The Noble and Gentle Men of England / or, notes touching the arms and descents of the ancient knightly and gentle houses of England, arranged in their respective counties.

by Evelyn Philip Shirley

See Baines's Lancashire, iii. 426.

Arms.—Argent, on a bend sable three garbs or, the ancient coat of Fytton. Hesketh of Gwyrch Castle bears, Or, on a bend sable between two torteauxes three garbs of the field.

Present Representative, Sir Thomas George Hesketh, 5th Baronet.

Townley of Townley.

"This is not one of those long lines which are memorable only for their antiquity," says Whitaker, in his account of several remarkable members of this eminent family; who are descended from John del Legh, who died about the 4th of Edward III., and the great heiress Cecilia, daughter of Richard de Townley, whose family was of Saxon origin, and traced to the reign of Alfred. There is preserved at Townley, of which beautiful place Whitaker gives a charming account, an unbroken series of portraits from John Townley, Esq. in the reign of Elizabeth to the present time.

See Leland's Itinerary, i. 96 and v. 102; Whitaker's Whalley, 271, 341, 484; and for the extinct branches of Hurstwood Hall, [1562-1794,] p. 384; and of Barnside [Edw. IV.—1739,] p. 395.

For the origin of the Legh (properly Venables) family of Cheshire, see Leigh of Adlestrop, p. 92.

Arms.—Argent, a fess and in chief three mullets sable.

Present Representative, Charles Townley, Esq.