WEST DERBY HUNDRED 



WARRINGTON 



Hall has since been let ; it was for many years the 

 residence of William Beamont, the well-known 

 antiquary.' It is now occupied by the Warrington 

 Training College, and stands 

 among the wreckage of what 

 was once a well laid-out and 

 planted garden, with a little 

 wood behind it and a small 

 stream and duck decoy.* The 

 smoke has killed all the trees 

 and defaced the garden, the 

 stream is foul and the decoy 

 long since disused, while the 

 house itself, a plain square build- 

 ing of three stories, has nothing 

 of interest to show beyond a 

 well-designed entrance doorway 

 at the east front with a window 

 over it, on the keystone of 

 which is the date 171 6. This may mark a re- 

 facing of older work, as the windows on the south 

 side, with wooden transoms and casements, appear 

 to be some thirty to forty years older than the 

 date. 



The manor oi LITTLE SJNKET^ was granted 

 by Pain de Vilers, lord of Warrington, to Gerard de 

 Sankey the carpenter, in the early part of the twelfth 

 century. It was assessed as one plough-land and held 

 by knight's service. In 1 2 1 z Robert son of Thomas 

 was holding it ; * and thirty years later Robert de 

 Samlesbury was the tenant." He or his descendants 

 probably adopted the local surname ; but little or 

 nothing is known of the place ' until the end of the 

 fifteenth century, when Randle, son of Randle 

 Sankey, did homage and paid lo^. as his relief for 

 one plough-land in Little Sankey.' Edward Sankey 



NoRRIS OF OrfoRD. 



Quarterly argent and 

 gules; in the second and 

 third quarters a fret or; 

 over all on a f esse sable 

 three mullets of the first. 



died I December, 1602, holding the tenth part of 

 a knight's fee in Little Sankey, Warrington, and 

 Great Sankey ; Thomas, his son and heir, was under 

 sixteen years of age.* Nothing further seems to be 

 known of the family or manor. The latter may have 

 been acquired by the Irelands.' It is now con- 

 sidered a member of Lord 

 Lilford's manor of Bewsey."" 



The parish church has already 

 been described ; it has two 

 mission churches — St. Clement's 

 and St. George's. The follow- 

 ing also are used for the Estab- 

 lished worship : — 



Holy Trinity, founded by 

 Peter Legh of Lyme in 1709, 

 in Sankey Street, in the centre 

 of the town ; it was rebuilt in 

 1760 and restored in 1872." 

 It is divided by pillars which 



support galleries into nave and aisles, the galleries 

 being on north, south, and west, and there is a 

 west tower, which contains the corporation clock 

 and bell, the latter rung every evening at 8 p.m." 

 The pulpit and reading-desk are good examples 

 of woodwork, with well-designed balusters ; and 

 in the middle of the church hangs a fine eigh- 

 teenth-century brass chandelier, formerly in the 

 House of Commons, and presented to the church in 

 1 80 1. All pews are of oak and probably coeval with 

 the church, but the font, of baluster shape, is 

 more modern. The registers begin in 1 8 16, but 

 no district was assigned to the church until 1870." 

 The incumbents are now presented by the rectors of 

 Warrington." St. Luke's, Liverpool Road, built in 

 1893, is a chapel of ease to Holy Trinity. 



Sankev of Sankey. 

 Argent^ on a bend sable 

 three fishes or. 



' A notice of the family of Booth of 

 Orford is given in Local Gleanings Lanes, 

 and Ches. ii, 148. 



2 Adam Neal, the gardener at Orford, 

 prepared a catalogue of the plants there, 

 printed at Warrington in 1772. The 

 collections were transferred to Hale. 



There is a view of Orford Hall in Pen- 

 nant, Downing to Alston Moor, 82 ; see 

 also Memorials of the Ireland Blackburne 

 Family, 



^ Sanki, 1212 ; Sonky, 1242, and com- 

 monly. 



■* Lanes, Inq, and Extents (Rec. Soc, 

 Lanes, and Ches.), 10. 



* Ibid. 147. 



^ In 1296 an agreement was made as 

 to ten messuages, a mill, 8 oxgangs of 

 land, &c. in Warrington — probably Little 

 Sankey — between Robert de Sankey, 

 senior, and Robert de Sankey, junior ; 

 Final Cone, (Rec. Soc. Lanes, and Ches.), 

 i, 1 80. The remainder was to Jordan de 

 Sankey. 



Cecily, widow of Roger de Sankey, who 

 had a son and heir Robert, in 1307 

 claimed dower in four oxgangs against 

 two Roberts de Sankey, senior and 

 junior ; she was espoused to Roger in 

 1288 at the door of Winwick church; 

 De Banco R. 163, m, ^%d. From an- 

 other suit, a few years earlier, it seems 

 that the younger Robert was son of the 

 elder, and that his wife's name was 

 Emma ; Robert, son of Roger de Sankey, 

 may be the elder Robert ; Assize R, 

 1321, m, lod. ; 418, m, 13. 



It is noticeable that in 1341 Little 

 Sankey was called the 'third part of 



Great Sankey' ; Inq, Non, (Rec. Com.), 

 40. 



In 1 344 Robert, son of Adam de Sankey, 

 was concerned in the warranty of two 

 messuages, &c. in Little Sankey ; De 

 Banco R. 329, m. 129^. 



"i Beamont, Lords of Warr. (Chet. 

 Soc), ii, 349 ; Misc, (Rec. Soc. Lanes, 

 and Ches.), i, 14. 



Robert de Sankey of Warrington had the 

 king's letters of protection on crossing 

 the seas in 1421 in the retinue of Sir 

 Piers de Legh ; Dep, Keeper^ Rep, xliv, 

 App. 626. 



s Lanes. Inq, p,m, (Rec. Soc. Lanes, 

 and Ches.), i, i ; besides the knight's ser- 

 vice \zs, 6d, rent was payable. Edward 

 was the son of one Thomas Sankey and 

 grandson of another. Thomas Sankey in 

 1542 held the two water-mills on the 

 Sankey 5 and five years later Thomas 

 Boteler leased the mills to him for 

 twenty-one years at a rent of ^6 i p, ^. 

 and 300 'stick eels' in season; Lords of 

 IVarr. ii, 452, 468. In August, 1593, 

 a settlement was made by Edward 

 Sankey and Anne his wife, daughter of 

 Richard Penkethman, and Anne Sankey, 

 widow, of the family lands in Warrington 

 and Great and Little Sankey ; Pal. of 

 Lane. Feet of F. bdle. 55, m. 63. The 

 Sankeys, like most of the neighbouring 

 gentry, adhered to the Roman Church on 

 the Elizabethan changes. In 1584 a raid 

 was made upon Sankey House, stated to 

 be in Great Sankey, in the small hours of 

 a February morning, the priest-hunting 

 sheriff's officer hoping to capture the well- 

 known Dr. Thomas Worthington and his 



four nephews. The boys were taken, 

 but the priest escaped, he being then 

 attending a sick man in the town ; Foley, 

 Rec, S, J. ii, 1 1 6-1 8. About the same 

 time Anne, wife of Thomas Sankey of 

 Sankey, was condemned for recusancy, 

 but had not been captured ; ibid, quoting 

 S.P. Dom. Eliz. clxvii, n. 40. Edward 

 Sankey in 1590 was classed among those 

 who came to church but were not com- 

 municants ; Gibson, Lydiate Hall, 246 

 (quoting S.P. Dom. Eliz. ccxxxv, n, 4). 

 Francis, Lawrence, and William Sankey, 

 natives of Lancashire, became Jesuits in 

 the early part of the seventeenth century, 

 Lawrence serving in his native county 

 from 1638 to 1649 ; Foley, vii, 685. An 

 Edward Sankey occurs in 1639. 



' In the Boteler settlements, &c. Or- 

 ford and Little Sankey seem to have gone 

 together ; Lords of Warr, ii, 470, 476, 



1" Information of his lordship's agent, 

 Mr. John B. Selby. 



^^ A full account of this church and 

 its ministers is contained in Beamont's 

 Warr. Ch. Notes, 129-81. From an 

 agreement between the minister and the 

 rector in 1760 it appears that the sacra- 

 ment was administered in the parish 

 church on the first Sunday in the month 

 and at Trinity Church on the third Sun- 

 day ; p. 141. 



" The bell, dated 1647, formerly hung 

 in the court-house. 



^Lond. Gaz. 8 Feb. 1870; endowment, 

 6 May, 1870; see also End. Char. Rep. 

 for Warr. 1 899, pp. 67-70. 



^^ For the transfer of the patronage see 

 Beamont, op. cit. 145-6. 



