coins 

 under it, was found near Guide about 1865 on the 

 direct line of the Roman road from Ribchester through 

 Blackburn to Manchester.^ 



There is a parish council. 



^ Duchv of Lane. Inq. p.m. v, 14. 



»i Ibid, xi, 69. 



'^ Ibid, xiii, 3S. The inquest records 

 the names of the tenants of the Taibots 

 in Nether Darwen in 1550 and 1559. 



^ He sold six messuages to Alex. 

 .\?pinall, Richard Aspden, John Baron, 

 William FjTSshe, Giles Haworth, sen., and 

 Giles Haworth, jun.; Pal. of Lane Feet 

 of F. bdle. 4.7, m. 97. In 1595 he sold 

 two messuages to Thos. Astley, gent., and 

 Lawrence Haworth (ibid. bdle. 57, m. 

 129] ; and in 1593 to Lawrence Aspi- 

 nall fire messuages ; ibid. bdle. 5 5, 

 m. 104.. 



^ Chan. Inq. p.m. cclxi, no. 29. 

 Thomas Talbot made a settlement of the 



manor of Nether Darwen in 1597 and 

 died 30 Apr. 1598, John Talbot being 

 his brother and heir. 



'= Com. Pleas Recov. R. East. 43 Eliz. 

 m. 2. 



*^ Abram, Blackburn^ 469. 



^^ Land tax return at Preston. 



38 Subs. R. Lanes, bdle. 130, no. 82. 

 Robert Waddington paid upon ^15 in 

 goods in 1543 ; ibid. bdle. 130, no. 125. 

 Ibid. bdle. 131, no, 317 for 1626. 



^^ Only five houses had more than two 

 hearths, Peter Haworth, sen., had five, 

 Roger and Elizabeth Harwood also five ; 

 ibid. bdle. 250, no. 9. 



** Abram, Blackburn^ 486 \ it was built 

 out of a Parliamentary grant. 



278 



^^ Lond, Gaz. 20 Sept. 1842. 



" Abram, loc. cit. 



*^ A Sunday school was opened In 

 1862; Nightingale, Lanct* Aonconf, ii, 

 279. 



^ Agricultural returns for 1905 g:iTc 

 644 acres of permanent gras^. 



' Including 2 acres of inland water } 

 Census Rep. 1 90 1. 



^ In 1729 Peter Walkdcn, Noncon- 

 formist minister in Chipping, enters in his 

 diary: 'Dec. 17, Son John went to 

 Eccleshill coal-pit for 2 loads of coals'; 

 Abram, Hm. of Blackhurn^ 490. 



■* A lecture by the Rev. R. N. Whitakcr, 

 vicar of Whallcy, in 1867. 



