CHAPTER XIV.
PARISH OF LYTHAM.
Lytham.
At the commencement of the Norman dynasty, when William I. instituted a survey of his newly-conquered territory, the name of the town and parish which will occupy our attention throughout the present chapter was written Lidun, and was estimated to contain two carucates of arable land. How long this orthography continued in use is difficult to say, but it could not have been for much more than a century, as amongst certain legal documents in the reign of King John, the locality is referred to under the style of Lethum, an appellation which seems to have adhered to it until comparatively recent years. The derivation of the latter title is apparently from the Anglo-Saxon word lethe, signifying a barn, and points obviously to an agricultural origin, whilst the more antique name of Lidun is possibly a corruption of the Anglo-Saxon lade, implying a river discharging itself into the sea, that is, its mouth or estuary, and tun, a town.
Shortly before the termination of the reign of Richard I. in 1199, Richard Fitz Roger, who is supposed to have belonged to the Banastre family, gave all his lands in Lethum, with the church of the same vill, and all things belonging to the church, to God, and the monks of Durham, that they might establish a Benedictine cell there to the honour of St. Mary and St. Cuthbert.[206] The following is a copy of the document by which the transfer was effected:—“Richard Fitz Roger, to all men, both French and English, who may see this letter, greeting: Let all and each of you know, that I, with the consent and wish of my wife, Margaret, and my heirs, for the Salvation of my lord, Earl John, and for the souls of my Father and Mother, and mine and my heirs, have given and granted, and with these presents confirm as a pure and perpetual offering to God and the Blessed Mary and St. Cuthbert, and the monks of Durham, all my estate of Lethum, with the church at the same vill, with all things appertaining to it, in order to build a house of their own order; namely, within these divisions—From the ditch on the western side of the cemetery of Kilgrimol (Lytham Common) over which I have erected a Cross, and from the same ditch and Cross eastward, going along the Curridmere (Wild Moss or Tarns) beyond the Great Moss, and the brook, as far as Balholme (Ballam), which brook runs towards Snincbrigg (Sluice Bridge). Likewise from Balholme directly across the moss, which my lord John, earl of Moreton, divided between himself and me, as far as the northern part of Estholmker (Estham), going eastward as far as the division of the water which comes from Birckholme (Birks), and divides Etholmker and Brimaker (Bryning), following this division of water southward as far as the middle point between Etholme and Coulurugh (Kellamergh), and thus returning towards the west and going southward across the Moss as far as la Pull from the other side of Snartsalte (Saltcoats), as it falls upon the sand of the sea, and thus going southward across to Ribril to the waterside, and thus following the line of the water to the sea on the west, and so to the ditch and across aforementioned,” etc., etc. In a charter dated 1200-1, it is specified that the whole of the lands of Lytham, amounting to two carucates, had been presented by King John when earl of Moreton, to Richard Fitz Roger, by whom, as just shown, they were immediately conveyed to the monks of Durham.
There are unfortunately no means of ascertaining the extent or appearance of the Benedictine cell established at Lytham, but its site would seem to have been that now occupied by Lytham Hall, in the walls of some of the offices attached to which remains of the ancient monastic edifice have been incorporated. Dr. Kuerden alludes, in a manuscript preserved in the Chetham library, to an undated claim of feudal privileges in Lytham, by which the prior of Durham asserted his right to have view of frankpledge in his manor of Lytham, with waif, stray, and infangthefe[207]; emendations of the assize of bread and beer; wrecks of the sea; exemption for himself and tenants in Lytham from suit to the county and wapentake, and from fines and penalties; to have soc, sac, and theam;[208] and finally, to have free warren over all his lands in Lytham, and all royal fish taken there. During the reign of Edward I. the legality of the ecclesiastic’s assumption of the sole right to wreckage was called in question, ultimately ending in litigation, and at Trinity Term, York, the verdict of the jury was given against him. In the twenty-third year of his sovereignty, Edward I. granted the wreck, waif, and stray of Lytham to his brother Edmund, the earl of Lancaster. Amongst the Rolls of the Duchy is the record of an agreement, entered into in 1271, between Ranulphus de Daker, sheriff of Lancaster, Richard le Botiler, and others, for arranging and fixing, with the consent and approval of Stephen, the prior of Lytham, the boundaries between the land of Lytham and Kilgrimol, and that of Layton. The priors of Lytham were entirely dependent on the parent house until 1443, when they solicited and induced Pope Eugenius to issue an edict declaring the prior of that date and his successors perpetual in their office and no longer removable at the will and dictation of the monks of Durham. Afterwards, in the same year, letters patent were received at the Lytham cell, pardoning the application to the papal See and granting the request;[209] but the union between the two houses was not absolutely dissolved, for we find that, in addition to the various properties at Lytham and Durham continuing to be valued together, the cell and domain of the former place were granted in 2 Mary, 1554, to Sir Thomas Holcroft as part of the possessions of the Durham convent. In 1606 the knight transferred his rights and lands in Lytham to Sir Cuthbert Clifton, in exchange for certain estates on the opposite side of the river Ribble. John Talbot Clifton, esq., of Lytham Hall, a descendant of the latter gentleman, is the present lord of the manor. Reverting to the Benedictine cell it is seen from an ecclesiastical valuation, taken in the reign of Henry VIII., probably about the time of the Reformation, that the annual income of the institution was derived from the following sources:—
“Cella de Lethum in com’ Lancastr’
Rad’us Blaxton prior Ibd’m