A HISTORY OF LANCASHIRE 



The revolution seems to have been welcomed in the 

 district, the earl of Derby taking the side of the Prince 

 of Orange. The rising in 1 7 1 5 brought suspicion upon 

 Robert Scarisbrick, who on trial was acquitted, and 

 upon one or two others in the parish.' At the con- 

 sequent ' registration of Papists' estates,' a considerable 

 number of properties were enrolled. The rebellion of 

 1745 had no such ill results in the parish. More 

 provision for education was attempted at this time, 

 and material prosperity was advanced by the making 

 of the Leeds and Liverpool Canal in the latter part 

 of the century, and of the railway in the next ; 

 also by the opening of coal mines in the Skelmers- 

 dale district about fifty years ago. Apart from these, 

 however, the main occupation of the people has 

 been farming, the industries which from time to 

 time have flourished at Ormskirk not being on a 

 large scale. 



Pennant in 1773 passed through the parish, and 

 from his description the following portions are quoted 

 to serve as an introduction to the more detailed 

 accounts to be given : ' Four miles further [than 

 Lydiate] lies Ormskirk, a neat little town with four 

 well-built streets crossing each other. Its only trade 

 is the spinning of cotton for the Manchester manu- 

 factures and thread for sail cloth. It has long been in 

 possession of a fair and market. . . . The church is 

 teated at the upper end of the town, and is remarkable 

 for its two steeples, placed contiguous, the one a tower 

 the other a squat spire. ... At about two miles 

 distant from Ormskirk I turned into a field to visit the 

 site of the priory of Burscough. . . . Nothing is left 

 of this pile but part of the centre arch of the church, 

 and instead of the magnificent tombs of the Stanleys, 

 which till the Reformation graced the place, a few 

 modem gravestones peep through the grass, memorials 

 of poor Catholics who fondly prefer this now violated 

 spot. ... At a little distance east of Burscough, on 

 an eminence, stands Lathom Hall, a palace built by 

 Sir Thomas Bootle, knight, chancellor to Frederick, 

 late Prince of Wales. He was bred to the law, and 

 raised by his profession vast wealth. He, dying a 

 bachelor, left his estates to his brother, who had been 

 captain of an East India ship, whose only daughter 

 transferred them into the honourable house of Wil- 

 braham, by marrying with Richard, son of the honest 

 advocate Randle Wilbraham, a cadet of the house of 

 Townsend of Nantwich, who had raised a large fortune 

 with a most unblemished character. Lathom is placed 

 on a most barren spot, and commands a view as exten- 

 sive as dull. . . . (A) singular anecdote is preserved, 

 serving to show the pride of high lineage and the 

 vanity of low. The late earl of Derby had on sale a 

 place near Liverpool called Bootle, which Sir Thomas 

 was particularly desirous of, through the ambition of 

 being thought to have been derived from some ancient 

 stock. The earl refused to part with it to this new 

 man, who with proper spirit sent his lordship word — 

 Lathom being then to be sold — that if he would not 

 let him be Bootle of Bootle he was resolved to be 

 Bootle of Lathom. . . . From Lathom I descended 

 and passed over Hosker Moss, leaving on the right some 



beautiful hills wooded and well cultivated ; crossed the 

 River Douglas at Ncwburgh. ..." 



The church of St. Peter and St. Paul » 

 CHURCH consists of chancel with a large south chapel 

 and north vestry, nave with north and south 

 aisles, tower and spire at the west end of the south 

 aisle, and a second tower at the west of the nave. It 

 is finely placed on high ground to the north of the 

 town, the land sloping down from all sides of 

 the site, the steepest slopes being to the west and 

 north.* 



The earliest part of the building is the north wall 

 of the chancel ; its date is about 11 70, and it forms 

 the only remaining fragment of a church consisting of 

 a chancel with probably aisleless nave, whose internal 

 dimensions were approximately, chancel 30 ft. by 18 ft., 

 and nave 65 ft. by 24 ft. No evidence as to its 

 western termination can be deduced from the plan, and 

 the chancel may have been shortened from its original 

 size. No doubt this building passed through the 

 regular process of enlargement by the addition of aisles 

 and chapels, but little positive evidence of this remains. 

 In 1280 or thereabout a chapel was added on the south 

 of the chancel, opening into it by two arches. No 

 fourteenth-century work is to be seen in the church, 

 but to the fifteenth century belong the south-west 

 tower and spire, the east wall of the chancel, part of 

 the west wall of the north vestry, and probably the 

 walls of the Scarisbrick chapel. The south-west tower 

 gives the key to a great deal of the history of the 

 church. Looked at in connexion with the present 

 plan it seems to stand awkwardly, especially with regard 

 to the south arcade of the nave. But an inspection 

 of the north face of its north-east pier shows that when 

 it was built the south arcade of the nave was not on its 

 present line, but further south, and the tower was 

 built against the southern side of either the first pillar 

 from the west, or the western respond, of this arcade ; 

 the north-east angle of the tower pier, projecting be- 

 yond the sight-line of an arch of the arcade, being cut 

 back to that line to avoid the partial blocking other- 

 wise caused. Now if the plan of the present church 

 be examined, it will be seen that the centre line of the 

 nave is not the same as that of the chancel, but roughly 

 speaking a foot to the north of it. But over the 

 eastern arch of the large western tower is the weather 

 moulding of a roof which preceded the present nave 

 roof, and its centre line is exactly that of the chancel, 

 or in other words, that of the twelfth-century church. 

 Taking this line for a centre, it will be found that the 

 present north arcade, and the former south arcade, 

 against which the south-west tower was built, are 

 equidistant from it, which means that they occupy the 

 line of the nave arcades of the church in its earlier 

 condition, and according to the usual process of develop- 

 ment the line of the walls of the twelfth-century nave. 

 So that the dimensions of the early church can be laid 

 down with some accuracy. 



Again, on the east face of the south-west tower is a 

 gabled weather-moulding which, taken in conjunction 

 with a straight joint in the masonry of the east face of 

 the south-east pier of the tower, gives the width of the 



^ John Ashton of Lathom is named in 

 the list in the Dep* Keeper^s Rep. v ; 

 Lanes. Forfeited Estate Papers, 2 L. 



^ Tour to Abnn Mcor, 51-61. Pen- 

 nant notes that the arms assumed by the 

 Beetles were those of Ponsonby, earl of 

 Bessborough. They have been varied. 



' For a description of its condition in 

 1 845 see Glvnne, Lanci. Churchei (Chet. 

 Soc), 8 ; for the font. Tram. Hist. Soc. 

 (New Ser.}, xvii, 63. Reminiscences of it 

 as it was about 1830 are printed in Lea's 

 Ormikirk Handb'^^A^ 66-9. It was called 

 All Saints' in 134.2 ; Coram Rege R. 329. 



24c 



* A raised platform with buttressed re- 

 taining wall runs north and south across 

 the west front of the church, level with 

 the sill of the west doorway, and was pro- 

 bably in the first instance made for the 

 convenience of processions. 



