A History of Lancashire

by Henry Fishwick

From Pemberton and Pilling dikes,

For battle billmen bold were bent.

In Middleton Church there was a brass to the memory of Sir Ralph Assheton and his bowmen, and a painted window still remains to commemorate the event. Of the general state of some of the larger towns of the county, we have a brief record from the pen of that careful antiquary John Leland, who went through Lancashire in 1533. Manchester he says was “the fairest, best built, quickest [i.e., liveliest] and most populous town in Lancashire; well set a worke in makinge of clothes as well of lynnen as of woollen, whereby they have obtained, gotten and come vnto riches and welthy lyuings, and have kepte and set manye artificers and poor folkes to work;” and in “consequence of their honesty and true dealing, many strangers, as wel of Ireland as of other places within this realme, have resorted to the said towne with lynnen yarne, woollen, and other wares for makinge clothes.” So great a name had Manchester now got for the making of woollen cloth that in an Act passed in 1552 Manchester “rugs and frizes” are specially named; and in 1566 it became necessary to pass another Act to regulate the fees of the queen’s aulneger (measurer), who was to have his deputies at Bolton, Blackburn and Bury. The duty of these officers was to prevent “cottons, frizes and rugs” being sold unsealed. Cottons were not what is now meant by this term, but were all of woollen.[107] Cotton manufacture did not begin until a century later. Manchester at this time probably consisted of some ten or a dozen narrow streets[108] and lanes, all radiating from the old church; its water was from a single spring rising in what is now Fountain Street, and which flowed down Market Street to Smithy Door. The town business was conducted in a building called the “Booths,” where the court of the lord of the manor was held, and near to which stood the stocks, the pillory and whipping–post, and not far distant was the cucking–stool pool. These streets were narrow, ill–paved, or not paved at all; the houses were of wood and plaster, with the upper stories projecting and mostly roofed with thatching. The only church in Manchester was the collegiate or parish church, which stood on the site of the present cathedral in the time of Edward VI.; the lord of the manor of Manchester was Sir Thomas West, Knight, ninth Baron de la Ware. The early records of the Manchester court leet[109] have been preserved, and furnish some interesting details of the life of the dwellers in the town at this period.

In 1522, amongst the officers of the court, were two ale–founders (or, as they are generally called, ale–tasters or conners), two byrlamen (lawmen) to overlook the “market stede,” two for Deynsgate and four for the mylne gate, wething greve, hengynge dyche, fenell street, and on to Irkes brydge, and a score of people were named as “skevengers,” whose duty it was to see that the streets were kept clean. At the same court an order was made that persons were not to allow their ducks and geese to wander into the market–place, and certain other regulations were enforced, showing that even at that date the sanitary arrangements of the place were to some extent attended to.

In 1554 we have, beside the other officers, market overlookers for fish and flesh, leathersellers, and men to see that no ox, cow, nor horse goes through the churchyard; and it was ordered that all the middens standing in the streets, between the conduit (which supplied the town with water) and the market–cross, and all swinecotes in the High Street, should be removed. The authorities appear to have had some trouble to persuade the people that the street, or the front of their own houses, was not the place for dunghills or middens, as the orders to remove them appear at almost every court, in some cases the order only being to erect a pale or hedge round, so that there be no “noyance nor evil sight in the street.”

In 1556 warning was to be given in the church that the inhabitants were to bring their corn and grain to be ground at the Free School Mill.

Ale and bread in 1558 were to be sold only by the regulation measures and weights. Archery had long been one of the recreations of the people, so we are surprised to find that in 1560 the inhabitants were ordered to have put up before the Feast of St. John the Baptist (June 24) a pair of butts in Marketstede Lane, and another pair upon Colyhurst Common; in the same year it was ordered that no person should allow any carding or bowling in his house or garden, fields or shop, “whereto any poore or handiecrafts men shall come or resort.”

Provisions were also made for the traveller whose business brought him to Manchester, for no man was allowed (in 1560) to brew or sell ale unless he was able to “make two honest beddis [beds],” and he was also to “put furth the syne of a hand.” Later on it was ordered that this sign was only to be used when the innkeeper had ale to sell. It is curious to find an old Act passed in 1390 still enforced, viz., that no one not being a forty–shilling freeholder shall keep a greyhound nor any hound.

Ale was not to be sold to be drunk on the premises at more than 6d. a gallon; for outdoor consumption the price was not to exceed 4d. a gallon.

A singular order appears in the next year’s record, to the effect that no one shall sell bread which has any butter in it, although he was permitted to bake it for his own use or to give to his friends.