Hunting was a favourite pursuit of Mr. Legh’s. In Prestbury churchyard, near the lych gate, is a flat stone, with an inscription recording the death of one of his huntsmen, and a couplet, which he no doubt wrote.—
Here lye the Remains of Thomas Bennison,
Head Huntsman many years to Charles Legh,
of Adlington, Esq. He died the 17th of February,
in the year of our Lord 1768. Aged 75.
The Joys of his Heart were good Hounds and good Nappy,
Oh! wish him for ever still more and more Happy.
On the 26th July, 1781, Mr. Legh, who had attained the ripe age of 84, was removed by death, and on the 3rd August his remains were committed to the family vault which he had himself erected at the east end of the north aisle of Prestbury Church. His wife survived him some years. By her will, which bears date September, 1787, the manor of Wincham passed to her second cousin, Colonel Edward Townshend, of Chester, whose great grandson, Edward Townshend, Esq., is the present possessor.
By the death of Charles Legh without surviving issue the direct succession ceased, and the manor and dependencies of Adlington reverted to his niece Elizabeth, the only child of Lucy Frances Legh, by her husband, Sir Peter Davenport, who was then married to John Rowlls, of Kingston. She assumed, by royal licence, the surname of Legh, as did also her eldest son John, who had married Harriet, daughter and co-heir of Sir Peter Warburton, of Arley. He pre-deceased his mother, and, his two sons dying in infancy, the estates, with the exception of Butley Hall and some lands adjacent, which were alienated to his daughter Elizabeth Hester, who married, in 1800, Thomas Delves, third son of Sir Thomas Delves Broughton, Bart., and died in 1821, reverted in 1806, on the death of Mrs. Elizabeth Rowlls Legh, to Richard Crosse, of Shaw Hill, Lancashire, great grandson of Robert, the third son of Thomas Legh, of Adlington, who took the name and arms of Legh by royal licence. He served the office of sheriff of Lancashire in the succeeding year, and died on the 11th August, 1822, at the age of sixty-eight, leaving by his wife Anne, only surviving daughter of Robert Parker, of Cuerden, who pre-deceased him, two sons and three daughters. Thomas (Crosse) Legh, the eldest son, succeeded to the broad lands of Adlington; the Lancashire estates of Shaw Hill, Chorley, and Liverpool devolving upon his younger brother, Richard Townley Crosse, who died, unmarried, February 27, 1825, when they reverted to his sister Anne Mary, married to Thomas Bright Iken, of Leventhorpe House, Yorkshire, who assumed the name of Crosse, the father of the present possessor.
Thomas Crosse Legh, of Adlington, was accidentally drowned in crossing the river at Antwerp, April 25, 1829, being then only thirty-six years of age. By his wife, Louisa, daughter of George Lewis Newnham, of New Timber, Sussex, who survived him, and married, May 12, 1830, the Hon. Thomas Americus, third Lord Erskine, the grandson of the distinguished Lord Chancellor of that name, he had, with other issue, Charles Richard Banastre Legh, the present representative of this ancient stock. Esto perpetua.