J. S. Dodd, Delᵗ. on Stone by W. Walton. M. & N. Hanhart, Lithogʳˢ.
SMITHELL’S HALL, LANCASHIRE.
SMITHELLS HALL,
LANCASHIRE.
mithells Hall is situated about two miles and a half from the populous and flourishing manufacturing town of Bolton. The manor was dependent on the manor of Sharples, the lord of which claimed from its owners a pair of gilt spurs annually, and—by a singular and “inconvenient” custom—the unlimited use of the Smithells cellars during one week of every year. It does not appear, however, that the lord of Smithells was bound, at this particular period, to store his cellars with any particular quantity or quality of liquor. Up to the time of Henry VII. the Radcliffes were lords of Smithells; but Joan, the daughter and sole heir of Sir Ralph Radcliffe, having married Robert Barton, Esq., he became in that reign seized of the manor and lordship of Smithells, where his posterity continued, until Grace, sole daughter and heiress of Thomas Barton, Esq., the last male heir, was married to Henry, eldest son of Henry first Lord Viscount Fauconberg, whose descendant, Thomas, in 1721, sold the manor, which afterwards passed into the hands of the Byrons of Manchester, by whom it was sold for 21,000l. to Mr. Ainsworth of Halliwell, an opulent bleacher, and a descendant of the Ainsworths of Pleasington.