It is very probable that there was a chapel in Singleton during the earlier years of the fourteenth century, for in 1358-59, Henry, duke of Lancaster, granted to John de Estwitton, hermit, the custody of the chapel of St. Mary, in Singleton; and in 1440 a license was granted to celebrate mass to the inhabitants of Singleton in the chapel at the same place for one year. Twelve years afterwards another license was granted by the archdeacon of Richmond for an oratory to be established in the chapel for the use of the people of the township; and in 1456 the license was renewed by archdeacon Laurence Bothe to John Skilicorne, of Kirkham. The chapel, with all its appurtenances, passed to the Crown at the Reformation; and in the report of the Commissioners of Edward VI., it is stated that “A Stipendarye is founded in the Chapelle of Syngleton, in Kirkeham, by vertue of a lease made out of the Duchie to Sʳ Richarde Houghton, knight, the 26th day of Februarie, in the ffirst yere of the raigne of our soveraign lorde the kinge, that nowe is (1547), unto the ende of 21 yeres the next following; wherein the said Sʳ Richarde covenanteth to pay yerely duringe the said time to a Pryest celebrating in the said Chapelle the sum of 49s. The said Chapelle is distant from the parishe Church of Kirkeham 4 myles; Richarde Godson, the Incumbent, of the age of 38 yeres, hath the said yerely salarie of 49s.” Thomas Houghton, of Lea, the son of the knight, appears to have had some difficulty in inducing sundry of the Singleton tenants to recognise his right of proprietorship after the death of his father, for we find him pleading in the duchy court in 1560-61 that he held the “lands of the late kynge in Singleton, also a house called the chapell house, with three acres of land in the tenure of Wᵐ Yede, a chapell called Singleton chapell, in Singleton aforesaid, with the chapell yarde thereunto belonging, one house or cottage called Corner-rawe, and a windmill; and that the tenants thereof, Robert Carter and James Hall, had never paid any rent, and refused to do so.”[198]
In 1562 the Charity Commissioners of Edward VI. founded a “stipendarye in the Chapelle of Syngleton in Kyrkeham.”
At the archiepiscopal visitation of the diocese of Chester in 1578, the following list of charges was brought against the curate of Singleton:—“There is not servyse done in due tyme—He kepeth no hous nor releveth the poore—He is not dyligent in visitinge the sycke—He doth not teach the catechisme—There is no sermons—He churcheth fornycatours without doinge any penaunce—He maketh a donge hill of the chapel yeard, and he hath lately kepte a typlinge hous and a nowty woman in it.”[199]
From that time we hear no more of the old chapel of Singleton, but the chapel-house, alluded to above, was at a later period flourishing as an inn, and bearing the same name; at the Oliverian survey, in 1650, it was stated that there was a newly erected chapel at Singleton, but that it had no endowment or maintenance belonging to it, and that the inhabitants prayed that it might be constituted a parish church with a “minister and competent mayntenance allowed.”[200] It is probable that after the decline of the Commonwealth this chapel fell into the hands of the Catholics, for Thomas Tyldesley, of Fox Hall, a Romanist, in his diary of 1712, 13 and 14, speaks several times of going “to Great Singleton to prayers”; and doubtless it is the one alluded to in the following indenture, bearing the date 29th August, 1749:—“William Shaw, esq., lord of the manor of Shingleton in yᵉ parish of Kirkham, gave a chapel belonging to him at Shingleton aforesaid, then used as a popish chapel, to be used for yᵉ future as a chapel of ease to yᵉ mother church of Kirkham, for yᵉ benefit of yᵉ inhabitants of Shingleton and of the adjacent townships; and that the said Wᵐ. Shaw proposed to give £200, to be added to a similar sum from Queen Anne’s bounty, for yᵉ endowment of yᵉ said chapel, in consideration whereof Samuel, lord bishop of Chester as ordinary, the dean and chapter of Christ Church, Oxford, as patrons, and Chas. Buck as incumbent, by virtue of an act of George I., grant and decree that yᵉ said William Shaw and his heirs and assigns for ever shall have yᵉ nomination to and patronage of yᵉ said chapel, as often as it is vacant.”
This chapel was dedicated to St. Anne, and in 1756 it was agreed “by all parties that the chapel of Singleton should be always considered a place of public worship according to the liturgy of the Church of England, and the chapel yard always appropriated to the burying of the dead and the support of the minister”; further, the chapel living was declared a perpetual curacy, separate and independent of the mother church of Kirkham, “save and except that the curate must assist the vicar of the latter place on Christmas day, Easter day, Whitsunday, Good Friday, and each sabbath when it is customary to administer the sacrament; also the tythes, Easter dues, funeral sermons, and all other parochial rights and duties belonged to the vicarage of Kirkham.”[201]
The above is an authentic record of the way in which the chapel of Singleton passed out of the hands of the Romanists into those of the Protestants, but the Rev. W. Thornber, to whom this document was evidently unknown, has given in his History of Blackpool and its neighbourhood, a different version of the matter. He states, with apparently no greater authority than tradition, that after the suppression of the rebellion of 1745, the protestants of the village celebrated the 5th of November more zealously than usual, raising contributions of peat at every house, and amongst the rest had even the presumption to call at that of the priest. The refusal of the ecclesiastic to provide his share of fuel so incensed the villagers that they ejected him both from his house and the church; and the lord of the manor seized this opportunity to convert the chapel into a protestant place of worship.
Singleton chapel was a low building with a thatched roof, the eaves of which came within a short distance of the ground; the priest’s house was attached to the chapel and communicated with it by a door into the sacristy. In 1806 this ancient building, having become much dilapidated, was pulled down and replaced, through the liberality of Joseph Hornby, of Ribby, esq., by a neat gothic structure, having a square tower at one end, in which was placed a peal of six bells; in 1859 the latter edifice was levelled to the ground, and the present handsome and commodious church erected on the site, chiefly through the munificence of the late Thomas Miller, esq. The few mural monuments within the church are not of any great antiquity, and are in memoriam of the Harrisons and Atkinsons, of Bankfield. There are no inscriptions of interest in the churchyard, beyond those on the stones surmounting the vault belonging to the Bankfield families just named. In 1869 a separate district or parish was assigned to this cure, and the present incumbent of the church acquired the title of vicar.
| THE CURATES AND VICARS OF SINGLETON. | ||
|---|---|---|
| Date of Institution. | Name. | Cause of Vacancy. |
| About 1545 | Richard Godson | |
| ” 1562 | Thomas Fieldhouse | |
| In 1651 | Cuthbert Harrison, B.A. | |
| ” 1749 | John Threlfall, B.A. | |
| About 1809 | Thomas Banks | |
| Before 1843 | William Birley, M.A. | |
| In 1843 | Leonard C. Wood, B.A. | Resignation of W. Birley |
The Rev. Cuthbert Harrison was the son of Richard Harrison, of Newton, in Kirkham parish, and appears to have been the progenitor of the Harrisons, of Bankfield, being the first of the name on record as holder of that property. It is doubtful whether this minister was ejected from Singleton, as generally believed, or not, for in 1662, the date of the Act of Uniformity which drove so many of the clergy from their cures, he was in Ireland, holding the office of minister at Shankel, near Lurgan; so that if his ejection ever did take place from Singleton it must have been anterior to, and consequently unconnected with, the obnoxious Act. According to a letter from his son, however, he was ejected from Shankel, and it is probably that circumstance which has given rise to the supposition and assertion that he was one of those who suffered in the Fylde for conscience’s sake in 1662. After leaving Ireland he opened a meeting-house at Elswick in 1672 by royal license, for the use “of such as do not conform to the Church of England and are of the persuasion commonly called Congregational.” This place of worship was closed shortly afterwards by a decree of parliament, and Cuthbert Harrison, to escape persecution, was compelled to hold his services “very privately in the night” in his own house, or in one belonging to some member of his congregation. “He practysed physic,” says his son, “with good success, and by it supported his family and gained the favour of the neighbouring gentry. He baptized his own children, with many others.”