Kay, in Liverpool, aforesaid." The same terms appear in a mortgage deed of 1721. This specification of the mill is one of various evidences that, contrary to generally-received opinion, the ancient Townsend mill stood on Shaw's Brow, and not on the North Shore.

The structure on the shore, popularly known as Townsend mill for a century past, was a comparatively modern establishment, first appearing in a MS. map in possession of the Corporation of Liverpool, dated 1765. It is true that a map professing to be that of Liverpool in 1539 (and also shewing the entrenchments of 1644) indicates and names Townsend mill on the shore, about half-a-mile from the old church; which is not quite the site of the later so-called Townsend mill. But no authority is advanced for this map, and I should not be surprised to learn that its compilation is of comparatively late date. At all events the localising of Townsend upon the shore in 1539, judging by other evidences. (too much matters of detail to be adduced here) is an inaccuracy.

To return to my story. Lord Derby, among other property of the Mores, purchased the mill which stood almost on the present site of the Steble fountain, opposite the Art Gallery. The accompanying view depicts it on this site in the year 1772.

In 1777, the Corporation having become, by purchase, lords of the manor, immediately negociated for the acquirement of the mill, which, with one or two more recent ones, had become a "nuisance" by Act of Parliament, owing to their sails revolving too near to the highway. The Town Clerk was directed to write about the purchase of Lord "Derby's interest in Townsend mill," and also to write to Alderman Rigby, the lessee, as to his interest. In 1779, Rigby's interest was secured for

£300, conditionally on the property being purchased from Lord Derby for removal. In 1780 this transaction was effected for another £300; and the "nuisance," which had served its day and perpetuated to modern times the feudal usages of centuries, was shortly afterwards destroyed. It is worthy of note that this £600 was the only actual payment made by the Corporation, directly and specifically, for the purchase and extinction of the soke rights of the town.

RURAL MILLS LEASED WITH THE TOWN.

So far, I have referred only to the mills within the town and its liberties. But besides these, were two (subsequently three) rural windmills that, though quite beyond the manor of Liverpool, were for two centuries continually leased with it. These ancient mills seem to have been added to the fee farm by Edward IV in the 15th century, with the idea of extending the milling resources of the rising garrison town and port. They comprised the mills of Ackers, Wavertree, and (later) West Derby; and were first included in a lease granted in 1475 to Henry Crosse, of the "town and lordship of Lyther"pole with the appurtenances" (which included the town mills), at the ancient rent of £14: "and also "of one windmill called Ackers Mylne and another "windmill called Watre Mylne in the county afore"said," at an extra rental of 20s. each. Each one of the subsequent leases of the fee farm, which need not be mentioned here, comprised these two mills. In 1529 Henry Ackers granted the pair to Henry Pogden, of Wau'tre, milner, and Roger, "his son," at a rental of 46s. 8d., of which the original 40s. was to be paid to the bailiff of West Derby, and the extra 6s. 8d. to himself. In 1537 the fee farm was granted by the King to Thomas

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Holcroft, a considerable speculator in land, from whom the lease was passed, in 1538, to Sir R. Molyneux. The latter thus held the whole of the King's mills, urban and suburban (except Middle mill, still leased in capite by the Crosses); and added to them, in 1581, Derby mill also. In the Molyneux Rentals for the period, the mills are classed together by the bailiff somewhat after the following form (as in 1598):-Derbie mill, included in the farm of the adjoining meadows, at a total rental of £10; Accers, "for the mill there,' from John Cole 33s. 4d., out of which is paid 20s. to the crown; Wavertree," for the mill there," from James Forster 46s. 8d., out of which 20s. is paid to the crown; Eastham, "for the mill called Eastham "mill," from John Bolton 40s., out of which 25s. is paid to the crown. Wavertree was therefore at this date the most profitable of the series; Eastham being the most heavily rented and the largest mill, though its custom was evidently falling off. Matters so continued until 1629, when Charles I sold the lordship of Liverpool to Ditchfield and others on behalf of the Common Council of London, from whom it was acquired by Sir Richard Molyneux, Dec. 4, 1635. The town mills were conveyed in both these sales; the rural mills, however, were excluded. That of West Derby had already been sold by James I to Sir R. Molyneux; those of Accers and Wavertree Charles I sold in 1629 to Ditchfield and others. The subsequent history of the rural mills is indicated below.

ACKERS' MILL.

Respecting the first of the three, Ackers' mill: if Baines, in his attempt to localise Ackers, the seat of the Ackers family, of Ackers Hall, had happened to have been led to have studied these

milling leases, he would not have failed to note that Ackers was near Liverpool, and could not have been, as he supposed, at Salford. The same quest as to the locality of the hall has been made in a former communication to this Society; for the identity of Captain G. Acres, whose arms were emblazoned in one of the windows of St. Nicholas' Church in 1590, is a matter in which various of our archæologists have taken an interest. But the question left unsolved may now be quite satisfactorily settled. Ackers is entitled to rank among the first of our mills in point of undisputed antiquity and identity. It was old and repaired in 1344 (over a century before it first appeared in the lease of 1475) and was contemporary with Euerstan or Eastham mill of 1390. Unfortunately, however, its identity at this early date has of late been obscured, owing to the historians, T. Baines and others, mis-reading the ancient name "Accers" as "Atters"; the close similarity of form between the letters c and t in early English MSS. being, of course, the source of the error. In 1342, then, the mill being out of

order, the verderers of the forests of Toxteth and Croxteth accounted to the Earl of Lancaster for two oaks cut in the park of Croxteth to repair it, as well as a sapling oak cut in the outer wood, forinseco bosco, of Derby, for making a mill-shaft; while at the same time John del Accers was noted as having felled and carried away one seasoned oak from Derby Wood. Evidently the mill at this period underwent an extensive restoration. This is its first occurrence in our history. The mill remained leased with the town by the Molyneuxs till 1629, when Charles I sold it; but Sir R. Molyneux seems to have again acquired the lease, as it appears in his rentals till the year 1648. In 1651 Sir Richard's bailiff has entered Ackers mill with

those of Derby and Wavertree in his accounts; but in the next remaining rental-that for 1657Derby mill alone appears, and at about this date, therefore, Ackers mill had passed to other hands. The adjoining property of Accers Hall had been conveyed by Henry Ackers, gentleman, to Sir R. Molyneux, on the 15th October, 1562. It appears in the Croxteth Rental for 1769, and is marked in Singleton's maps of his lordship's estates in 1837 and the tithe-map of 1837-8. The mill was not part of that holding, but of the adjoining one of "Boltons," which lay between the mill and the Hall. The latter has been converted into a farmhouse, and of late years has been variously known as Ackers, Ackhurst, and Acorn Hall, at which last it still remains; it is situated in Finch Lane, West Derby, being the first building on the left hand from Prescot Road. Some three fields to the north of it is a close, marked 2195 on the tithe map, and named in the accompanying references "Mill Field." Here is indicated by shading the mound on which formerly stood the ancient Accers mill, near the present hedgerow beside the very old cottage known as "Boltons," opposite Finch House. The cottage, which is considered to be the oldest building in the township, was owned in 1837 by John Tarbuck. Margaret Mason, a villager living till recently, who was born here about the year 1800, remembered as a child that close to the house there used to stand-probably in ruins an old mill. These evidences, though fragmentary, amply serve to identify the site.

WAVERTREE MILL.

Wavertree mill enjoys the rare distinction of being the only one of the four most ancient of our corn mills that still exists. Its antiquity and its