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Nearer Whalley is Moreton Hall, built in 1490 and rebuilt 
in the year 1871. There were De Moretons in the district 
early in the 14th century. The estate and Hall were formerly 
held by the Halsteads of Worsthorne and were devised to the 
Moreton family in the reign of Elizabeth. 
Whalley may be said to be the cradle of Christianity in 
Lancashire. The Parish was formerly a very extensive one, 
comprising over 400 square miles. It included Burnley, 
Bury, Blackburn, Rochdale, Colne and many other places. 
The church may be called the Mother Church of all Lancashire 
churches. It is said to have been re-built before 1295 by the 
first and last Rector of Whalley, Peter de Cestria. The Celtic 
Crosses in the churchyard are known to all antiquaries as 
very early examples of their kind. The Cistercian Abbey of 
Whalley is of later origin than the church by several centuries, 
being founded there in 1296. The foundation stone of the 
abbey is said to have been laid by the great Henry de Lacy, 
Earl of Lincoln, in 1308. The Asshetons got the buildings 
at the division of the estates between themselves and 
the Braddyll family. In 1537 the then Abbot of Whalley, 
John Paslew, was executed for his alleged share in the Pil- 
grimage of Grace. There is, however, no evidence of his 
having taken part in that uprising. King Henry VI. was 
a visitor at the Abbey during the Wars of the Roses and it 
was within a few miles of it he was captured. 
Interesting attempts have been made to depict the Abbey 
Church of Whalley as it was before being destroyed in 1669. 
It was larger than many of the English cathedrals. Mr. 
William Angelo Waddington, a past president of this Club, 
made a valuable restoration of the conventual church after 
a careful study of the ground plan and of various authorities. 
Further down the river is Hacking Hall, built by Judge 
Walmsley in 1607, and from near may be seen the picturesque 
buildings of Stonyhurst College, the Jesuits having extended 
the buildings there very considerably and made of them a 
noble and imposing pile. 
In closing his lecture, Mr. Allen referred to the debt he 
owed to Dr. Whitaker and Mr. Alderman Thomas Turner 
Wilkinson, who had contributed so largely to Lancashire 
historical research, and whose fame was greater outside 
Burnley than within ; and to Mr. James Mackay, the author 
of “ Pendle Hill in History and Literature ” ; and to Mr. 
Henry Houlding, who has glorified our district by giving it 
some of the glamour which only a poet can give. 
