On the long plank hangs o’er the muddy pool,
That stool, the dread of ev’ry scolding quean.
From its frequent use we may suppose that in those days the female portion of the community were neither very amiable nor very virtuous. Long Millgate ran parallel with the Irk, an irregular line of houses with little plots of garden behind forming the boundary on each side, and a little way up a rural lane, shaded with hedgerow trees, branched off on the right, known as the Milner’s Lane—the present Miller Street. The Irk, a pure and sparkling stream, was noted for its “luscious eels.” The Masters of the Grammar School had the exclusive fishery rights from Ashley Lane to Hunt’s Bank, and the Warden and Fellows of the College might have envied them their monopoly had they not themselves been able to obtain their Lenten fare from the equally clear and well-stocked waters of the Irwell, which then glided pleasantly by, innocent of dyes and manufacturing refuse. Altogether the place presented more the semi-rural aspect of a country village than an important town, as Leland represented it to be. Picturesque, it is true, yet it possessed many unpleasant features withal. The streets and lanes were ill-paved and full of deep ruts and claypits, for every man who wanted daub to repair his dwelling dug a hole before his door to obtain it. The eye, too, was offended by unsightly cesspools and dunghills that were to be seen against the Church walls, on the bridges, and, in fact, at every turn.
THE COLLEGE, MANCHESTER.
Though some of the more remote parts of the parish were barren and uncultivated, the immediate environments of the town were characterised by much that was exceedingly beautiful, with a wilder sort of loveliness, increased by the natural irregularities of the surface, and the great masses of foliage, part of the old forest of Arden, that extended far away. On the north, Strangeways Park, with its umbraged heights, its sunny glades, and shady dingles, stretched away towards Broughton, Cheetham, and Red Bank. Near thereto was Collyhurst Park, with the common, on which the townsmen had the right to pasture their pigs, and where the town swine-herd daily attended to his porcine charge; and the deep sequestered clough through which the Irk wound its sinuous course, its surface chequered by the shadows of the overhanging hazels and brushwood; and beyond, the extensive chase of Blackley, with its deer leaps, and its aërie of eagles, of herons, and of hawks. On the south was the stately old mansion of Aldport, standing in a park of 95 acres, occupying the site of Campfield and Castlefield, and reaching down to the banks of the Irwell, with the great parks of Ordsal and Hulme on the one side and those of Garratt and Ancoats on the other.
It can hardly be said that among the inhabitants a very high state of civilisation prevailed. If thrifty and industrious, they were certainly not very refined, nor blessed with “pregnant wits,” as good Hugh Oldham affirmed, nor yet remarkable for their moral excellence. Boisterous and laughter-loving, they delighted in outdoor games and uproarious sports,—the wild merriment of the day being oftentimes followed by the wilder merriment of the evening. Bull-baiting, wrestling, and cock-fighting were the leading diversions, “unlawful gaming” and “lewdness” were frequently complained of, and the ale-houses, to which the more dissolute resorted, were the scenes of riots and feuds that not only caused annoyance and scandal to the more well-disposed, but endangered the public peace to a greater degree than we can now easily conceive. Under such circumstances it is hardly surprising that they should have entertained little reverence for their spiritual pastors, many of whom, by the way, were only a degree less ignorant and disorderly than themselves, for in those days the curate of Stretford kept an ale-house, the rector of Chorlton eked out a scanty subsistence by doing a little private pawnbroking, while the parson of Blackley was “passing rich” on a stipend of £2 3s. 4d. a year.
Such was the Manchester of which Dee had become the ecclesiastical head. However apathetic he may have been as to the spiritual affairs of the parishioners committed to his care, he was by no means wanting in energy when his own temporal interests were concerned. Scarcely had he taken up his abode at the College than we find him entertaining at dinner two influential tenants—Sir John Byron, of Clayton, and his son, and bargaining with them about the price of hay before the grass was actually grown. A month later he records the “possession taking in Salford,” and he quickly found himself in litigation with the College tenants of some of the lands there. The tenants were a source of trouble, and oftentimes disturbed the even tenor of his way, while the collecting of his tithes was not unfrequently a cause of anxiety also. He complains of being “occupied with low controversies, as with Holden of Salford, and the tenants of Sir John Biron, of Faylsworth,” of “much disquietnes and controversy about the tythe-corn of Hulme,” of the “Cromsall corne-tyth” being “dowted of and half denyed,” and then “utterly denyed,” and of his riding to Sir John Byron “for a quietnes,” and “to talk with him abowt the controversy between the Colledg and his tenants.” Notwithstanding these unhappy disputations he had some pleasant days. Thus, on the 26th June (1596), as he tells us—