Whitworth Hall

Medieval Spotland had many settlements and halls, for example Naden and Healey, I have not mentioned Whitworth Hall, until now. Below is a transcript of Charter 37 from from Volume III of the Coucher Book of Whalley Abbey, published by the Chetham Society:

The site of the Old Hall was in the area of Hall Fold, see an aerial view here. The area is close to the river Spodden.

The 1851 OS map shows the location of Hall Fold.

1626 Manor Survey

Note the Fold had a “Corne Mill” a relic of the earlier Hall perhaps?

 

Schofield – the Place and the Name

I got a request for early references to the name “Schofield” so here is some information.

Schofield, in East Rochdale was in the township of Butterworth. Schofield was also adopted as a surname, let’s trace the roots of the Schofield family and the place back to Medieval times. As usual Fishwick’s History of Rochdale is a good place to start, it’s freely available online.  Fishwick covered the pedigree of the Schofield family name in the chapter on the Old Houses and Families of Butterworth.

This information was deposited in the Duchy of Lancashire Court on 1537 as evidence of  James Scholfield’s claim to lands in “Wittaker”.

What does Schofield mean?

The modern study of Lancashire place-names started with Ekwall’s Placenames of Lancashire.  This is the most comprehensive survey, but it is not the latest work on Lancashire place-names and some of Ekwall’s work is disputed.

Ekwall on Schofield

“Scholefleld, or Schofield : de Scholfele 1212 LI, de Scolefeld 1374 LF, Scolfeld 1582 DL. O.N. skdli ” hut ” &nd field. “

So a “hut in a field” is the probable meaning., with the Old Norse word for hut being the first element in the name.

LI is an abbreviation for:

LI : Lancashire Inquests, Extents, and Feudal Aids. Ed. W. Farrer. Record Soc. xlviii, liv. 

Other Early References to Schofield

Both the Lancashire and Greater Manchester record offices also have documents of interest as does Touchstones in Rochdale.

Libraries

The black Book of Clayton (Bodleian Library) includes documents that mention “Schofield”. The Raines manuscripts have many references too.  Chethams and Rylands Libraries in Manchester also have original material relating to Schofield.

Manor Surveys

The 17 thC. Manor Surveys have many references to the place and the people names Schofield. The manor court records also should be checked for Schofield references.

Online

You can also search the British History Online site, and of course the National Archives, which include the British Library Collection. The Coucher Book of Whalley Abbey has references to Schofield, start with the index.

Later Entry from Coucher Book of Whalley Abbey

Here is an example from the Appendix of the Coucher Book of Whalley Abbey, perhaps early 16th. C

 

Schofield Hall

 

The site of the Hall has some field boundaries but little trace of the hall remains. The Old Hall was depicted in the Raines Manuscripts. There were many of these old halls, Fishwick’s History has some illustrations.

Under construction…

 

Medieval References to the Wool Trade in Rochdale

While there are many references (such as in the Manor court rolls and Manor surveys) to the wool trade in Rochdale from the 16th century Medieval references are rare, here are two from the Rochdale Manor Court Rolls of 1336, translated from the Latin in Fishwick’s History of Rochdale.

Henry the dyer

John de Aulus for not producing Henry the dyer [Lister] and John the smith, whom he essoigned (meaning made an excuse for not appearing in court) iiii . d.

So John made  a payment of 4 pence for because Henry the dyer did not appear at the manor court. Did Henry dye local wool? looks like an early indication of a specialist in the significant and valuable wool trade.

 Thomas the mercer

Henry the son of Thomas the Mercer, for ingress to a burgage in Castleton: surety Nicholas of the Slakes xviij.

The mercer’s son broke in to a burgage (Rochdale was a medieval borough). A reference to a mercer is rare at this time in Lancashire, there is only one mentioned (from Chester?) in the Coucher Book of Whalley Abbey. A mercer was someone who sold fine cloth such as silk and flax.

Imported wool from Ireland and Yorkshire

Lancashire was importing wool from at least the early 16th Century (Source Lowe).

Local Wool Production

By the 16th. Century some areas of common land around Rossendale had up to 30 sheep gates (Lowe, p8). Evidently sheep were becoming a much more common site on pastures in the  Rochdale area.

Here is an extract from page 9 of Norman Lowe’s book:

Market

Rochdale market dates back to at least 1251, to put this into perspective, Suffolk’s famous medieval wool trade village,  Lavenham  has a market from 1257. The 13th century was a time of economic expansion and wool was England’s main export, Rochdale was evidently an important centre for both the production and trade in wool in Medieval times.

References

The Lancashire textile industry in the sixteenth century by Norman Lowe, Manchester 1972.

Manor Records, Chapter XV the History of Rochdale by Henry Fishwick

Medieval Wool Trade in Europe

The History of British Wool

 

(C) SMM 2014

 

 

Two of Prickshaw’s Medieval Charters

There are many medieval references to places that are in or around the area known today as Prickshaw.

Here are two charter transcripts from the Coucher Book of Whalley Abbey,
originally published by the Chetham Society.

In this charter we can see “Prikkeshaghsiche”
it would now be written Prickshaw Syke.

Note

Lake Kor was probably the area now known as Prickshaw Dams.

Charter LXI

Charter LXI Continued…

Appendix – Bagden, Prickshaw 

Appendix in Coucher Book

Reference

Originally printed for the Chetham Society 1848 by William Adam Hulton.

NOT  IN  COPYRIGHT

Download The Coucher Book of Whalley Abbey Here.

Balshaw Mystery

There are literally hundreds of medieval references to places in Rochdale, most places can still be traced, a few have disappeared from the map. But most interesting of the vanished places is Balshaw, and the people who lived there in medieval times.

Why?

In the Coucher Book Balshaw is written as Balschagh and appears to have been near to Healey Hollows by a brook or Brok (as it was written in the charter).

In charer 68 one of the signatories, Adam, appears to have lived in Balschagh and is referred to as Ada de Balschagh.

The Bedelry

In 1281 Adam de Balshaw purchased the serjeancy of the “free court of Rochdale” in exchange for land in Rossendale and ‘Holkenheved,’ at a rent of 2 marks a year; Byron Chartul. (Towneley MS.), 1/248.

If this was the same Adam that witnessed Coucher Book charter 68, where did he get his wealth from? Why did he have land in Rossendale? and where exactly did he live, and what was his reason for buying the serjeancy (which means it was originally a gift from the King)?

See British History Online – The Parish of Rochdale fn 40

“In 1298, the ‘heir of Adam de Balshaw’ paid 26s. 8d. for the bedelry; Compotus, 7; and in 1311 the holder was a John de Balshaw;”

De Lacy Inq. 20

Ultimately the serjeancy was sold to members of the Radcliffe family by a John de Balshaw in 1341, perhaps the same John mentioned in 1311.

See British History Online – The Parish of Rochdale fn 40

The special legal status of Rochdale is evident from the Domesday entry for Rochdale and the “free court of Rochdale” presumably evolved  from this.

Where?

The name Ball Barn on Syke Road in Rochdale may preserve elements of the old Balshaw name, it is in the area mentioned in the charters.

Not to be confused with…

By coincidence there is another Balshaw in Ainsworth, and in a land grant by Roger de Middleton, about 1200 there is mention of a “syke” that led to Ballshaw. syke was a common local dialect word(from Old Norse) for a ditch.

The grant is included in the Cockersand Chartul. (Chet. Soc), ii, 733.

Under construction….

Medieval Iron Working

There are a few medieval references to iron working in Medieval Salford Hundred, some iron may have come from local “ironstone”.

We have a 14thC. mention of a dispute over iron in Whitworth, involving Whalley Abbey, mentioned in Fishwick’s History of Rochdale. There is also a 15thC. Blackley reference to a shortage of wood for charcoal and associated iron working.

Hundersfield (Rochdale)

It would appear that iron ore could be found in Hundersfield (near Walsden):

” it shall be lawful for Robert and Alice, and the heirs of Alice to assart the whole of that wood, which is on the north side of Lichitheselegh, and  there to make meadow or arable land at their will, and to put up forges, and dig for iron and steel ore to supply those forges, wherever they will on the moors and in the woods which belong to the town of Hunewrthefeld. “

‘Lancashire Fines: 12-19 Henry III’, Final Concords for Lancashire, Part 1: 1189-1307 (1899), pp. 54-74. URL: http://www.british-history.ac.uk/report.aspx?compid=52533&strquery=iron Date accessed: 16 July 2012

Local place-names are interesting in Walsden (valley of the Welsh), they include: Pot Oven, Burnt Hills and the water of Ramsden clough is nearby! Inchfield was an old manor and the place-name Ragby is the only by name in the historic Parish of Rochdale!
See the lidar and old maps together below:
https://maps.nls.uk/geo/explore/side-by-side/#zoom=15&lat=53.69178&lon=-2.12654&layers=6&right=LIDAR_DTM_1m

Archaeological evidence

Castleshaw

For research in Castleshaw, see this document here.

Cutler’s Green

Fishwick mentions (History of Rochdale p.44) iron working and slag associated with the Ashworth family at Cutler’s Green in what was the north of Spotland township, Rochdale.

Healey

A probable medieval bloomery was discovered on a bank of the Spodden river above the ruins of Broadley Mill near Healey by a William Grindrod. The site was excavated by JL Maxim from 1917-9

Pilsworth

Medieval iron working (“tap slag”) was revealed in excavations by Norman Tyson of the Bury Archaeological group at Meadowcroft Fold, Pilsworth 1983-4. Further evidence of iron working and associated medieval pottery was found during field walking in 1997.

See also this ADS (Archaeology Data Service) record here.

Holcombe

At Holcombe are the remains of a bloomery, probably of the Tudor period.Trans. Hist. Soc. xxiv, 60; the place is called Cinder Hill.

‘Townships: Tottington’, in A History of the County of Lancaster: Volume 5, ed. William Farrer and J Brownbill (London, 1911), pp. 143-150. British History Online
http://www.british-history.ac.uk/vch/lancs/vol5/pp143-150
[accessed 21 May 2018].

Read about an excavation there at the Holcombe Moor Heritage Group website

Medieval Iron Working Research in Huddersfield, West Yorkshire

Myers Wood, Huddersfield: A geophysical assessment of a medieval iron-working site.
Great research paper by Robert Vernon, with a good technical overview of survey methods. 

2004VernonTalkHeritageAward10thSept

Overview of Medieval Iron Working Process from Hungary

Good overview of medieval iron production, including bog iron.

Bog iron
“Bog iron ores form lenses under the ground, which can be found in the beds of brooks, where the brook has eroded one to two metres below ground level (see Thiele and Kecsmár,2013 for details about the geological and archaeometallurgical background of bog iron ores in Somogy County). From these lenses the iron ore can be collected with the help of spades, shovels and pickaxes. The collected iron ore lumps are then washed in a basket in the brook which washes away the dirt and sand.”

https://exarc.net/issue-2014-2/at/soil-iron-product-technology-medieval-iron-smelting

References

What have a world famous poet, a teenage computer pioneer, medieval charters and Whitworth got in common?

No Joke! in 1833 the Coucher Book of Whalley Abbey was of great importance to a teenage computer pioneer, the daughter of the famous poet.

She joined others in a case against the Lord of the Manor of Rochdale, over land rights in Brandwood, West Whitworth.

The former Lord of the Manor was Lord Byron, the poet, his daughter Ada (Countess pf Lovelace) was a brilliant mathematician and programmer of Babbage’s Inference Engine. Ada still had an interest in lands in Brandwood after Dearden had aquired the manor of Rochdale from her father, Lord Byron.

The claim was that land in Brandwood had been enclosed and that this was included in the Manor of Rochdale, The case was judged in favour of the defendants, since they used the Coucher Book of Whalley’s records to show that rights had been granted to their ancestors in medieval times, well before the manor was sold to Lord Byron’s ancestors. So it Brandwood was judged to be outside of the manor of Rochdale’s jurisdiction.

Read more about this fascinating case here from  page 80 onwards. Archive material is also held at Touchstones in Rochdale.

See also

Ada Lovelace (Wikipedia entry)

Reports of cases argued and determined in the Court of King’s Bench, Volume 1

By Sandford Nevile, William Montagu Manning (Sir.), Sir William Montagu Manning, Great Britain. Court of King’s Bench, London 1834.

Under construction!

Bagden – Valley of the Bees

Aerial view of Bagden (note early cultivation)

Bagden was called Bikden in medieval times, and as this extract shows it was called “Bargden” around 1600. Like many names in and around Whitworth it was mentioned in Medieval times. This was because many small pieces of land were traded or granted to Whalley Abbey, one theory is that the Abbey acted as a bank. There were also local contacts with the Abbey monks, some were from Whitworth.

Medieval references to Bagden (Bikden in medieval times)

Bikden – what does it mean? Valley of the Bees.

 

Bagden was called Bargden

Under construction!

The Whalley Coucher Book and the dialectal phonology of Lancashire and Cheshire

The Coucher Book of Whalley Abbey is a treasure chest of medieval historical data for Lancashire. Sadly, despite being transcribed in the 19th C. it has been little studied.  Many archaeological surveys have failed to refer to the Coucher Book’s references to the areas they purport to cover (for example a study of Rooley Moor failed to mention a single medieval charter, yet there were nearly 100 in the nearby village of  Whitworth alone).

King’s thesis, detailed below, is a valuable contribution to the study of the Coucher Book and also has a really useful chronology of land tenure in Lancashire and Cheshire. This work also contributes to place-name research in Lancashire and Cheshire.

King, C. D . – The Whalley Coucher book and the dialectal phonology of Lancashire and Cheshire 1175-1350 . – University of St Andrews PHD Thesis, 1991 (Unpublished).

Download it here

ILS catalogue number: 15280797

EThOS Persistent ID: uk.bl.ethos.493393

David Collins
Repository Administrator
University of St Andrews Library

Great News -Thanks David!

Newbold

from Fishwick’s History of Rochdale

A brief history of Newbold can be seen here,  in chapter 16, page 313 of the History of Rochdale by Fishwick. Newbold was mentioned in charter XXX (30) from Whalley Abbey: