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The village of GREAT MITTON, though within the boundary of Yorkshire, is a portion of Whalley parish; and its Church is boldly seated on a high precipitous bank, above the river Ribble, near its junction with the Hodder. The church appears to be about the age of Edward the Third, and contains several monuments and tombs to the memory of the Sherburnes of Stonyhurst, in this parish. Most of these are within a private chapel or chantry*, on the north side of the choir. The most ancient of the monuments is that to the memory of Sir Richard Sherburne, who, according to the inscription, was "master forester of the forest of Bowland, Steward of the manor of Sladeburn, Lieutenaut of the Isle of Man, and one of her Majesty's deputy Lieutenants in the county of Lancaster." Sir Richard died the 26th of July, 1594. Here is a mural monument to another Richard Sherburne and his Lady, kneeling: he armed; she in a ruff, with a black hood turning from behind over the top of her head. Three Altar-tombs, with recumbent figures in white marble, having long hair and loose gowns over their coats; one of these has his Lady lying by him. All of them are of the name of Richard, and each figure is spurred, and placed cross-legged. A long inscription to the memory of Sir Nicholas Sherburne, among other things, states, that he "was a man of great humanity, simpathy, and concern for the good of mankind, and did many charitable things while he lived; he particularly set his neighbourhood a spinning of Jersey wool, and provided a man to comb the wool, and a woman who taught them to spin, whom he kept in his house, and allotted several rooms he had in one of the courts of Stouihurst, for them to work in, and the neighbours came to spin accordingly; the spinners came every day, and span as long a time as they could spare, morning and afternoon, from their families: this continued from April 1699, to August 1701. When they had all learn'd, he gave the nearest neighbour each a pound, or half a pound

L3

A View of this is given in the History of Whalley, from an exquisite

drawing by Turner.

now enclosed, and mostly cultivated, was within a few years ranged by several herds of wild deer; the last of these was destroyed in the year 1805. Browseholme has long been the seat, or lodge of the Bowbearer*, or master-forester of the district +: and this title and office has been retained by the present worthy possessor. "Here have been two lawnds, or enclosures for deer, Radholme lawnd, and Lathgram Park. The beautiful river Hodder, famous for its umber, rising near the cross of Grete, and passing through the parish of Sladeburn, intersects the forest, and forms the only ornamental scenery of a tract, otherwise bleak and barren, by its deep and fringed banks. On one of these is the little chapel of 'Whitewell, together with an inn, the court-house of Bowland, and, undoubtedly, a very ancient resting-place for travellers journeying from Lancaster to Clithero, or Whalley. The landscape here is charming-the Hodder brawling at a great depth beneath the

chapel,

were separated at an early period from their mother church, and at the Domesday Survey were taken as portions of the manor of Grindleton, as they have since been of Slaydburn; but the forest of Bowland, in the strict sense, was, in its civil relation, always taken as one of the demesnes of the castle, and subject to the court of Woodmote alone; and its ecclesiastical, was always a portion of the extra parochial tract called the Castle-parish, and uniformly paid tythes to the Abbey of Whalley, after the annexation of the chapel of St. Michael in Castro."--History of Whalley, p. 206.

* Dr. Whitaker thinks that the title of Bowbearer is allusive to this forest: but we find it in different Archaeological works applied to an under officer of the forest; and in Cromp. Jur. fo. 201, his peculiar duty is defined.

+. One custom in letting the great sheep farms in the higher parts of Bowland, deserves to be mentioned, as I do not know, says Dr. Whitaker, that it prevails any where else.—It is this, that the flock, often consisting of 2000 sheep, or more, is the property of the lord, and delivered to the tenant by a schedule, subject to the condition of delivering up an equal number of the same quality at the expiration of the term. Thus the tenant is merely usufructuary of his own stock-The practice was familiar to the Roman law, and seems to have arisen from the difficulty of procuring tenants who were able to stock farms of such extent.

chapel, washes the foot of a tall conical knowl, covered with oaks to its top, and is soon lost in overshadowing woods beneath.-But it is for the pencil, and not the pen, to do justice to this scene. On the opposite hill, and near the keeper's house, are the remains of a small encampment, which has been supposed to be Roman, but the remains are too inconsiderable to justify any conjecture about them. At no great distance a cairn of stones was opened, and found to contain a sort of kist-vaen, and a skeleton: it is singular that neither of these remains have been noticed by Rauthmell, the diligent and accurate investigator of the Roman antiquities of his own neighbourhood: but as he was minister of Whytewell, he could scarcely be ignorant of this encampment, and may therefore be presumed not to have thought it Roman. On an adjoining height was discovered a quarry and manufactory of querns, or portable millstones, of which, though probably introduced by the Roman soldiers into Britain, the use appears to have continued among us till after the Norman conquest*."

The mansion at Browseholme is a large pile of building, with a centre, and two wings projecting at right angles from the ends. In the front of the centre is an ornamental façade of three stories, with pilasters of four orders of architecture, and the whole in the fashion of Elizabeth and James the First's reigns.

Though many very considerable improvements have been progressively made, and are still making in the house, yet the present possessor carefully guards against any innovations or alterations in the exterior character of this venerable and interesting specimen of ancient domestic architecture. Within the house is a fine old library, well stored with curious, useful, and amusing literature; a collection of coins, and a valuable assemblage of manuscripts, many of which relate to the history and antiquities of the neighbourhood. Among other curiosities preserved here with laudable attention, is the Original Seal of the Commonwealth, consisting of massy silver, and inscribed "The Seale for approbation of Ministers."

* History of Whalley, p. 208.

Ministers." "The papers of the family contain many curious and original documents of those times, and a large collection of songs and ballads relative to the rump parliament, which have never yet been published. The stair-case is rich in painted glass. Many of the coats of arms were brought from Whalley abbey *." In different apartments are several fine paintings by the best Flemish masters, and many excellent productions of the present English school. I greatly regret that I cannot, at present, give a list even of the principal of these, but as I shall have occasion hereafter, in the account of Yorkshire, tò relate some further particulars concerning this part of the county, I hope then to be able to render more justice to the place, and to its liberal possessor.

The hall, forty feet long, is furnished with many antiquities; such as the Ribchester inscription of the XXth legion, celts, fibulæ, different pieces of armour, and particularly a small spur found in the apartment called King Henry the Sixth's, at Waddington Hall. Among the rest is a complete suit of buff, worn by one of the family, a sufferer for his loyalty in the great rebellion t."

Dr. Whitaker states, that the only vestige of the forest laws preserved here is the Stirrup, through which every dog, excepting those belonging to the lords, must pass. He also mentions the following portraits. A head of Jean de Paresa, by Velasquez, which is esteemed one of the best portraits, by that master, in England. Another of Edward Parker, Esq. who was bowbearer of Bowland about 1690, and who appears in the costume of his office, with a staff tipped with a buck's horn, and a bugle-horn tucked under his girdle.

At the south-west extremity of the township of Clayton-lesMoors is DUNKENHAIGH, which appears to have been possessed

by

*

History of Whalley, p. 214.

+ Ibid.

by a family of that name at a remote period. It was purchased towards the end of Elizabeth's, or beginning of James the First's reign, by Sir Thomas Walmsley, Knight, one of the justices of the court of common pleas, and now belongs to a descendant of the late Robert Edward Lord Petre.

At a short distance south-west of Ribchester is SAMLESBURY, an extensive manor, which continued the property of the great family of Southworth for 350 years. The manor house was formerly moated round, and inclosed three sides of a large quadrangle. In the centre was the great Hall, "a noble specimen of most rude and massy wood-work, though repaired in 1532, by Sir Thomas Southworth, whose name it bears, is of very high antiquity, probably not later than Edward the Third. The remaining wing, which is built of wood towards the quadrangle, and brick without, (the earliest specimen of brick work in the parish), is of a later date. There is about this house a profusion and bulk of oak, that must almost have laid prostrate a forest to erect it. The principal timbers are carved with great elegance, and the compartments of the roof painted with figures of saints, while the outsides of the building are adorned with profile heads of wood cut in bold relief within huge medallions; it is curious to observe that the inner doors are without a pannel, or a lock, and have always been opened, like those of modern cottages, with a latch and a string. It is also remarkable, that in this house the boards of the upper floors, which are indeed massy planks, instead of crossing, lie parallel to the joysts, as if disdaining to be indebted to the other for support*"

SALESBURY HALL, on the banks of the Ribble, nearly opposite Ribchester, has been successively the property of the Salesburies, Clitheroes, and Talbots, the last a branch from Bashall. This is the birth-place of Thomas Talbot, who, in the year

1580,

* History of Whalley, p. 474.

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