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NOTES ON THE PARISH AND CHURCH

OF HALSALL.

By Henry Taylor and R. D. Radcliffe, M.A., F.S.A.

Read 26th March, 1896.

INTRODUCTION.

MONGST the many interesting old churches to be found in the district between the rivers Ribble and Mersey (named in Domesday "Terra "inter Ripam et Mersham"),' that at Halsall, dedicated to God in honour of Saint Cuthbert, although so little known, is one of the finest. Its isolation is due in great part to geographical position, it having been built, as its Domesday name, "Heleshale," indicates, on rising ground near the edge of a great bog or moss, which stretches away to the coast, a distance of about four and a half miles. The maps of the first quarter of this century clearly show the great bog, "Halsall Moss,"

Described in the Anglo-Saxon will of Wulfric, A.D. 1002, as “Landa "betwae Ribbel and Mærse."

2 This was Canon Isaac Taylor's later opinion when he was at Southport in the spring of 1896. Formerly, in Words and Places (p. 252), he had connected the name with the Celtic hal-salt. It is worth noting that brine has been sunk for at Barton in Halsall parish, as Canon Blundell informs us.

enclosed in which were three lakes, or meres, named respectively "the White Otter," "the Black "Otter," and "Gettern Mere.' The trunks of trees from this submerged forest are frequently dug up when drains are made. On the 1848 Ordnance Map the reclamation of this land and the draining of the meres is indicated by the numerous sluices. which now cover the country. The parish, which includes the townships of Downholland, Halsall, Lydiate, Maghull, and Melling, comprising an area of 16,679 statute acres, extends nine miles from north to south, and about four miles from east to west, and is entirely agricultural.

Until within the last few years the village could only be reached by rough country roads, paved with huge cobble stones. Now, within half a mile of the village, a railway runs along the eastern side of the great bog, from which the ground rises gently to the church and tiny village, where the sandstone crops up in various places. Thus the builders secured a site which could not well be inundated, and indeed the elevation is sufficient to render the spire a landmark, in clear weather, for a considerable distance.

This isolation of the village was perhaps also due in part to the fact that civilization followed the route of the great Roman road from Warrington to Preston, leaving the country to the west of it comparatively untouched. But whatever may have been the cause, tradition has it that this parish was one of the last places in England affected by the Reformation. Probably one of the reasons for this result may have been the fact that the landowners for miles round have, in the main, always held to the old Roman Catholic faith. A curious confirmation of this theory is afforded by a study of the new 6-inch ordnance survey, on which may be counted, within a few miles of Halsall, the remains.

of upwards of twenty roadside, or weeping, crosses, at which, until recently, Roman Catholic funerals used to stop.

The roads round the church have been diverted and cottages pulled down in comparatively recent times, so that the little village green is now thrown into the rectory park, where, some fifty yards north-east of the church, stood the village cross, the base of which is probably still in situ.

The old-world character of this corner of England and of its inhabitants has been vividly depicted in the now celebrated novels of Mrs. Francis Blundell, In a North Country Village, Frieze and Fustian, Long years ago a rhymer quaintly wrote

etc.

of it :

"When all England is alofte,

Where so safe as in Christy's Crofte?

Where do you think should Christy's Crofte be
But between Ribble and Mersey?

The church is about three and a half miles northwest from Ormskirk, and five miles as the crow flies south-east from Southport, and is prettily situated in the midst of the small village. A few hundred yards from the building, between the church and the new rectory, are portions of an old stone house, forming part of the previous rectory, which was pulled down about fifty years ago. These remains were so embedded in the comparatively modern structure that their antiquity has not been noticed. The foundations of this older building, which is not unlikely to have been the manor house of the Halsalls, are shortly to be laid bare, and no doubt many interesting facts will then be brought to light; but the remains which are now above ground indicate the existence of a fine great hall, with open-timbered roof, about forty feet long and thirty feet wide, built during the late perpendicular period, probably some time in the reign of Henry VII.

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