WEST DERBY HUNDRED 



WALTON 



The office of keeper of this chase was united with 

 that of keeper of Toxteth Park.^ In 1507 the king 

 granted * a waste ground ' called Simonswood to 

 William Molyneux/ one of the 

 esquires of his body, at a yearly 

 rent, according to the custom 

 of the manor of West Derby.^ 

 The township has since con- 

 tinued in the possession of the 

 Molyneux family.* 



It appears to have been cus- 

 tomary for the landowners of 

 the district to obtain wood here 

 for fencing their properties. 

 Edward Moore of Bankhall 

 describes how his great-grand- 

 father in the time of Elizabeth 



used to keep two strong ox teams, with two men and 

 two boys, employed during the greater part of the 

 winter carrying hedging wood from Simonswood for 



Molyneux, Earl of 

 Sefton. Azure, a cross 

 moUne or. 



the fencing of his demesne lands.* Some idea of the 

 recent progress of agriculture may be gathered from 

 the scanty amount of * corn rent' or tithe due to the 

 rector or farmer of the tithes of Walton in 1658 ; the 

 total was £z js, 6dJ^ 



William Johnson of West Derby, and William 

 Fleetwood * as papists ' registered estates in Simons- 

 wood in 1717/ 



In 1 57 1 there was a dispute as to the boundary 

 between Simonswood and Cunscough in Melling.® 



There was an ancient rent called the Priest Rent, 

 paid by fourteen messuages in Simonswood to the 

 curate of Kirkby; it amounted only to 8/. 4^. in all.^ 



In the eighteenth century the justices began to 

 appoint overseers of the poor instead of the inhabi- 

 tants, who had formerly appointed them. There were 

 no churchwardens (or church tax), constable, or high- 

 way surveyor. Collectors of the land tax were ap- 

 pointed as elsewhere, and the assessor of this tax also 

 assessed the poor-rate.*" 



^ See the account of Toxteth. 

 ^ Hereditary master forester of the 

 hundred ; Croxteth D. W. 2. 



s Ibid. F. 2. Croxteth Park was 

 joined in the grant. The rent payable 

 for both was ^^16, of which £6 and £z 

 represented the old farms of Croxteth and 

 Simonswood, and ^^8 the new yearly in- 

 crease ; i.e. the rents were doubled. 

 Simonswood was reported as overgrown 

 with wood, in those parts of little or no 

 value, and as a watery, moorish and mossy 

 ground having little or no grass growing 

 upon it. The grants were next year en- 

 rolled on the court rolls of the manor of 

 West Derby ; ibid. F. 3-5. 



■* See the account of Sefton. From an 

 abstract of title preserved at Croxteth it 

 appears that the tenure of Simonswood 

 and Croxteth Park was sometimes re- 

 garded as freehold, but more usually as 

 copyhold, down to the beginning of the 

 eighteenth century. Counsel's opinion, 

 obtained in 1834, was that they had be- 

 come enfranchised, even if they had ever 

 been copyhold j nothing was then known 

 as to the payment of the ^^ 1 6 rent. 

 According to the abstract the act of 7 

 James I, regarding copyholds of West 

 Derby, etc., applied to these manors ; and 

 it is said : * Until King William's time 

 the family seemed to know nothing to the 

 contrary but that they held the said forest 

 lands either by the said admittance from 

 the duke of Gloucester within the time 

 of memory, or by virtue of their office of 

 master forester — which were either of 

 them but a precarious tenure ; and it 

 some way coming out as if they had been 

 so held, one Dr. Kingston obtained a 

 grant from the crown, came down into 

 the country, and claimed these lands, and 

 got attornments from some of the tenants 

 in Simonswood. Whereupon the family 

 being much alarmed, John Case, being an 

 old gentleman in the neighbourhood, ad- 

 vised the then Lord Molyneux to search 

 the Parliament rolls 5 one Mr. Lawton, 

 who was then concerned for the family. 



being then at London and searching ac- 

 cordingly, the Act of Parliament above 

 mentioned was then discovered, and Dr. 

 Kingston gave up his pretensions.' The 

 insecurity of the tenure as forester was 

 due to Lord Molyneux's recusancy ; he 

 had already been deprived of the Con- 

 stableship of Liverpool Castle for this 

 reason ; see the hint in ISIorris Papers 

 (Chet. Soc), 160. 



^ Moore Rental (Chet. Soc), 125. 



^ Lathom House D. Melling box. 



7 Eng^ Catk, Non-jurors^ 148, iii. 



8 Croxteth D. Richard Leyland of 

 Great Crosby, aged 60, deposed that the 

 bounds were the White Syke and the Rail 

 Ditch. The inheritors of Cunscough had 

 had the right to cut wood in Simonswood 

 to make staff and rails, upon the Rail 

 ditch. Beasts had been agisted and stored 

 upon the disputed ground as in the rest 

 of Simonswood ; and a beast gate was 

 paid for at ^d. a year, to Richard Fleet- 

 wood for Sir Richard Molyneux his master. 

 He knew the North Brook, but it was 

 never the boundary. He knew Thorpe's 

 Brook, a continuation of the North Brook, 

 lying anends certain ground called Thorpe's 

 Fields. Peter Fleetwood and his father 

 before him, with tenants in Simonswood, 

 used to dig turf in the disputed ground 

 without any protest from the owners of 

 Cunscough. The White Syke lay between 

 Ormskirk and Halsall parishes, and 

 Simonswood within the parish of Lan- 

 caster ; Simonswood Brook ran into the 

 White Syke. Simonswood Lane was near 

 this brook, going to Simonswood Moss. 

 * Dirty Alt ' ran between Aughton and 

 Cunscough. 



9 From the Croxteth D. The list 

 was prepared in view of fresh claims 

 for tithe by the rector of Walton. 

 The 'fourteen ancient tenements' in 

 1769, with some of the field names, 

 were as follows : 



I. William Tatlock,* South Heads;* 

 Brick kiln hey, Chorley mounts ; 



42(2. 



2. Nicholas Stopard and Anne 

 Barnes ; Barrow heys, Crich croft ; 

 44a. 



3. Jane Wareing ; Rice or Rye hey, 

 Crumberry hey, 52a. 



4. Thomas Basford, ' Cots Bobs * ; 

 and Jonathan Mallinson (made 

 two tenements barely within 

 memory) ; 36(2. 



5. Edward Stockley, *Fairclough's' 

 or * Piatt's house' 5 i8fl. 



6. Edward Stockley, * Balls' ; 43 J^. 



7. William and Joshua Cropper ; 

 hemp yard, workhouse hey, burnt 

 ale, bathing pit hey ; z%a. 



8. Richard Fleetwood, *Salthou8c' ; 

 house of correction ; the an- 

 cient messuage had been burnt 

 down, and a new one built on 

 or near the old foundations ; 

 loa. 



9. William Woods ; 23a. Said to 

 have been anciently part of the 

 last ; 23j(2. 



10. Thomas Rawlinson, sen. *Yate 

 house' ; hemp yard, pinfold heys, 

 owlers ; ZJ^a. 



11. Thomas Rawlinson, sen. 'Shep- 

 herd's ' ; hemp yard, pingate ; 

 1912. 



12. Edward Woods, 'Moseses ;' tewit 

 heys; 11 Jd. 



13. Edward Woods, 'Rigby's' ; hemp 

 yard ; lo^a. 



14. John Bullens ; Great and Little 

 Mount; 17*2. The ancient mease 

 had been taken down and a new 

 one built on or near the old foun- 

 dation. 'These fourteen tene- 

 ments pay 8i. per annum " Priest's 

 money" to the curate of Kirkby 

 chapel, which is supposed to be a 

 modus in lieu of all small tithes 

 except Easter dues.' A later 

 list shows a 'flax meadow' in 

 No. 9. 



10 Croxteth D. 



57 



