Kirkham

“ From the year 418, when the Romans vacated the island, up to the compilation of the Domesday Book by William the Conqueror in 1080-86, a period of over six and a half centuries, history preserves no record of any matter or event directly connected with the town, as distinct from the Hundred in which it is situated. Nevertheless it is obvious that Kirkham must have sprung into being some time during that protracted era, insomuch as it appears amongst the places existing in Amounderness in the Norman survey just indicated. ”

“ The lands lying within the manor of Kirkham, belonging to the Dean and Chapter of Christ Church, in Oxford, and to the burgesses inhabitants of the borough of Kirkham, are bounded east by the lands of Edward Robinson and George Brown, lying within Newton and Scales; westward by the lands of Sir Thomas Clifton, within Westby, and the lands of Christopher Parker, esq., lying in Ribby with Wrea ”

“ Within the ancient church of Kirkham, doubtless in the Clifton chapel, was a chantry founded during the fifteenth century by Richard Clifton, of Clifton, who married Alice, the daughter of John Butler, of Rawcliffe Hall ”

“ The company was not at Court for the winter of 1604–5, but during that of 1605–6 they gave two plays before the Princes Henry and Charles. For these the payee was not Pearce, but Edward Kirkham, who is described in the Treasurer of the Chamber’s account as ‘one of the Mres of the Childeren of Pawles’. Kirkham, who was Yeoman of the Revels, had until recently been a manager of the Children of the Revels at the Blackfriars. It may [22] have been the disgrace brought upon these by Eastward Ho! in the course of 1605 that led him to transfer his activities elsewhere. ”

“ Here is an immense embankment of several yards in height, its base standing in the water.... The line hence directs itself up the rising ground to Plumpton; ... from hence it directs its course to the windmill on the high ground between Weeton Moss and Kirkham, which there opens to the view. Near the windmill the road forms an angle, and thence joins the public road in a long–continuous straight line forwards towards Kirkham.... About midway, within the long town of Kirkham, the line of the Roman roads falls in with Main Street, and continues up to the windmill at the top of the town. ”

“ Subjoined is an account of a disturbance which occurred at Kirkham during the same period, transcribed from the Vale Royal [26] register:—“A narrative of proceedings in a dispute between the abbot of Vale Royal, and Sir Will. de Clifton, knt., respecting the tithes in the manor of Clifton and Westby, in the parish of Kirkham, A.D. 1337, in the time of Peter’s abbacy. [38] The charges alleged against Sir William state, that he had obtained twenty marks [27] due to the abbot; had forcibly obstructed the rector in the gathering of tithes within the manor of Clifton and Westby ”

“ It is expected that in course of time the coast line thus established from Preston through Kirkham, Lytham, St. Anne’s, South Shore, to Blackpool will supersede the old route through Poulton to the last named resort for the conveyance of passengers. Important alterations, it should be noted, were effected in the course of the branch from Kirkham to Lytham immediately preceding its junction with the Blackpool and Lytham line, by which the [449] corner lying north of and between Kirkham and Wrea was cut off. ”

“ A worse tale has to be told of the wilful destruction of the other monasteries, nunneries, and friaries in our Riding.
Of Kirkham Priory, on the bank of the river Derwent, there are remains only of the once beautiful gateway, the cloister court, and the east end of the church. What is now the Swine parish church was once the chancel of the nunnery church. Of the Black Friary at Beverley there are remains of the boundary wall. ”

“ This chantry was in existence in 1452, for in that year, when the abbot and convent of Vale Royal presented Dom. Edmund Layche to the vicarage, the archdeacon instructed John Clarke, the chaplain of the chantry, to induct him. [160] Thomas Prymbett, the officiating priest, was sixty years of age in 1548, and at that date the town and parish of Kirkham contained 1700 “houselinge people.” Five years later Thomas Prymbett received a pension of £5. ”

“ It was agreed (by the “Thirty-men”) that no scriffener be suffered to teach in the church, unless he procure some honest townsmen of Kirkham to pass their word that whatsoever his scholars do, either in breaking glass or in abusing men’s seats—and that they meddle not with the bells—he shall make good what they abuse.”
In 1662 a font was erected at a cost of £2 5s. 4d., and most likely is the one now stationed in the tower entrance to the church. ”

“ The church of St John is mainly Perpendicular, but has a late Norman doorway, and contains a carved and painted pulpit, and in the Kirkham chapel several interesting monuments of the Kirkham family, and a beautiful though damaged stone screen. Among other buildings and institutions are a novitiate of Marist Fathers, a science and art school, a pier with pavilion and concert rooms, and a yacht club. ”

“ If we may judge from the enthusiastic account given by the Duke of Stettin-Pomerania, who vis215ited Blackfriars in the September following, the Children were just as effective under Kirkham's management as they had been under the management of Giles and Evans. It is to be noted, however, that Elizabeth did not again invite the Blackfriars troupe to the Court. ”

“ The tower contains a peal of eight bells, but none of them are of ancient date, those alluded to in the records of the “Thirty-men” having been sold and replaced by fresh ones. The modern church of Kirkham, which, like its predecessor, is dedicated to St. Michael, is a large and handsome structure, built of Longridge stone, and capable of holding about eighteen hundred persons; the chancel is ornamented with a castellated parapet and fluted cornice. A stone coffin, which may be seen outside the church at the east, was taken out of the ground when the chancel was rebuilt. ”

“ NICHOLAS de Walkington (fl. 1193?) , mediæval writer, perhaps a native of Walkington, Yorkshire, entered the monastery of the Regulars at Kirkham in the same county; he was not, as has been frequently stated, a Cistercian. Bale says that he lived about 1193. He was author of ‘Nicolai Walkington de Kirkham brevis narratio de Bello inter Henricum I Regem Angliæ et Ludovicum Grossum R. Francorum ”

“ S. KIRKHAM. FAMILIAR LECTURES ON ENGLISH GRAMMAR. LECTURE I DIVISIONS OF GRAMMAR.—ORTHOGRAPHY.
TO THE YOUNG LEARNER.
You are about to enter upon one of the most useful, and, when rightly pursued, one of the most interesting studies in the whole circle of science. If, however, you, like many a misguided youth, are under the impression that the study of grammar is dry and irksome, and a matter of little consequence, I trust I shall succeed in removing from your mind, all such false notions and ungrounded prejudices ”

“ Legend says that the youth was caught by his foot in the stirrup when thrown, and was dragged by his runaway horse to the spot where the high altar was afterwards located. Sir Walter's sister married into the family of De Ros, among the ancestors of the Dukes of Rutland, and they were patrons of Kirkham until the dissolution of the monasteries. Little remains of it: the gate-house still stands, and in front is the base of a cross said to have been made from the stone against which the boy was thrown. ”

“ In 1357 Cardinal John Thoresby, archbishop of York, made a new ordination of the vicarage of Kirkham, by which it was decreed that, instead of the secular vicar appointed aforetime, the abbot and convent of Vale Royal should select some one from their own monastery to fill the office whenever a vacancy occurred. By this fresh regulation the abbot and convent of Vale Royal were bound to pay to the vicar forty marks per annum, and he on his part was pledged to keep the parsonage house in proper repair and [372] perform all ecclesiastical duties. ”

“ Kirkham had its brank for scolds, in addition to a ducking-stool. We find, in the same county, traces of the brank at Holme, in the Forest of Rossendale. In the accounts of the Greave for the Forest of Rossendale for 1691-2 is an entry of the true antiquarian cast:
In "Some Obsolete Peculiarities of English Law," by William Beamont, the author gives particulars respecting the Warrington brank. "Hanging up in our museum," says Mr. Beamont, "may be seen a representation of a withered female face wearing the brank or scold's bridle ”

“ Within a year Offutt's store, in the phrase of the time, "petered out," leaving Lincoln shiftless. But the victor of Clary's Grove, with his added mastery of "Kirkham's Grammar," was now ripe for public life. Moreover, his experience as a waterman gave him ideas on the question, which then agitated his neighbours, whether the Sangamon River could be made navigable. ”

“ Father Watts, renounced his creed, publicly recanting at Kirkham; he died in 1773, when minister at the episcopal chapel of Wrea-green. According to Mr. Thornber, the priests of Singleton could seldom assign a better reason for desiring a removal to another sphere of labour, than that they were surfeited with wild ducks from the “carrs.” The chapel was rebuilt subsequently, but closed when the present one at Poulton had been completed and opened a few years. ”

“ One day when galloping at a great pace his horse stumbled near a small stone, and young Espec was brought violently to the ground, breaking his neck and leaving his father childless. The grief-stricken parent is said to have found consolation in the founding of three abbeys, one of them being at Kirkham, where the fatal accident took place. The stone the unfortunate boy struck in falling is, according to the legend, incorporated in the base of the cross. ”

“ The residence of the trainer was an elegant villa near the stables, surrounded with a shrubbery. Two steamers plied daily in the season between Preston and Lytham, but the larger share of the company arrived by the road, the journey having a few years previously been rendered more direct by the opening of a route across the marshes, past Freckleton, instead of the former circuitous one through Kirkham. In 1801 the population amounted to 920 persons. ”

“ There is nothing of local interest to recount during the period the Romans held the soil, but after their abdication, when the Anglo-Saxons violated their faith and traitorously seized a land which they had come professedly to protect, the Fylde began to evince symptoms of greater animation; villages sprang up in different spots on the open grounds or clearings in the woods; the solitary Roman settlement at Kirkham was appropriated and renamed by the new arrivals, and, perhaps, for the first time a population of numerical importance was established in the district. ”

“ John de Bradkirk, who said that he had known the church for forty years as a parishioner, and had on many occasions seen the charter confirming the grant of the advowson, etc., to Vale Royal, as for fifteen years he had been in the service of that monastery, and at the time when the present archbishop of York farmed the church of Kirkham, twelve years ago, from the convent of Vale Royal, had been the bearer of the money raised from this church to that dignitary at York ”

“ It is witnessed, that the said Richard Brown, in consideration of the good will he bore to the town of Kirkham, and the inhabitants thereof, and out of his zeal to God, and the charitable relief of the poor, needful and impotent people within the said town, granted to William Robinson and three others, their heirs and assigns, the said yearly rent of 20s., to hold the same upon trust, and to dispose of it amongst so many of the people of the said town, as the bailiffs thereof for the time being should, in their discretion, think most needful, on St. ”

“ There is no guide to the number of the inhabitants, excepting, perhaps, the existence of only three churches in the whole Hundred of Amounderness, and this can scarcely be admitted as certain evidence of the paucity of the population, as in the harassed and unsettled state in which they lived it is not very probable that the people would be much concerned about the public observances of religious ceremonials or services. The churches alluded to were situated at Preston, Kirkham, and St. Michael’s-on-Wyre. ”

“ The Rigbys, of Layton Hall, subsequently became possessed of a great part of Poulton, and at the present day a large number of houses are leased in their name for the remainder of terms of 999 years; the Heskeths, of Mains, and other leading families in the district were also considerable property owners in the town. On one occasion the ruling powers of Kirkham made an unsuccessful attempt to obtain the tolls arising from the cattle fairs held in Poulton and Singleton, but on what plea such claims were urged the record is silent. ”

“ The act which decreed the building of workhouses for the employment of the poor, stated that if any one refused to enter those houses, or objected to perform his share of labour, no relief should be apportioned to him. There can be little doubt that workhouses sprang up at Poulton and in the other parishes of the Fylde about that date, as well as at Kirkham, but in their cases there are no bailiffs’ registers, or similar records, to fall back upon for proof as to the accuracy of the surmise, and consequently we are unable to speak with absolute certainty. ”