Edward Jolly, of Mythorp, by indenture, dated 13th of February, 1784, conveyed to James Jolly, James Sherson, and Thomas Fair, their executors and assigns, the sum of £60, to the intent that it should be placed on good security, and one shilling of the yearly income derived be expended weekly in bread, to be distributed each Sunday to those poor persons who had attended divine service in the morning at the chapel of Great Marton. The deed directed that the dole should be given at the door of the chapel immediately after morning service, by the clerk or some other authorised person, and that in the event of Marton Chapel, which was then unconsecrated and supported by subscription, being closed for four successive Sundays, or converted into a Dissenting place of worship, the bread money should be transferred to the townships of Great and Little Singleton, and Weeton-cum-Preese; and the weekly allowance of food be distributed as above at the parochial chapel of Great and Little Singleton. The dole, however, had to return to Marton chapel as soon as service, according to the Church of England, was again conducted there. The chapel alluded to was Baines’s school-house, where it had been the custom of Edward Jolly to distribute bread each Sunday for several years previously, and it was with the intention of rendering this practice perpetual, that the indenture was made. No re-investment of the money can be legally made without the approval of the minister of Marton church.

POPULATION OF GREAT AND LITTLE MARTON.

1801.1811.1821.1831.1841.1851.1861.1871.
9721,0931,3971,4871,5621,6501,6911,982

The area of the township amounts to 5,452 statute acres, inclusive of the sheet of water called Marton mere.

Hardhorn-with-Newton contains within the limits of its township the three hamlets or villages of Hardhorn, Newton, and Staining, of which the last only is alluded to in the Domesday Survey, where Staininghe is mentioned as comprising six carucates of land in service. The Coucher Book of Whalley Abbey furnishes much valuable and interesting information relating to the district of Staining, and from it we find that sometime between 1175 and 1296 John de Lascy, constable of Chester, “gave and by this charter confirms to God and the Blessed Mary, and to the abbot and monks of the Benedictine Monastery (Locus) of Stanlawe the vill of Steyninges, with all things belonging to it, in the vill itself, in the field, in roads, in footpaths, in meadows, in pastures, in waters, in mills, and in all other easements which are or can be there, for the safety of my soul and those of my antecessors and successors. To be held and possessed in pure and perpetual gift without any duty or exaction pertaining to me or my heirs, the monks themselves performing the service which the vill owes to the lord King.” The monks of Stanlawe retained possession until 1296, when their monastic institution, with all its property, including Staining, was united to, or appropriated by, the abbey of Whalley, shortly after which, in 1298, an agreement was arrived at between the prior of Lancaster, who held Poulton church, and the abbot of Whalley, concerning the tithes of Staining, Hardhorn, and Newton. “At length,” says the record, “by the advice of common friends they submitted the matter to the arbitration of Robert de Pikeringe, Elbor. Official,” who decided that the abbot and convent of Whalley, formerly of Stanlawe, should receive in perpetuity the major tithes of every and all their lands within the boundaries of Staining, Hardhorn, and Newton, whether the harvests were cultivated by the monks themselves or by their tenants; but the minor tithes, personal and obligatory, whether of the abbey tenants or of the secular servants, were adjudged to the vicar of the church of Poulton and the prior and monks of Lancaster. The abbot of Whalley was also directed to pay to the prior of Lancaster at the parish church of Poulton an annual sum of eighteen marks, as an acknowledgment, half at the festival of St. Martin and the remainder at Pentecost. The Coucher Book contains several deeds of arrangement touching marsh-land in the vicinity of Staining. Cecilia de Laton, widow, gave to the abbot and convent of Stanlawe, all her marsh between certain land of Staining and a long ditch, so that the latter might mark the division between Staining and Little Layton, the witnesses to the transfer being William de Carleton, William de Syngleton, and Alan, his son, William de Merton, and Richard de Thornton; Cecilia de Laton also quitclaimed to the same monastery all her right to the mediety of a marsh between “Mattainsmure” and Little Carleton. William le Boteler exchanged with the Stanlawe brotherhood all the marsh between the ditch above mentioned and the land of Staining for a similar tract beyond the trench towards Great Layton, stipulating that if at any time a fishery should be established in the ditch, which was doubtless both wide and deep, the monks and he, or his heirs, should participate equally in the benefits accruing from it. Theobald Walter granted power to the abbot of Stanlawe to make use of his mere of Marton for the purpose of conducting therefrom a stream to turn the mill at Staining, belonging to the monastery, care being taken that the fish in the said mere were not injured or diminished. Within the grange of Staining a chantry was in existence, and its services were presided over by two resident priests, whose duty it also was to superintend the property held by the convent of Stanlawe, and subsequently by the abbey of Whalley, in the neighbourhood.

The following is a list of the conventual possessions and rentals in Staining at the date of the Reformation:—The house of Staining 6s. 0d.; Scotfolde close, held by Lawrence Richardson, 5s. 0d., also Cach Meadow, of one acre, 1s. 8d.; a messuage, 30 acres of land, held by Lawrence Archer, £1 10s. 4d; a messuage, 16 acres, held by Thomas Salthouse, 16s. 0d.; a messuage, 15 acres, held by John Johnson, 18s. 2d.; a fishery, held by Richard Whiteside, 18s. 4d.; a messuage, 15 acres, held by Richard Harrison, 18s. 10d.; a messuage, 18 acres, held by William Salfer, 18s. 2d.; a messuage, 8 acres, held by William Hall, 10s. 4d.; a house and a windmill, held by Lawrence Rigson, £2 0s. 0d.; a messuage, 18 acres, held by Robert Gaster, 18s. 2d.; a messuage, 30 acres, held by Constance Singleton, widow, £1 13s. 0d.; a messuage, 20 acres, held by Thomas Wilkinson, £1 0s. 0d.; a messuage, 10 acres, held by John Pearson, 10s. 0d.; a messuage, 10 acres, held by the wife of William Pearson, 10s. 0d.; a messuage, 6 acres, held by Robert Walsh, 6s. 8d.; a messuage, 13 acres, held by Thomas Dickson, 13s. 4d., and 4 hens; a messuage, 20 acres, held by John Sander, £1 0s. 0d. and 6 hens; a messuage, 10 acres, held by William Hey, 10s. 0d. and 3 hens; a messuage, 6 acres, held by Ralph Dape, 7s. 6d. and 3 hens; a messuage, 8½ acres, held by the wife of Richard Dane, 7s. 6d. and three hens. In Hardhorn the abbey possessed a messuage, 10 acres, held by William Lethum, at 10s. per annum; a messuage, 20 acres, held by Robert Lethum, £1 0s. 0d.; a messuage, 10 acres, held by Henry ffisher, 10s.; a messuage, 10 acres, held by William Pearson, 10s. 0d. and 3 hens; a messuage, 10 acres, held by John ffisher, 10s. 0d. and 3 hens: a messuage, 10 acres, held by William Silcocke, 10s. 0d. and 3 hens; a messuage, 10 acres, held by Richard Hardman until “ye time that Richard Hardman, son of William Hardman, come to ye age of 21 yeares,” 10s. 0d.; a messuage, 10 acres, held by Richard Hardman, junior, 10s. 0d. and 3 hens; a messuage, 10 acres, held by Robert Silcocke, 10s. 0d.; a messuage, 12 acres, held by Robert Whiteside, 12s. 6d. and 3 hens; a messuage, 12 acres, held by Richard Bale, 12s. 6d. and 3 hens; a messuage, 7 acres, held by Henry ffisher, junior, 7s. 6d. and 2 hens; a messuage, 2 acres, held by John Allards, 2s. 0d. and 2 hens; a messuage, 10 acres, held by John Walch, 10s. 0d. and three hens; a messuage, 10 acres, held by Robert Crow, 10s. 0d. and 2 hens; a messuage, 20 acres, held by Richard Garlick, £1 0s. 0d. and 6 hens; a messuage, 10 acres, held by John Ralke, 10s. 0d. and 3 hens; a messuage, 10 acres, held by Edmund Holle, 10s. 0d. In Carleton the abbey owned a close named Whitbent, which William Carleton rented at 1s. 6d., a year; and in Elswick, a barn and 3 acres of land, held by Christopher Hennett, for an annual payment of 3s. 4d. In the Coucher Book of Whalley Abbey, from which the foregoing information has been obtained there occurs the following notice, relating to the Hall, apparently written when the above survey was made:—“The house of Stayning is in length xxvii. yards, and lofted ou’r and slated; ye close called ye little hey contains by estimation halfe an acre, and ye said house payeth yearly, 6s.” Sir Thomas Holt, of Grizlehurst, appears to have been the first proprietor of the conventual lands of Staining after they had been confiscated to the crown at the dissolution of monasteries; and from him they were purchased, either towards the end of the reign of Henry VIII., or at the commencement of that of Edward VI., by George the son of Robert Singleton, by his wife Helen, daughter of John Westby, of Mowbreck. The Singletons, of Staining, resided at the Hall until the close of the seventeenth century, and during that long period formed alliances with several of the local families of gentry, as the Carletons of Carleton, the Fleetwoods of Rossall, the Bambers of Carleton, and the Masseys of Layton. On the death of George Singleton, the last of the male representatives of the Singletons of Staining, somewhere about 1790, the estates descended to John Mayfield, the son of his sister Mary, and subsequently, on his decease without issue, to his nephew and heir-at-law, William Blackburne. Staining Hall, now the property of W. H. Hornby, esq., of Blackburn, is a small and comparatively modern residence, presenting in itself nothing calling for special notice or comment from an antiquarian point of view. Remains of the old moat, however, are still in existence round the building, but beyond this there is no indication of the important station the Hall must have formerly held in the surrounding country, both as the abode of some of its priestly proprietors, of Stanlawe and Whalley, and the seat of a family of wealth and position, like the Singletons would seem to have been.

The township of Hardhorn-with-Newton contains the free school erected and endowed by Mr. James Baines, which has already been fully noticed in the chapter devoted to Poulton. In the hamlet of Staining a chapel and school combined was erected by private munificence in 1865, the former building used for such purposes being both inadequate and inappropriate. The foundation stone was laid by Mrs. Clark, the wife of the late vicar of Poulton, on a site given by W. H. Hornby, esq., of Blackburn and Staining. The ceremony took place on the 26th of May, 1865, and on the 3rd of December in that year service was first performed in the edifice by the Rev. Richard Tonge, of Manchester. The building is of brick, with stone dressings, and comprises a nave, apsis, and tower of considerable altitude, containing a fine toned bell.

On the 1st of February, 1748, Thomas Riding re-leased to John Hornby and Thomas Whiteside, a dwelling-house and certain premises for the remainder of a term of 1,000 years, to be held in trust by them and their heirs for the use and benefit of the poor housekeepers in Hardhorn-with-Newton township, in such manner as directed by the will of Ellen Whitehead. The property of this charity in 1817 consisted of half an acre of ground, and three cottages and a weaving shed standing upon it, together with £40 in money, out at interest. It cannot be ascertained either who Ellen Whitehead was or when she died.

POPULATION OF HARDHORN-WITH-NEWTON.

1801.1811.1821.1831.1841.1851.1861.1871.
311324392409358386389436