Early History Of Blackburn

 

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​​Purchase of a Moiety of the Manor of Blackburn | Some Local Place Names | The Sudell Stone
History On My Doorstep​​​​

​​Purchase of a Moiety of the Manor of Blackburn, February 1721/​2

By
David Hughes

Abram in his History of Blackburn, Town and Parish stated that Thomas Belasyse, the fourth Viscount Fauconberg,[1] sold his moiety[2] of the Manor of Blackburn 'in 1721[3], for £8650, to William Baldwin, Henry Feilden and William Sudell, Esqrs' and that the Manor of Blackburn 'eventually was entirely vested by purchase in the Feilden family' with the Sudells conveying their share of the manor to the Feildens.[4] In 1890, in an article published in the Blackburn Standard, Abram returned to the Baldwin, Feilden and Sudell's purchase of a moiety of the Manor of Blackburn. In the article Abram transcribed various documents from a court case in 1792 relating to a challenge to the Manorial Rights of Blackburn. The opening statement in the case sheds a different light on what happened after the purchase of a share of the manor: 'Messrs. Baldwin, Feilden and Sudell conveyed a very considerable part of the estate to different purchasers … without reservation of any Rent, suit or service'.[5] Documents held by Lancashire Archives provide evidence that Baldwin, Feilden and Sudell raised the £8650 required to purchase the Belasyse moiety of the Manor by agreeing sales of the freehold of property, previously held on leasehold from the Belasyses, either to the sitting tenants or to new purchasers. This article will study the means by which Baldwin, Feilden and Sudell purchased a moiety of Blackburn Manor by examining documents held by Lancashire Archive after a brief examination of the function of manors, a short history of the Manor of Blackburn and some information on the leases let by the Belasyses. Also, it will argue that Baldwin and the Feilden and Sudell families, who held leaseholds from the Belasyses, were more interested in obtaining the freehold of property than any rights and benefits associated with a lordship of the manor. It will also dispute Abram's claim that the Feildens acquired the title to the manor after acquiring the part held by the Sudells. It will conclude by indicating future areas of study following the action of Baldwin, Feilden and Sudell after Lord Fauconberg sold them his moiety of the Manor of Blackburn.

Lordship was the essence of medieval social organisation with manors and honours being the units of lordship into which land was divided in England and Wales.[6] The origins of the manorial system are uncertain but the system was established throughout England at the time of the Domesday Book in 1086. Although ubiquitous, a typical form of manor did not exist. Being the landlord, or lord of the manor, was not confined to the nobility. By the sixteenth century lords of the manor could be noblemen, knights, esquires, gentlemen or ecclesiastical institutions. In some places the Crown held land directly but everywhere lordship derived ultimately from the monarch; only the Crown could own land in its own right. Often several manors were grouped into an honour under a lord paramount. Both honours and manors were of uneven size and distribution with some honours having jurisdiction over more than 100 manors and some landlord holding one manor only whereas others held several manors that could be distributed throughout England. A variety of tenures existed within a manor giving various degrees of security. In general, three types of land existed within a manor: demesne lands for the use of the lord, freehold tenancies which gave the holders security of ownership with the right to sell, lease and bequeath lands and property and 'customary' lands which gave no security of tenure. In addition manors usually contained commons and wastes open to use by tenants and freeholders. Before the Black Death, when the Plague struck England in the first half of the fourteenth century, the villeins, or unfree men, farmed the lord's demesne lands as part of their service rent. Tenants of the lord of the manor had to work on the demesne lands for specified number of days, doing tasks such as ploughing, reaping and so forth, as well as supplying the lord with a specified amount of their own produce. After the population decline of the fourteenth century, service rents became almost extinct, replaced by money rents, sometimes with a symbolic product rent, or boon service, of a few hens. After the fourteenth century tenants held the demesne lands on copyhold tenure. Copyhold tenures were entered on the manorial court rolls with the court giving the tenant a copy. The copyholder had to pay a substantial fine at the beginning of the tenancy then a small annual rent. The tenancy was for a specified period or on the term of two or three lives, with the agreement ending, usually, on the death of the last person nominated in the agreement. Copyhold tenancies did provide some security because a new lease could be taken out after the drawing up of a new agreement and the payment of a fine.  Most tenants were copyholders but some held land by the payment of customary dues. 'Admission' and 'surrender' was according to the custom of the manor. In the middle ages customary dues were a mixture of labour service and rent payments which could be produce or money or both. By 1500 serfdom, which such tenancies represented, was almost extinct, being replaced by tenancies-at-will which were held from year to year with no legal rights. However, the essence of the manorial system was a series of rights and obligations of the lord to the tenants and of the tenants to their lords.[7]

The obligations between the lord of the manor and the tenants were based upon the foundation of a formal legal structure administered through courts. The manorial courts were the court baron, which dealt with free tenants, and the customary court, sometimes known as the halmote or halmoot, that dealt with unfree tenants. All free men attended the court baron, both as suitors and judges. The court dealt with all matters related to tenure which included fulfilment, or non-fulfilment, of feudal service, payment of feudal dues and disputes between free tenants of a single lord. The customary court, presided over by the lord's steward or bailiff, dealt with unfree tenants who held property as tenants-at-will. The court administered feudal service and unfree tenure and disputes between unfree tenants, such as debts and minor assaults, and land use and agricultural service, essential to the upkeep of the manor. The lord of the manor also held the court leet but this court was held by grant of the monarch, not as a manorial right of the lord. The court leet dealt with minor offences and misdemeanours, such as failure to maintain boundaries or depositing refuse on rights of way, and received fines paid to the court for any offences. The manorial courts, both court baron and customary, declined after the fifteenth century and often combined with the court leet. The court leet, in turn, declined with the advent of the Justices of the Peace but in some places survived to become the basis of local government in the nineteenth century.[8]

Whitaker, in his History of the Parish of Whalley, provided the standard account of the early history of the Manor of Blackburn, including the moiety sold by Lord Fauconberg in 1722.[9] According to Whitaker, a manor existed in Blackburn from before the twelfth century, but he questioned whether the moiety of the Manor held by the Fauconbergs had a legitimate claim to the rights of the true manor. Although the Belasyses, and the Bartons before them, had let property on tenancies, no evidence exists of courts to administer these tenancies, which would appear to support Whitaker's claim. The claim to rights of the manor is interwoven with the move of the Abbot and Convent of Stanlaw from Cheshire to the Abbey founded in Whalley in the thirteenth century.[10] John de Lacy purchased the mediety[11] of Manor of Blackburn in 1230 so that he could confer the advowson of the church in Blackburn on the abbey of Stanlaw. The Bishop of Lichfield confirmed this in 1238. In 1251 the Bishop of Lichfield appropriated the second mediety and conferred all the rights to the church to Stanlaw. According to Whitaker, the second mediety brought with it the manorial rights, which remained with Whalley Abbey until its dissolution in the 1530s and, when Edward VI re-granted it to the Archbishop of Canterbury 1547, the rights to the true manor went with it. The origin of the moiety sold by the Belasyse was when John de Lacy, after purchasing the second mediety from Richard de Hulton, re-granted the de Hulton lands, which form Blackburn manor's demesne, but without any claims to the manor. From the de Hultons this moiety descended by inheritance and marriage to the Belasyses in 1659, on the death of Sir Robert Barton.[12] Lord Faconberg sold this moiety of Blackburn Manor to William Baldwin, Henry Feilden and William Sudell on 22 and 23 February 1721/2. Whitaker argued that 'from ignorance of the real state of the case each party pretended to the whole, whereas the claim of the Archbishop was to an original moiety of the genuine manor, and that of the Fauconberg family to manorial rights over the moiety which had arisen out of usage and sufferance'.[13] Whitaker's claim, made in the early nineteenth century, is interesting but irrelevant as the moiety sold by Lord Fauconberg's was accepted as being part of Blackburn Manor but Whittaker does help explain why Blackburn Manor never appeared to hold manorial courts.

In 1717 Thomas Belasyse, the third Viscount Fauconberg, submitted a return of his property as a suspected Papist.[14] The return provides details of Lord Fauconberg's tenants in Blackburn along with the terms of their tenures but, unfortunately, the return provides few details of the property, such as name or location.[15] The tenures for most of the Belasyse's Blackburn estate were for 99 years, or on three lives, with a significant fine paid at the beginning of the lease and then a small annual rent with, in many cases, an annual boon service of one or two pennies and a specified number of hens, hence, they had the form of copyhold tenures without the manorial courts to administer them. The final page of the return includes a list of some tenancies renewed annually, including a malt mill, called the Blackburn Horse Miln, and parts of Bastwell and Brookhouse, as well as fines for encroachment and small annual charges for no specified purpose.[16] A summary of the leasehold or copyhold tenants is provided in Table 1 below:

Table 1: Entry fines, annual and boon service rents as declared by Lord Fauconberg in 1717 from LA DDX 1094/21.

Both William Baldwin and Henry Feilden held leases. William Baldwin held two leases for which he paid total entry fines of £70 and annual rent of 9s 4d. Henry Feilden held one tenure for which he paid a small fine of £7 with an annual rental of only 8d. However, Randle Feilden, Henry's father, held four leases for which he paid a total of £90 and annual rental of £3 7s 5d, making the total Feilden holding significant. William Sudell held no leases from the Belasyses but his father, John Sudell (spelt Sudall), held two leases with total entry fines of £86 2s 6d and annual rent of £1 6s 1/2d. The Baldwin, Feilden and Sudell families were significant tenants of the Belasyses but by no means the most significant; Evan Wilkinson, Elizabeth Duboys and, jointly, Robert Morris and Mary Ainsworth had that honour. In total Lord Fauconborg had forty six leaseholders with fifty five tenures on lives, with entry fines ranging from £210 paid by Elizabeth Duboys to 13s 4d paid by Thomas Mawdsly. Some of these leases changed between 1717 and the sale in 1722 but, essentially, it provides a picture of the tenants of the Belasyse when they sold their moiety of Blackburn Manor in 1722.[19]

A document held by Lancashire Archives provides an explanation of how Baldwin, Feilden and Sudell financed the purchase of the moiety of Blackburn Manor from Lord Fauconberg in 1721/2.[20] It takes the form of rudimentary accounts either kept by Baldwin, Feilden or Sudell or someone acting on their behalf. It lists people against amounts of money due, details of who had not paid, either in part or in full, details of money borrowed to finance the deal along with details of some repayments of those loans, including interest paid. The two paged document does not provide the full story but it helps explain how three local yeomen/chapmen were able to pay Lord Fauconberg £8650 for his moiety of Blackburn Manor, equivalent to over £1.2 million at 2017 prices.[21] A transcript of the first two columns on the first page is shown in Table 2 below. It shows the amounts to be paid by the named people, including William Baldwin, Henry Feilden and both John Sudells, senior and junior, as well as fees payable to Jeffrey Prescott for arranging the purchase from Lord Fauconberg. It also shows that Baldwin, Feilden and Sudell were liable for chief rents, presumably payable to the Lord of the Honour of Clitheroe. The second page of the document, not reproduced here, provides an explanation of the right hand columns: these are people who had not paid. The second page also shows that some people did not pay the full amount, leaving a shortfall of £1400 which had to be borrowed. £1000 of this money was borrowed from a Mr Johnson with £300 from Mrs Hammond and £100 from a name that has not been unravelled. Some information is given on the repayment of these loans, including interest paid, but this is far from comprehensive. Other documents held at the Lancashire Archives prove that this document shows the amounts payable for each of the named parties to gain the freehold of each of the tenures that formed part of the Belasyse moiety of Blackburn Manor.​

Table 2: DDX/1094/25 The amount of the Tenements according to the Schedule

Three indent​ures between Baldwin, Feilden and Sudell and, individually, Robert Law, Robert Norris and Honoratus Lebeg provide evidence that the purchase of the manor was partly financed by selling the freehold of property previously let on leases by the Belasyses.[22] The documents DDX 1082/1/1 are dated 25 and 26 Apil 1722 and DDX 1094/24 is dated 26 April 1722. The first are documents of lease and release to Robert Law, husbandman, for £33 1s 8d of Jackson o' th' Coal Pits and half an acre of land on Whinnel Edge and one rood at Islington. This is the amount listed against Robert Law in the purchase document. The second is a counterpart of the release document relating to the purchase of New Hall and Barkside by Robert Norris for £374 1s 6d, the amount listed against Robert Norris for X Keys in the purchase document. Robert Law had leased Jackson o' th' Coal Pits under a tenure from Sir Rowland Belasyse in 1699 whereas Robert Norris held a lease with Mary Ainsworth, which is listed in Lord Fauconebrg's declaration but had only been renewed in 1720. Hence both Robert Law and Robert Norris were tenants of the Belasyses who purchased the freehold of their tenancies through Baldwin, Feilden and Sudell's purchase of a moiety of Blackburn Manor. DDX 196/1, documents of lease and release between Baldwin and Feilden and Honoratus Lebeg provides an example of the sale of the freehold of an estate to someone who had not been a tenant of the Belasyses. These documents are dated 27 and 28 of January 1729 and are for the purchase of the Horseload estate, as well as land on Revidge and Whinney Moors, for £311 19s 41/2d. Lord Fauconberg had previously leased this property to Mrs Dubois with Elizabeth Duboys being listed in Lord Fauconberg's 1717 return. In the purchase document from 1722 a Mrs Labeagh[23] is listed against the sum of £311 19s 41/2d. These 3 sets of documents show that Baldwin, Feilden and Sudell helped finance the purchase of a moiety of Blackburn Manor by agreeing the sale of the freehold to either sitting tenants or to people who had not leased property from the Belasyses. Therefore, rather than using their own money to purchase the manor they only paid the amount agreed for their purchases with the balance provided by selling freeholds to either sitting tenants or new investors. This provides evidence that Baldwin, Feilden and Sudell were not interested in any powers and rights associated with the lordship of a manor but were only interested in owning property. They helped finance this by divesting themselves of property in which they had no interest either soon after they acquired the manor, as in the case of Law and Norris, or as soon as they could after the termination the lease of estates sold to outside parties; Lebeg being an example of this. With so many freehold estates created Abram's claim that by acquiring the Sudell properties the Feildens became Lords of the Manor is invalid. However, a far wider range of issues is raised by the actions of Baldwin, Feilden and Sudell, more significant than the acquisition of a title.

Manors and their lords had been part of social organisation in England since before the eleventh century. Both lords and tenants had obligations to each other, administered through manorial courts. The moiety of Blackburn Manor, acquired by the Belasyses in 1659, does not appear to have had any manorial courts, which supports Whitaker's claim that the rights of the manor for the Belasyse's share had 'arisen out of usage and sufferance'. Whether this moiety of the manor was a true manor or not did not affect the sale to William Baldwin, Henry Feilden and William Sudell in 1722. The rudimentary accounts drawn up in 1722 as part of the purchase process, supported by documents held by Lancashire Archives related to sales of property after the purchase of the manor, show that Baldwin, Feilden and Sudell were not interested in becoming lords of the manor, with the associated rights and obligations, but in obtaining the freehold of property for themselves. To do this they divested themselves of the rest of the moiety to either existing tenants or new purchasers. This was a business deal, not an attempt to enhance the social status of three men. Because the moiety of the manor had been divided among so many new freeholders, the Feildens could not have acquired the lordship of the manor by acquiring the property held by the Sudells. The action of Baldwin, Feilden and Sudell raises several questions. Who were the purchasers of the freeholds and what were their motives, which includes the men behind the deal with Lord Fauconberg, William Baldwin, Henry Feilden and William Sudell? What impact, if any, did the creation of so many freeholders have when Blackburn developed as a manufacturing town in the late eighteenth century? These questions will form the basis of future research.​

 ​​No​tes

[1] The Belasyses inherited the Lancashire estates of the Bartons of Smithills, near Bolton, including a moiety of Blackburn manor, through Grace, the daughter, and heiress, of Thomas Barton. Thomas Barton died in 1659, the date generally accepted as when Thomas Belasyse, second Viscount Fauconberg, grandson of Henry Belasyse, inherited. However, the Schedule attached to DDFD/1/85, Release and Conveyance; Lord Fauconberg to Feilden, Baldwin and Sudell, in the Lancashire Archives indicates an earlier date. Summarised in the schedule is an indenture of lease and release dated 9 and 10 December 1657 transferring the ownership to Thomas Belasyse and Mary, his wife and third daughter of Oliver Cromwell, on the authority of Oliver Cromwell. Thomas Belasyse, who had been created Earl Fauconberg in 1688 by William III and Mary II, died in 1700 with his Lancashire estates passing to his nephew, Thomas. Lady Mary did not die until 1713 but she had no claims over the Lancashire estates at her death. (PROB 11/533/375: Will of Mary Countesse Fauconberg, Dowager of Soho Square City of Westminster, Middlesex, dated 26 June 1713). On the death of Thomas, the third Viscount, in 1718, the Lancashire estates passed to his son, Thomas, who became the fourth Viscount Fauconberg who sold the moiety of Blackburn Manor to Baldwin, Feilden and Sudell. (W. A. Abram, History of Blackburn, Town and Parish (Blackburn, 1877), pp. 254-5.).

[2] Moiety is a legal term for a half or one of two equal parts ('moiety', Oxford English Dictionary, 3rd Edition (Oxford, 2002) (OED)).

[3] As the sale happened under the Old Style of dating in use before 1752 when the new year began on Lady Day, 25 March, the sale date of 23 February 1721 is in 1722 under the New Style calendar and should have been represented by Abram as 23 February 1721/2.

[4] Abram, Blackburn, pp. 255, 387, 404.

[5] The Blackburn Standard and Weekly Express (BS), 15 November 1890; Lancashire Archives (LA) holds documents relating to the case as to the loss of Blackburn Manor's rights to be a manor, 3 September 1792: DDCM 2/165.

[6] Oxford English Dictionary (OED) defines 'honour' as 'a domain or seigniory of several manors under one baron or lord paramount'; the Manor of Blackburn fell under the jurisdiction of the Honour of Clitheroe.

[7] 'Manor', The Oxford Companion to Family and Local History (2nd ed.), David Hey (ed.), [Online], (2012); Keith Wrightson, Earthly Necessities, (London, 2002), pp. 70-75.

[8] Maureen Mulholland, 'Manorial Courts', 'Court Leet', The Oxford Companion to British History (2 ed.), Robert Crowcroft and John Cannon (eds.) [Online] (2015).

[9] Thomas Dunham Whitaker, An History of the Original Parish of Whalley and Honor of Clitheroe etc. (3 ed.) (London, 1818), pp. 420-425; the first edition of Whitaker's history was published in 1801.

[10] See Whitaker, Whalley, pp. 61-67 for information on Stanlaw and its transfer to Whalley Abbey.

[11] Mediety is another word for moiety which was often applied to a share of an ecclesiastical benefice ('mediety', OED).

[12] LA, DDX 1094/23, quadripartite indenture dated 26 February 1721/2 concerning the sale of Lord Fauconberg's estates in Blackburn, Ramsgreve, Oswaldtwistle etc, contains a recital of Lord Fauconberg's rights to these estates including reference to an indenture dated 9 and 10 December 1657 which settled Thomas Barton's Lancashire lands on Viscount Fauconberg after Fauconberg had married Mary, Oliver Cromwell's third daughter, on 18 November 1657.

[13] Whitaker, Whalley, p. 425.

[14] Lord Fauconberg's return was made under the terms An Act for Appointing Commissioners to Enquire of the Estates of certain Traytors, and Popish Recusants, and of Estates given to Superstitious Uses, in Order to Raise Money out of them severally for Use of the Publick, 1716.

[15] LA, DDX 1094/21: Copy of Lord Fauconberg's extent of his Blackburn lands for the register of papists' estates, n.d [1717].

[16] These annual agreements and fines for encroachment were to prove significant when the rights to a manor in Blackburn were challenged in the late eighteenth century and the early nineteenth century.

[17] A broad-piece was the name given to the 20 shillings piece after the introduction of the guinea in 1663, which was much broader and thinner than those issued in the reigns of James I and Charles I (OED: 'broad-piece').

[18] The lease to Thomas Clayton was with Sir Thomas Barton dating it to 1650s; the lease was probably extant because Ann Walmsly, one of the named lives, was still alive in 1717 as she held a tenure in her own right.

[19] For example, the tenure held by Robert Norris and Mary Ainsworth was renewed on 6 May, 1720 (cited in LA DDX/1094/24: 26 April 1722 - New Hall and Barkside: Counterpart of bargain, sale & release to Robert Norris of Bolton le Moors).

[20] LA DDX/1094/25: Papers relating to the purchase of Lord Fauconberg's estates including accounts of payments by purchasers.

[21] Value calculated using Measuring Worth, https://www.measuringworth.com/ (accessed 19 April 2017).

[22] LA DDX 1082/1/1: Evidence of title to lands in Blackburn comprising messuage called Jackson o' Th' Coal Pits etc., 25/26 April 1722; DDX 1094/24: Counterpart release for £374 1s 6d etc., 26 April 1722; DDX 196/1 Lease and release for £311 19s 41/2, 27/28 January 1729.

[23] Elizabeth Lebeg was the mother of Honoratus Lebeg.​​

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Lang's Plan of Blackburn in 1739

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The Sudell Stone​

​By
Barbara Riding

​​For some years I have been interested in stones and the history behind them - milestones, gravestones, foundation stones, commemorative stones, old stone buildings and so on. Knowing of my interest people pass on information to me about stones which they have come across. A friend, Harry Hindle, did so one day and led me into a very interesting piece of investigation.

Another Sudell Stone! 

By Barbara Riding

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Those of you who attended my lecture "More History on my Doorstep" in the Fielden Room in November 1994, or read my article in the June 1993 Newsletter Issue 18 [see above], will perhaps remember the saga of the Sudell stone.

 

1847 Ordnance Map

This was a stone which, with the aid of a friend, I discovered in Woodfold Park. I went to great lengths to discover who the I or J Sudell might be. I talked to Ernest Kenyon who wrote a play about Henry Sudell. I corresponded with and visited a family of Sudell's in Leeds. I obtained copies of the Sudells' wills from the Preston Record Office. Because John Sudell (the uncle of Henry Sudell who built and and lived in Woodfold Hall 1799-1827) owned the land in Pleasington, which is where the stone is, I came to the conclusion that the words on the stone must refer to him.

With the help of Mr. Jack Aspin of Darwen, I have now discovered that there used to be another similar stone.

According to John Sudell's will he owned land in Blackburn, Livesey, Pleasington and Darwen which he left to his nephew Henry Sudell. When Henry Sudell became bankrupt in 1827, all his land and property was put up for sale. According to the catalogue in the Reference Library, in Darwen he owned land and property at Hey Fold, Ellison Fold, Plane Trees, Darwen Chapels, Sunnybank and coal mines in Over Darwen. The 1847 map shows that there was a wood named after the family: Sudell Wood.

According to John Aspin, when the houses in the Hollins Grove district of Darwen were being built a stone was discovered. A photograph was taken of it, and made into a lantern slide by members of Darwen Camera Club, sometime between 1894 and 1913. The inscription on the stone reads "This wood was Planted and sown by John Richmond for Mr. John Sudell 1760".

What happened to the stone is not known. Mr. Aspin says there is no mention of its whereabouts in the original script of the Camera Club. I have spoken to members of Darwen's Historical Society and the Library, and they have not heard of it. Fortunately Mr. Aspin has a copy of the lantern slide which he has let me borrow, so I have been able to reproduce a print of it.

​Image of the Darwen Sudell Stone
This image is held by Darwen Library and Says
"​Item found in Garden in 1935" 

Sudell Wood contained many holly trees, from which, says Mr. Aspin the Hollins Grove district is supposed to have derived its name. John Sudell seems to have been a man who liked leaving his mark. Perhaps there are some more stones, lying about, somewhere.

There is an Image of a third stone. This is also held by Darwen Library. Barbara Riding does not mention this stone in her articles. It reads similarly to the stone above; “This wood was planted for Mr John Sudell by Thomas Walton 1762”.

At present there is no further information.​​

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A Third Sudell Stone Date 1762

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Transcribed by Shazia Kasim

Articles published in Blackburn Local History Society 20th Anniversary Issue 2008-2009

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​​History On My Doorstep​

By Barbara Riding

I first became interested in local history about ten years ago. A book came into my hands written by Sarah Eddleston, who was born in Mellor in 1864, telling the story of her life there. I found it so interesting that I began to research into the history of her family. Following on from this, and using some of the information I had discovered, I started to write a series of local history articles for my church magazine which I called 'Stories from Stones'. When I gave this talk to the Local History Society I used some of these stories, and as they are all about the area where I live I called it 'History on my Doorstep'.

A few years ago, I found a plan of the area in the Reference Library. It was part of a pamphlet published in 1882 when some of the estates of Sir William L. Fielden of Feniscowles were being put up for auction at the Old Bull in Church Street. This particular plan concerned the New Bank Estate which included a house with barn, yard and garden, a pasture and meadow.

Several of the present streets are marked on the plan - Revidge Lane, Preston New Road, Dukes Brow, Limefield, Burlington Street, Cheltenham Street, Leamington Street, Granville Terrace and Gibraltar Street. The rest of the area is made up of fields, and it is interesting to notice that when the roads came to be made up they more or less followed the lines of the field boundaries.

The New Bank Estate 1882

Having been born in this area and living in New Bank Road for the first seventeen years of my life I was very interested in the whereabouts of NEW BANK FARM (A). On some maps it is simply called Bank. I was talking about local history to a friend one day when she suddenly said, "I've discovered the foundations of New Bank Farm". She sent me up Leamington Road to turn down the back opposite Higher Bank Street, and there, under the house on the right, 163 Leamington Road, are the foundations. You can see the large pieces of sandstone under the brickwork, and several of the back yard walls are also built of sandstone, presumably from the demolished farm buildings.

On the plan there is a path leading from the farm up to Revidge Lane. At the top of the back between New Bank Road and Leamington Road are the remains of two old gateposts.

In "Bits of Old Blackburn", published in 1889, J. G. Shaw writes that New Bank Farm is in the process of demolition, being a very old building. He tells us that half a century ago it was farmed by the Hindle brothers and was also a beerhouse. Some wild characters in the dog-racing, cock-fighting and race-running line held their revels there at weekends.

As a child I lived at 120 New Bank Road. My back door opened out onto 163 Leamington Road. I did not realise it at the time, but I must have been living within the area of the old farm-yard - history on my back doorstep!

A few years ago, a picture appeared in the Citizen Newspaper. It was not a very clear picture, and the caption underneath was very blurred. However, an explanation said it was from the Illustrated London News, January 1864 showing the construction of Corporation Park. I went to the Reference Library to look at that issue and was able to make a much better copy of the picture. The main part of the Park was opened in 1857, but this picture shows crowds of men breaking up and removing stone, landscaping the top of the Park below Revidge.

Laying out Corporation Park from the Illustrated London News January 1864

In the days before the development of photography, artists were sent out with journalists to illustrate the news. When a particular situation had been sketched it would be sent back, with notes attached to the printing office. Another artist would complete the picture, filling in the details ready for printing.

In the Illustrated London News for January 1864 the special correspondent had reported "I found 115 men engaged in the Corporation Park. They were at work 400 feet above the level of the Preston Road upon the face of the rock to which the Park rises. Terraces are being cut and the picturesque escarpment is characteristic of Alpine scenery. It is from this fine standpoint that our artist has made the sketch. Below is the Park, opened in 1857, embracing 50 acres, surrounded by pretty villas - a perfect gem."

In 1863 the Public Works Act had come into force. Over £1,000,000 was provided to enable local authorities to give employment to the Labouring and Manufacturing Classes. The construction of the top of the park was the second scheme by which the Blackburn authority had tried to help the unemployed. In 1826, McAdam, the famous road maker visited Blackburn and helped to draw up a scheme to alleviate distress and find employment for the starving weavers. Under his direction Revidge Road between Dukes Brow and Four Lane Ends was constructed. This event is commemorated by the inscription carved into the semi-circular stone set into the wall at the top of the park.

Partial Birth Certificate of Elizabeth Gill Middle Bank Lane

Behind the Quarryman's Public House in Dukes Brow are three small cottages. What were they called I wondered?  Someone said they were known as Wagtail. Another resident of the area said that they had always been part of Dukes Brow as far as they knew.

A friend of mine informed me one day that her grandmother had been born and brought up in one of the cottages and she said she "wer born dean't back side". When my friend decided to research her family history she sent for a copy of her grand-mother's birth certificate. It informed her that her grand-mother, Elizabeth Butterworth was born in 1863 at 8 Middle Bank Lane (B). As my friend no longer lives in Blackburn she asked me if I could find out anything about it.

The only census return that mentioned Middle Bank Lane was that of 1841. In those days the area between what is now Higher Bank Street and Gibraltar Street was known as Wagtail. This was because across the road, off what is now Leopold Road, was Wagtail Quarry. On the census return I found three families living in Wagtail, three families living in Middle Bank Lane and then several more families living in Wagtail. From this information I concluded that the three cottages behind the Quarryman's were once known as Middle Bank Lane. They have had a few names in their time - Dukes Brow, Middle Bank Lane and 'dean't back side!'

Across the road from the Quarryman's at the corner of Dukes Brow and Alexandra Road is an old building with the names Dukes Hall (C) carved on the stone lintel over the door. Rather an impressive name I thought for a building, which houses a shoe repairer, a dress agency and a shop that is sometimes a second hand furniture shop, but frequently empty. However, upon making enquiries I discovered that the building used to be a Sunday School. Most of the windows have been modernised, but over the shoe repairers two of the original lancet windows remain intact.

In 1874 this building was opened as a Preaching Room and Sunday School by the Methodists in the area. My friend's grandmother attended this Sunday School and one of her prizes has survived. "Pretty Poems" it is called and on the flyleaf is written "Presented to Elizabeth Butterworth for good attendance. Wesleyan S. School, Dukes Brow, Blackburn, Dec 1878".

Picture of Trinity Wesleyan Church

After about twelve months it was found that the Preaching Room was not big enough, due to the growing number of Methodists in the district.

Eventually a piece of land was purchased from the Trustees of the late Mr. James Barlow Stewardson Strurdy, an ex-Mayor of the Borough. The Trustees were Dr. Irving (who gave his name to Irving Place) and Mr. Daniel Thwaites. The land was on the corner of Preston New Road and Branch Road (or Montague Street as we know it today). There the Trinity Methodist Church was built and opened in December 1878. On the Sunday morning of January 5th, 1879, the teachers and scholars met at the Dukes Brow Sunday School for the last time. They walked in procession down Dukes Brow and up Preston New Road to Trinity Methodist Church - "T' t' top o't' Branch" as Elizabeth Butterworth used to say.

As with many Victorian Churches, Trinity Methodist is no more. The shell of the church houses a garage and pine and cane shop, and you can keep fit at "Montagues", a gymnasium in the schoolroom below.

In May 1878, Sarah Eddleston, a fourteen-year-old farmer's daughter from Mellor had an unusual experience, which she wrote about many years later. She used to help her uncle to deliver milk in Blackburn and then sometimes go to the brewery and get "draff" which was good feeding for the cows, it made them give rich milk.

"One day I went as usual, got my load and sat on the front of the 'shandry' (a Lancashire word for the milk vehicle). Going up Montague Street which was wide and rather steep I saw a huge crowd of people which completely filled the street coming down, also a cab with a man inside. He had a paper in his hand, he was looking very worried; then I realised it was a 'riot!'  Angry men and soldiers were round the cab. One man shouted to me saying, "It’s the Mayor, he is reading the Riot Act, then we will fire on the mob". It was the beginning of the terrible cotton riots. The next morning when we went to deliver milk all the windows of the houses in Preston Road were broken, and the manufacturer's house at Wilpshire was burned down...."

Sarah exaggerates when she says the house (Clayton Grange) was burned down, but not about the windows. In the Blackburn Times for May 1878, over fifty householders from East Park Road to Billinge End (D) are claiming compensation for broken windows and conservatory roofs.

In 1891 the area was hit by a scandal. "The Romantic Abduction from Clitheroe" was the headline in the Northern Daily Telegraph. Edmund Haughton Jackson, the brother of Robert Raynsford Jackson whose house Clayton Grange was set on fire during the 1878 riots, lived with his sister at 2 ROVER STREET (E). In 1887 he had married Miss Emily Hall, but she refused to live with him.  After the wedding at St. Paul's Church and the wedding breakfast at Rover Street she returned home to Clitheroe and refused to return.

In March 1891, Mr. Jackson decided to take the law into his own hands. With the help of a friend, he abducted his wife as she left Clitheroe Parish Church one Sunday morning. He had set off on several Sunday mornings only to be turned back at Whalley by a friend who informed him that his wife had not gone to church that day. On this particular morning, she was bundled into his carriage, carried off to Rover Street and was imprisoned upstairs in the charge of his sister and a nurse.

House on Rover Street Blackburn where Mrs Jackson was Imprisoned by her Husband

For the next few days the house was besieged by sightseers and reporters. The press had a field day. The general consensus, they said, was that Mr. Jackson had acted solely within his rights. "Granville Terrace and the street off it, Rover Street is a neighbourhood, which by this time has been quite famous, and all through yesterday the number of people who walked up the steep declivity of Dukes Brow to gaze upon the house containing the modern 'young Lochinvar' and his wife, was to say the least of it, remarkable. Last night hundreds of persons wended their way thither from all parts of the town."

One lady interviewed in Granville terrace told a reporter, "It was nine days talk and a ten days wonder!" Mrs. Jackson's sister took rooms in Granville Terrace opposite the house, so that she could watch what was going on. Among the comings and goings she saw supplies of provisions and a box of cigars for the gentlemen, being hoisted up, and a white-haired fox terrier being let down.

Emily's friends applied for a writ of 'habeas corpus' and Edmund Haughton Jackson had to take his wife to London to appear at the Court of Appeal. The Lord Chancellor freed her making the statement that "A husband has no right, where his wife refuses to live with him, to take her person by force and restrain her of liberty..."

The newspapers recorded that there was the wildest excitement in Clitheroe, the bells of the Parish Church rang merry peals after the result was made known. They were exaggerating as usual. Several gentlemen called in at the newspaper offices the next day to say that there was no truth in the statement. The bell ringers were having their weekly practice which commenced hours after the trial had finished.

Edmund Haughton Jackson afterwards wrote and published a pamphlet to exonerate himself. He called it "The true story of the Clitheroe Abduction or Why I ran away with my wife". 2 Rover Street is still there, but the name has changed. Sometime about 1903 it became 2 Wellfield Road.

One of the oldest buildings on the plan is that marked ST. SILAS SCHOOL (F), on Preston New Road, now the Parish Centre. The stone over one of the windows gives the date as 1834. The Sunday School was previously held in the upper room of an old cottage in Dandy Square (G) at Mile End. It had been set up by the vicar and congregation of St. Paul's Church for the benefit of the children of Long Row and the scattered farmsteads. The rate book for 1834, in the Record Office at Preston, informs us that one cottage is a Sunday School, but it is now empty.

In 1833 the Vicar of Blackburn, Revd. J. W. Whitaker made an application to the Secretary of the National Society in London for a grant towards a schoolroom for boys and girls at Billinge End near Blackburn. The school was built on land given by Mr. Joseph Fielden of Witton. Although the date stone says 1834 a bricklayers' strike for increased wages delayed the opening until April 1835.

In 1838, during Queen Victoria's Coronation celebrations, the children of Billinge Sunday School were tenth in order of precedence in the procession to celebrate the event.

In 1874 there was a slight decrease in the number of pupils due to the opening of a new Methodist school in Dukes Brow - Dukes Hall. In 1881 the school was opened as a day school with a head teacher, an assistant teacher and two monitors.

After a few years it was rumoured that the School Board was contemplating erecting a new school in the area. The Curate-in-charge together with a few gentlemen including Mr. W.H. Hornby formed a building committee. They secured a site and notified the School Board that there would be a school, but that it would be a church school. ST. SILAS' SCHOOL (H) was built between what is now St. Silas' Road and Clematis Street and opened in 1885.

At the time of the school's Centenary celebrations, I borrowed the school's old log books, and very interesting reading they made. The entry for April 1896 was particularly interesting - "Scarlet fever and measles have broken out in the district. The families at the following addresses have been excluded". The following addresses would be unrecognisable today, because they have all changed -

Long Row has become Manor Road,

Broom Street has become Woodfold Place,

Rover Street has become Wellfield Road,

Dandy Row has become Mile End Row,

Dandy Square is now Dinkley Square,

Double Street is now West View Place,

Banana Street is now Brighton Terrace,

Tean Barn Road is now Lynwood Road.

One name in the area that has proved rather elusive to me is that of TEAN BARN. I have found it on the Census returns, the Electoral Roll, in Barrett's directory and other documents, but it is not marked on any map I have come across. The only map on which I have found the name is one of 1891 on which Lynwood Road is marked as Tean Barn Road.

On the plan, the land between Revidge Lane and Cheltenham Street, alongside the New Bank Estate belonged to William Smalley. I found William Smalley on the census returns -

1871 William Smalley, 34 yrs, farmer and beerseller, 1 Tean Barn

1881 William Smalley, 44 yrs, farmer and beerseller, The Dog (I)

So sometime between 1871 and 1881 William Smalley moved from 1 Tean Barn to the Dog Inn (which is on the corner of Lynwood Road and Revidge Road) or did 1 Tean Barn become the Dog Inn?  I do not know. The deeds of the Dog Inn only go back as far as 1908 when Alice Smalley (William's widow) conveyed the property to the Fountain Free Brewery Company.

When I was a child there were some old stone cottages beside the Dog Inn on Revidge Road. A friend of mine lived in one, number 104. Her father had a sweet shop there and sold ice cream. Just before the Second World War Blackburn Borough Council decided that they wanted to widen the top of Dukes Brow and they put a compulsory purchase order on the cottages, and after the war they were pulled down.

Surmising that the Council would have the deeds of the cottages I wrote to the appropriate department and they sent me a photocopy. I found it quite difficult to read and understand, but the information it contained was quite interesting. The description of the property, 104 Revidge Road was - "a cottage or dwelling house, occupied as a beer house with stable or shippon and cottage or dwelling house adjoining situate(d) at Tean Barn, Lane Ends." (J)

Dukes Brow is now in a Conservation Area. Beside the Dog Inn we have a piece of spare land with a modern telephone kiosk, where we might have had a row of 18th century cottages.

In "Bits of Old Blackburn" J. G. Shaw writes "just beside Fox Delph (K) is the Rovers' Football ground, the flat part of the Tean Barn Estate. It is a curious fact that this field was used as far back as the beginning of this century (19th) for the same purpose, but the games at that time generally ended in a free fight as they played a rougher game then". And so my next piece of history concerns BLACKBURN ROVERS and much of this information I found in Joseph Baron's books in the Reference Library.

Jospeh Baron was one of Blackburn's Victorian dialect poets, better known as "Tum o' Dick o' Bobs". As well as writing poetry he was also something of a local historian. He wrote a short history of Blackburn, a book about Jimmy Forrest, one of the Rovers' players and "A history of Blackburn Rovers Football Club".

From Joseph Baron I learnt that during the 1875-6 season the Rovers had no home ground so they had to play all their matches away. Then they "rented a field abutting upon Preston New Road near St. Silas' School". (This is where the West End Garage is now) (L). There was a water hole for cows in the middle of the field which had to be boarded over with timber begged from Mr. Duckworth, the father of one of the players, who had a timber importing business. The boards were then covered with turf.

In 1877 the football team moved to the Alexandra Meadows. In 1881 the Rovers moved to "the famous Leamington Street enclosure". (M)  £500 was spent on building a refreshment pavilion and a stand for 600 people which were painted in the club colours. 6,000 spectators saw the Rovers beat Blackburn Olympic 4-1 in the opening match on 15th October.

In 1886 Club funds were running rather low so it was decided to hold a big prize draw. Thousands of tickets were sold at sixpence each. Six colleagues bought a ticket between them and then drew lots as to who should have the prize if the ticket won. Thirty prizes were given including a cottage piano, valued at £20, a brass Tudor bed-stead (£7), a washing and wringing machine (£3) and a perambulator (£4).

The main prize however was the Rover's cottage valued at £140. A picture of the cottage appeared on the ticket with the explanation - "The cottage is newly built, palisaded in front and situate on New Bank Road near the Rovers' Football Ground. The land is freehold (subject to a yearly rent of 35 shillings) and will entitle the winner to a county vote".

In the Blackburn Times for March 1886 there is an account of the draw. The draw took place in the Circus on Blakey Moor at 7.30 pm on Wednesday 17th March. All the counterfoils were placed in a large box having a hole in the centre to admit a man's hand. A smaller box some distance away contained thirty pieces of paper on which were written the various prizes. Two persons simultaneously inserted their hands into the respective boxes and drew forth a paper. The person owning the ticket with the corresponding number on the counterfoil was entitled to the prize which had been drawn from the other box.

The winner of the cottage was Mr. J. T. Barker, 51 Johnston Street. He was twenty-four years of age, married and employed in the Corporation Gas Department as a meter reader. At the time of the draw he was residing with his father-in-law. Whether or not he took up residence in the Rovers' cottage is not recorded, and which of the houses in New Bank Road was the cottage, I do not know, nor have I been able to find out. I wrote to the football club at Ewood to see if they had any more information. They had nothing more than the books that are already in the Reference Library.

In the 1887 Rate Book for St. John's Ward it states that the Rovers' Football Club paid £4 17s 6d in rates to the Trustees of William Smalley for the football ground on Leamington Street. In 1891 the Rovers moved to Ewood Park leaving the flat part of the Tean Barn Estate vacant, but not for long.

Near to the bottom of Montague Street there used to be a Baptist Church - Branch Road Tabernacle it was known as when it was built in 1839. It became Montague Street Baptist Church when the name of the road was changed. The site is now a car park for the Technical College.

In 1892 it was decided that there was room for two Baptist Churches in Blackburn. After some enquiries a site was secured on the land formerly used by Blackburn Rovers Football Club. It was purchased for £251 11s 3d. When I looked at the deeds of the church I expected the land to have been bought from the trustees of William Smalley, as the Rovers had paid him rates, but no, the conveyance was made between the Baptist Union and Blakey Moor Industrial Co-operative Society for the land on Tean Barn Road.

Four foundation stones for the new church were laid on Easter Monday, April 3rd, 1893. The inevitable builders' strike followed and it was May 1895 before LEAMINGTON STREET BAPTIST CHURCH (N) was completed and opened. The name was changed to Leamington Road at the turn of the century.

Lemington Road Baptist Chapel

In 1903 the officials at the Church decided that the Sunday School premises were no longer large enough. Events were organised and money was raised to build an extension. This was completed and opened in 1911. At the corner of the building near to Lynwood Road there is a foundation stone (O). It is dedicated to a Mrs. Nancy Hasler - "This stone was laid in grateful recognition of the generosity of Mrs. Nancy Hasler. January 28th. 1911."

I had been going to the church all my life, but I had never heard of Mrs. Hasler. When I re-read the church's history book "The Book of the Jubilee 1895-1945" I found out that Mrs. Hasler bequeathed a sum of money towards the enlargement of the Sunday School.

I've spent several hours in the Reference Library over the years dipping into the book "Blackburn Worthies of Yesterday" by George C. Miller. It is a fascinating book and gives accounts of the lives of old Blackburn worthies, beginning with Thomas Ainsworth, who was born at Pleasington Old Hall. Also included is Kathleen Ferrier, the contralto singer, who died in 1953. The house where she lived for twenty years, 57 Lynwood Road, is now marked by a plaque. Another chapter is headed NANCY COCKER, bonesetter and healer.

Nancy Cocker was the daughter of Moses Cocker, also a bonesetter and a descendant of an old Tockholes family. Luke Walmsley, an art dealer and local historian, wrote of an event which must have happened to him during the 1850s. As a boy he had been taking part in a jumping match and put out his ankle. "My father took me on his back to old Moses Cocker past the old workhouse. There was a twist, a scream, and the ankle was righted. As a bone setter, in my youth, Blackburn folk seemed to credit him with the power of wizardry". Undoubtedly, he possessed a natural gift, and he passed this on to his daughter Nancy.

Nancy set her first damaged limb at 17, and when she was past eighty she had as many as twenty patients a day. She boasted that she never made a business out of her gift, and Blackburn Rovers players were among her best clients.

Nancy Cocker was the maiden name of Mrs. Nancy Hasler. When she died in 1911 at the age of eighty-nine she lived at 14 Azalea Road (P). I live at 16 Azalea Road, so that was history on my doorstep.

Acknowledgements and Sources: -​

Bits of Old Blackburn, J.G Shaw

What God hath Wrought, Sarah E. Brodie

Blackburn Worthies of Yesterday, George C. Miller

The True Story of the Clitheroe Abduction, Edmund H. Jackson

A History of the Blackburn Football Club, Joseph Baron

Mr John Duckworth for access to the log books at St. Silas School

Blackburn Reference Library for access to the local archives, old newspapers and census returns.

Transcribed by Shazia Kasim

Article published in The Blackburn Local History Society Journal 1992. Pages 36-44
Published March 2025​

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