BLACKBURN HUNDRED 



In 1332 the contributors to the subsidy numbered 

 sixteen persons; those to the poll tax of 1379 

 numbered forty-nine, all husbandmen or labourers." 

 Richard Charnley was the only person assessed upon 

 lands in 1524. Hugh Welchman in 1649 com- 

 pounded for his delinquency in adhering to the 

 forces against the Parliament by a fine of £^ 10/., 

 representing the sixth part of the value of his estate.'" 



To the tax in 1666 as many as 127 hearths were 

 liable in this township ; the house of |ohn Southworth 

 had thirteen hearths and that of William Walmsley 

 ten ; there was one of four hearths, and others 

 smaller." 



A deer park is shown in Saxton's map as existing 

 here in the time of Elizabeth. 



The church of Sr. LEONJRD-THE- 

 CHURCH LESS stands in a low situation close to 

 the left bank of the Ribble, amid 

 pleasant rural surroundings, and consists of a clearstoried 

 nave and s.inctuary under one roof, 66 ft. long inter- 

 nally by 1 8 ft. 6 in. wide, with north and south aisles 

 10 ft. 6 in. wide, and a tower at the 

 north-west corner. The tower, how- 

 ever, is modem, having been added in 

 1 899-1900, at which time also the 

 two wooden porches on the south side 

 were erected. There was a restoration 

 in 1885,*' when a new east window 

 was inserted, the walls stripped of ac- 

 cumulated coats of whitewash and the 

 piers re-chiselled. Originally the build- 

 ing, which dates substantiaUy from the 

 year 1558, had a wooden bell-turret 

 over the west gable, but this was re- 

 moved at the time the tower was 

 built. The original chapel, which 

 existed in the 12 th century, had pro- 

 bably been rebuilt, and the ancient 

 masonry now incorporated in the east 

 and west walls may belong to a 14th 

 or early 1 5th-century building, whose 

 length must have been the same as at 

 present, but narrower in width and less 

 in height, being presumably without 

 aisles and forming a long barn-like 

 structure, the area of the existing nave. 

 The plan of this earlier church, how- 

 ever, must remain more or less conjectural. As re- 

 erected in the middle of the i6th century the build- 

 ing is on plan a parallelogram 66 ft. long by 43 ft. 

 I o in. wide internally, the aisles being divided from 

 the wider central space by an arcade of four pointed 

 arches of two plain chamfered orders on octagonal 

 piers with moulded caps, but with a straight length 

 of wall 7 ft. long at each end, that at the east 

 forming the sanctuary. 



The walls are built of yellow sandstone in blocks 

 of fairly large size, but the older masonry is of local 

 red sandstone in small pieces, the line of the old 

 gable at each end being still preserved. The north 



BLACKBURN 



side is also partly built of red sandstone, probably 

 ffom the older structure, and the character of the 

 plinths to the aisles and to the ends of the nave and 

 sanctuary clearly shows the different dates of the 

 building. Apart from this sandstone masonry, how- 

 ever, which preserves no architectural detail, new 

 windows having been inserted in it at each end, the 

 church is entirely of 1 6th-century and modern date, 

 and before the addition of the tower and porches 

 had externally little or no architectural interest, the 

 general impression being one of flatness. The roofs 

 are covered with stone slates and have overhanging 

 eaves. 



The east window is modern, dating from the 

 restoration of 1885, and has three lights with tracery 

 under a pointed head. In the south wall of the 

 sanctuary the piscina remains, but without drain. 

 The altar rails have turned Jacobean oak balusters. 

 The clearstory has four square-headed three-light 

 windows on each side, and the west window is 

 a pointed one of three lights, with the muUions 



Ko^Centaty. EUlI^odem. 



Plan of Samlesbury Church 



crossing in the head. The aisles are lit by three 

 square-headed windows of three lights in the north 

 and south walls, with a three-light window at each 

 end. All these windows, with the exception of that 

 at the west end of the south aisle, which has a 

 segment head and trefoiled lights, have round-headed 

 lights and are without labels. The south side has two 

 doorways, a narrow one near the east end, with 

 chamfered head and jambs, serving as a priest's 

 entrance, and the other with pointed arch and 

 continuous moulded jambs and head. At the west 

 end of the outer wall of the north aisle is a modern 

 doorway opening into the vestry under the tower. 



" Exci. Lay Subs. (Rec. Soc. Lanes, and 

 Ches.), yy ; Lay Subs. Lanes, bdle. 130, 

 no. 28. Alexander Deuyas occurs in 

 1332 ; William and John Deuyas in 

 1379, when there were also 3 boukers, 

 a sporier, 2 hunters, 3 tumours, z 

 fer[ry] men, a potter, a gynour, 2 smyths, 

 a hird, a walshemon, a taillour and a 



™ Cal. Com. for Comp. 2043. Others 

 who obtained discharge of their estates 

 were William Knight in 1646, his estate 

 being under ,^200 value, and John Flood 

 holding an estate formerly William Worth- 

 ington's ; ibid. 2^65. Mathew Walmesley 

 and Elizabeth his wife, Henry Birley and 

 Mary his wife, being daughters of Henry 

 Wright, a recusant, deceased, petitioned 



in 165 1 for discharge of a tenement 

 leased to Henry Wright in 1637 by 

 Thomas Walmsley of Dunkenhalgh ; 

 discharge granted on petitioners taking 

 the oath of abjuration ; ibid. 2847. 



^^ Lay Subs. Lanes, bdle. 250, no. 9. 



^^ There was a partial restoration and 

 renovation about 1880. 



