WEST DERBY HUNDRED 



AUGHTON 



Stanley of Moor 

 Hall. Argent, on a 

 bend axure cotised gules, 

 three bucks^ beads ca- 

 bossed or. 



Moor Hall descended like Uplitherland until in 

 1 5 3 3-+ William Bradshagh conveyed to Peter Stanley 

 of BickerstafFe the reversion of the hall and its lands.' 

 The purchaser died on 22 July, 1592, holding seven 

 messuages, lands, meadow, &c., in BickerstafFe, 

 Aughton, Ormskirk, and Skelmersdale.' The family 

 adhered to the old religion ; in 1584 Peter Stanley, 

 like other recusants or suspected persons, was required 

 to furnish a light horseman accoutred (or £24) for 

 the queen's service in Ireland.' Edward Stanley, his 

 successor, died at Moor Hall 

 on 30 March, 1 6 10. He held 

 his patrimony unchanged ; his 

 wife Bridget survived him, and 

 his son Peter, though only eleven 

 years of age, was already mar- 

 ried to Elizabeth daughter of 

 Thomas Wolfall of Huyton.* 

 He was succeeded in 1673 by 

 his son Edward Stanley,' who 

 married Margaret daughter of 

 Thomas Gerard of Aughton ; 

 their sons died young, and of 

 their two daughters Elizabeth 

 died unmarried, and Anne, born 



about 1650, married Richard Wolfall of Huyton, 

 but died without issue in 1 73 1. 



The estate then passed to the head of the family, 

 Sir William Stanley of Hooton. On the sale of the 

 Hooton estates in 184.0 it was purchased by John 

 Rosson,* who died in 1857, and was succeeded by 

 his sister Frances. She sold it to J. P. Duff in 1863, 

 but re-purchased it in 1865, disposing of it in 1873 

 to Thomas Walmesley, sometime mayor of Bolton.' 

 After his death it was sold to Mrs. William Potter of 

 Liverpool. 



The site of the hall is level, and there are traces of 

 a moat. The house is interesting as a good example 

 of the transition stage of domestic architecture. In 

 general arrangement it is of the mediaeval type, having 

 a central hall, with screens and entrance passage at the 

 lower end, between two wings set at right angles to 

 the hall, one containing the living rooms and the 

 other the offices. But the small accommodation pro- 

 vided by the living wing, being quite inadequate for 

 Elizabethan ideas of comfort, rendered some further 

 development necessary, and accordingly the hall was 

 cut up into two floors, an arrangement which had the 

 additional advantage of giving access from the upper 



floor of one wing to that of the other, without having 

 to use the hall as a passage room on all occasions. 

 Another evidence of the stage of development is the 

 lesser relative importance of the hall ; its height and 

 width are exactly equal to those of the wings, instead 

 of exceeding them, and it is treated as one of several 

 large rooms, rather than as the nucleus round which 

 everything else is grouped. 



An inscribed tablet over the doorway of the porch 

 gives the date of the building, 1566. To this date 

 the whole of the main building, of two stories and an 

 attic, belongs, though much refaced and otherwise 

 altered. The walls are 2 ft. 6 in. thick, faced with 

 wrought stone ; the windows are square-headed of two 

 orders under a label, with plain hollow-chamfered 

 muUions. A weathered string of the same section as 

 the labels ran at half-height. How the gables were 

 originally finished does not appear, but the back gable 

 of the office wing is filled in with half timber work, 

 which is said to be a reproduction of the former de- 

 sign. One of the weak points of the plan is that a 

 good and convenient staircase could not be provided ; 

 the stairs had to be fitted on at one end of the hall, 

 taking up the minimum of space ; so that as might 

 be expected, the first alteration of the house was in 

 the direction of providing a better staircase. To get 

 enough room for it the five-light window at the end 

 of what is now the drawing-room was slightly over- 

 lapped. The next step was that a porch with a room 

 over was built on to the front entrance, and the kitchen 

 and offices accommodated in a new building parallel to 

 the wing which they had hitherto occupied, and com- 

 municating with it by a short passage. In this way 

 the whole of the space in the main building was made 

 available for living rooms. All this work may be 

 placed in the seventeenth century ; and since that 

 time, beyond the addition of a few offices and out- 

 buildings, the plan has undergone no important change. 

 The front elevation has been refaced and all window 

 muUions removed and replaced by sashes. The door- 

 ways at both ends of the screens are original, with low 

 four-centred arches, and retain their oaken doors, 

 which have been rehung with the hanging styles out- 

 ward to their old wrought-iron strap hinges. The 

 line of the right-hand screen (on entering by the front 

 doorway) is shown by the beam in the ceiling, though 

 the screen itself has gone ; that on the left, forming the 

 end of the hall, remains in position, though recased 

 and panelled. The hall fireplace is 8 ft. 2 in. wide. 



1 Kuerden MSS. ii, fol. 269^, ». 98, 

 99, no. 



' He had (by fine, 1566) settled them 

 upon his second wife Cecily for her life, 

 with remainders to himself and his chil- 

 dren Edward, William, Anne, Alice, and 

 Margaret (wife of Henry Stanley), and 

 for default to John son of John Stanley 

 the brother of Peter. He had other 

 lands in Netherton, Ormskirk, and Rain- 

 ford. The premises in Aughton were 

 held of the earl of Derby in socage by 

 fealty only ; a house and some land in 

 Uplitherland of the queen (but not in 

 chief) by the yearly rent of 6d. Edward 

 Stanley, the son and heir, was over thirty 

 years of age ; Duchy of Lane. Inq. p.m. 

 xvi, «. I ; also Pal. of Lane. Feet of F. 

 bdle. 28, m. 69. Cecily died before her 

 husband, whose will mentions ' Jane now 

 my wife.' To Edward Stanley and Ka- 

 therine (Ireland) his wife, and their chil- 

 dren Jane and Elizabeth, various bequests 



were made, including the furnishings of 

 Moor Hall, a chest in the great chamber, 

 ' all armour and furniture for wars and one 

 great stone used for the preservation of 

 swine meat'; Piccope, Wills, ii, 282. 

 For the marriage contract of Edward and 

 Katherine (1579) with its provision for 

 payment ' upon the font at the parish 

 church,* see Newstead's Aughton, 74, 75. 



8 Gibson, Lydiate Hall, 231 ; Kenyon 

 MSS. (Hist. MSS. Com.), 593. 



■* Lanes. Inq. p.m. (Rec. Soc. Lanes, 

 and Ches.), i, 167. In 1628 Peter 

 Stanley and Bridget his mother, as con- 

 victed recusants, paid double to the sub- 

 sidy ; Norris D. (B.M.). The will of 

 Bridget Stanley was made in Apr. 1639, 

 and proved in May, 1640. Her sons 

 Thomas and Peter received legacies ; the 

 former, with her friends Hugh Aspinwall 

 of Aughton and Thomas Burscough of 

 Lathom, were made executors. The in- 

 ventory amounted to X'^^- P't" Stanley 



301 



had two-thirds of his estate sequestered 

 by the Parliament for recusancy, and in 

 1652 complained that the remaining third 

 had been taken from him ' on some 

 charge of delinquency.' It was in fact 

 sold under the Confiscation Act of 1652, 

 and bought by William Barton ; but 

 seems to have been repurchased j Cal. 

 Com. for Comp. iv, z^'^y. Index of Royalists 

 (Index Soc), 44. 



* He was indicted for recusancy, 1678; 

 Kenyon MSS. (Hist. MSS. Com,), no; 

 and marked out for banishment In 1680; 

 Cwvalier's Note-book. He was buried at 

 Aughton 9 Sept. 1689. 



^ He was a Liverpool barrister, and 

 had been a prominent member of the 

 Catholic Association, which did good ser- 

 vice in promoting the cause of emancipa- 

 tion ; Gibson, Lydiate Hall^ 315. 



7 Newstead, Aughton^ 10. For a claim 

 of chief rent made by the earl of Derby, 

 see ibid, p, 27. 



