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The present church was erected in 1749, and is a plain white washed building, without a tower or any attempt at architectural display. Attached to the south wall within are three tablets inscribed thus:

"Beneath this marble are deposited the remains of Mary Ramsden, daughter and heiress of the rev. Christr. Westby Alderston, late vicar of St. Michael's in this county, and wife of Rowland Ramsden of Halifax. She was born Aug. 17th, 1768 and died Nov. 6th, 1764."

"Sacred to the memory of George Bickerstaffe of Hambleton, gent., died May 3rd, 1766; Jenny Alderston, his granddaughter, died May 16th, 1770; and Agnes, wife of the rev. Christ". Westby Alderston, widow of Richd. Harrison of Bankfield, and daughter of George Bickerstaffe, died March 14th, 1820."

"Sacred to the memory of the rev. Thomas Butcher, B.A., for 39 years the respected incumbent of this chapel. Erected by the voluntary contributions of his parishioners."

On the aisles of the church are three gravestones, bearing the following incriptions :

"In this aisle lie the remains of the rev. John Field, B.A. and minister of this place, who died 21st April, 1765; also his wife and children."

"Here lies the body of Dorothy, wife of Richard Carter of Hambleton, who died 14th May, 1807."

"William, son of James Norris of Liverpool, buried the 29th of June 1692Though Boreas' Blast and Neptune's Waves have tost me to and fro, yet a spite on both by God's decree I harbour here below: Here at anchor I doe ride with many of our fleet, yet once again I must set sail my Generall Christ to meet."1

I. This stone was in the yard until the rebuilding of the church, when it was enclosed within the new and more extensive edifice; it is supposed to mark the grave of a sailor washed up on the banks of the river Wyre.

In earlier days, when the church was held by the Roman Catholics, the burial ground was evidently of much greater extent than at present, and surrounded by an immense moat, between six and seven yards wide, and of a considerable depth. In a field lying to the east of the church can now be seen the ancient limits of the ground in that direction, bounded by a long stretch of the old moat in a very fair state of preservation, but of course somewhat contracted by accumulations of vegetation; and in another plot of ground to the west, may be traced by a slight depression the course of the same trench, marking the westerly extent of the yard. The northerly length of the moat passed behind the present churchyard, and a portion of it, about two yards wide, is still to be seen there, the remainder of its breadth being filled in

and included in the cemetery. The southerly stretch of this ancient ditch or fosse ran just within the railings, protecting the burial ground in front. When the existing walls were built round the yard great difficulty was met with in forming a good foundation over the site of the moat at different points, as it was found to be filled in with fragments of bricks, mortar, and general rubbish, which seems to indicate that it was abolished when the church itself was in course of reconstruction, and that the old building materials and debris were used for the purpose of raising it to the common level, indicating that the work must have been accomplished either at the rebuilding of 1749, or at some previous and unrecorded one. The moat would be crossed by a bridge of fair dimensions, which was probably situated on the west side, as the sexton lately discovered the well-preserved remains of a straight footpath, paved with long tiles, and running from the church for some distance towards the site of the moat in that direction; the path was between two and three feet below the surface of the ground.

The church was separated from the mother edifice of Kirkham, and had an independent district assigned to it in 1846. The incumbent has the title of vicar.

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An Independent chapel was erected by subscription a few years since, and schools subsequently added.

From the report of the Charity Commissioners, we learn that long before the commencement of the nineteenth century there was a school at Hambleton, but no attempt to elucidate more

particularly its origin or date of erection can be hazarded. 1797 the only endowment it can boast of was left by Matthew Lewtas, a native of Hambleton, and consisted of £200, the interest of which had to be given to John, the son of George Hall, of Hambleton, until he reached the age of twenty-one; and if before or at that time he was appointed master of the school he had to continue to receive the whole of the income whilst he held such mastership, but if, although he was willing to accept the post, some other person should be selected for it, then when he came of age, half of the income passed from him to the school, and he retained the other moiety until his death, when it also went to increase the stipend of the master. The other condition of the will applied to the master, and obliged him in return for the interest or income of the £200, to teach as many poor children of Hambleton as the money would pay for. John Hall never obtained the appointment, so that the present master receives the full interest of the bequest, which is invested on mortgage.

The poor of Hambleton have £2 annually distributed amongst them through the generosity of Sir Nicholas Sherburne, of Stonyhurst, who in 1706, when lord of the manor of Hambleton, charged his estate of Lentworth Hall with this charity.

The yearly interest of 10 was given for the benefit of poor housekeepers in Hambleton by Mary, the daughter of vicar Clegg, of Kirkham, and the wife of Emanuel Nightingale, of York, gent., who was born in 1673.

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The statute acres of the township amount to 1,603.

CHAPTER XIV.

PARISH OF LYTHAM.

LYTHAM.

T 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.' The following is a copy of the document by which the

1. Richmondshire, vol. ii. p. 440.

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 cemetry 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 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

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