Chapter I Rochdale Before Domesday

" i„ l i~u, 11

Chapter One ROCHDALE BEFORE DOMESDAY : 1086 THE STORY OF THE ROCKS . ETWEEN the Parish Church of St. Chad and the site of the ancient castle nearly half a mile away to the south west, stands a seven ton rock which, older than either, is yet a comparative newcomer B to Rochdale, for it was brought by the glaciers of the Ice Age and dropped when they melted . The boulder itself is a kind of milestone between the Age of Mountains and the brief Age of Man-beneath it lie the layers of coal- measures and millstone grit,-around it flows the everyday modern life whose very character depends on the amazing contents of the local rocks which are hidden below the busy streets of the town and the moorland soil of its boundaries . Rochdale owes much to the men who realised the importance of the boulder : it is one of the largest in the district and eventually, in 1893, permission was obtained to transport it from Cowm Top, Castleton (or Back Lanes Estate, near the present Works of Messrs. David Bridge and Co.), to Broadfield Park, where it now rests near the Park Street entrance . Very fittingly, at the foot of the Park Slopes stands the Library, the meeting-place and focus for members of the Rochdale Literary and Scientific Society . It is thanks to the energy and often heroic endeavours of this society that so much of the town's history is known . The preservation of the boulder is only one typical example of the efforts recorded in those volumes of Transactions which have provided much of the material for the following pages .

2 ROCHDALE RETROSPECT The late Mr, Maxim, for instance, prepared for the Museum a chart to illustrate how, during the crinkling and cooling of the earth's crust, the Continent was several times submerged by floods . The coal seams of Rochdale were formed from swamp forests condensed by sandstone and shale beds which were themselves compressed deposits of sand, mud and silt . Surface clays were left by glaciers after the general sub- sidence of land which led to the separation of the British Isles from Europe . How long ago was this? Very roughly, the age of the Archaean and Primary, or oldest rocks in the world, may be reckoned in hundreds of millions of years, the Secondaries in scores or tens of millions and the Quaternaries in thousands of years . To the Primary Age belong the first fossilized remains of life : the protozoa or jelly-specks-some enclosed in shells,-also the corals, sea-scorpions and first fishes . The Secondary Age saw the appearance of reptiles, followed by the Tertiary mammals, such as elephants and horses . Not till the Quaternary Age was the Broadfield boulder dropped . One of the earliest and most fascinating fossils discovered in this district must surely be the pseudo-scorpion included amongst finds by Messrs. Baldwin, Parker, Platt and Sutcliffe at the Old Sparth Bottoms brickfield .' The only other specimen of this kind ever found before was at Mazon Creek, Illinois, U .S .A . Dr. R. M . C. Eager, of Manchester University, in a paper revised in 1952, 2 refers to " the unique arthropod fauna collected from Sparth Bottoms, near Rochdale, where king-crabs, giant millepedes and scorpions have been found " in the Coal Measure (or Upper Carboniferous) strata, which he dates from some 240 million years ago. How many of us realise that the lowly club-mosses and horse-tails which still grow in marshy places are the descendants of the Lepidoden- drons with 100-foot tall trunks, and the 10-50 feet high Calamites or reeds of the Carboniferous forests? 3 THE BOULDERS ARRIVE. With the coming of the Quaternary Age, another type of rock was deposited above the remains of the swamp-forests . Mr. Walter Bald- win's sketch-map of Rochdale's once-glacial lakes 4 shows how the great ice-sheet, which once covered most of England, flowed in an approximately N .W . to S.E. direction across the Rochdale area, damming up streams into lakes which filled the Naden, Whitworth and Littleborough valleys, depositing accumulations of sands, gravels and clays, tearing rocks from the Lake District and S .W. Scotland and letting them fall during the melting of the glaciers. An 1892 chart made by the then Borough Surveyor, Mr. S . S. Platt, shows 370 individual stones scattered round Rochdale's granites from Criffel and Dalbeattie, or from Eskdale, volcanic rocks from the Lake District, limestones, etc. and some local grits, sandstone, flagrock, tank and ganister. The Cowm Top boulder in Broadfield Park is of andesite, probably from Coniston or Borrowdale ;

ROCHDALE BEFORE DOMESDAY : 1086 3 another large boulder, of native rock, by the Esplanade, is visibly much scratched and polished by the action of the ice . With the passing of the glaciers came conditions favourable to Man, hut, for many thousands of years to come, the compressed forests, or coal, and the impacted sand-grains, or good building-stone, were to lie neglected .

Adaptation alter Walter Baldwin . Glacial Lakes of the Rochdale Area . FIRST MEN. The different stages of Man's progress have been named after the materials which he gradually learnt to use and which have outlasted his own mortal remains . First, he chipped small pieces of stone or flint into tools and weapons, secondly, he discovered copper and bronze, and, lastly, iron. The Stone Age has three divisions, the Palaeolithic being the oldest, then the Mesolithic, or middle era, followed by the Neolithic, or new, Stone Age ending in approximately 2000 B .C. THE FIRST WORKSHOPS. Microliths of the middle period (or " pigmy " flints so named because of their size), lie buried in soil below the peat of the Lancashire and Yorkshire border, which is one of the richest Mesolithic areas in Europe. The existence of these tiny scrapers and barbs in Lancashire was first realised by Mr. James Horsfall, who, together with Dr . H. Colley March and Mr. Robert Law, was amongst the local pioneers of research-

4 ROCHDALE RETROSPECT

work concerning Rochdale flint implements . Concentrations of pigmy flints have been found on Know] Hill, and on Middle Hill (north of Brown Wardle) ; more than a dozen of these prehistoric " workshops " are grouped on the Saddleworth hills south-east of Blackstone Edge, and scattered finds have been unearthed on ground over 1000 feet high in a semi-circle from the north-west to the south-east of Rochdale . This is clearly shown by Dr . Margaret Davies' chart of Mesolithic sites and moorland peat .6 She suggests that these early hunters lived in shallow pits on plateaus above the dense forests of the lowlands . Evidence provided by the Peak District shows that the microlith makers hunted for their food the wild horse, the ox, the red and roe deer and the pig . Smaller prey, such as hare and duck, also existed at this time . THE STORY OF THE PEAT. The Pennine peat itself contains the pollen of land forests which flourished as the climate grew warmer. First came the cold-resisting trees of birch and pine, then hazels, elms, oaks and alders. Amongst the lower levels of these compressed forests are the leaf- and lozenge- shaped arrow-heads of the Neolithic herdsmen : the barbed arrow-heads of the Bronze Age traders are rarer ; a fine example some II in. long was discovered on Trough Edge in 1888 by Dr . March . Lying above sandstone and grits, the heavily rain-soaked peat contains humic acid and is a good preservative, although not of iron and bones . The discovery of very early human bones on Hades Hill is therefore all the more remarkable. HADES HILL BARROW AND HUMAN BONES . In 1898, during a bitterly cold and wet winter, Messrs. J. T. Hill, W. A. Parker and W . H . Sutcliffe opened up a " round " barrow which measured 52 by 45 feet .? They found inside it, protected by a covering and circle of sandstones, the remains of a two-tier urn and the broken, partly burnt bones of a small person, probably a woman, together with burnt flint implements and flakes, part of a jasper flint being marked with the signs of the sun and moon . There was no metal, but there were also animal bones, including the burnt tooth of an ox, and quartz pebbles . A striking fact was the lack of human teeth, which may have been kept to form a memorial necklet or amulet . The urn bore the marks of its maker's hand, being of partly baked clay, and ornamented with a kind of chevron design, perhaps the imprint of a grass rope . This might be considered an early attempt at twisting fibres : specimens of Bronze Age woollen cloth have been found on the Pennine moors near Halifax . The shape of the barrow, the two-tier urn and the ox tooth - all suggest that this was a Bronze Age or Early Celtic burial place . THE KIMMERIDGE BRACELET. , Another important discovery is the bracelet of Kimmeridge shale found on Flint Hill, east of Blackstone Edge, by Mr . J. H . Price in 1929.8 This type of shale comes only from Dorset and objects made of it are

ROCHDALE BEFORE DOMESDAY : 1086 5

extremely scarce in the Pennines . The bracelet, about 3 ,5 in . in total diameter, is the most perfect specimen of its kind in the country- circular, smooth and plain, like another of the Early Iron Age found at Glastonbury. Other orna- ments of Kimmeridge shale have been taken fromYorkshire barrows of the Bronze or Early Iron Ages . THE CELTIC NECKLET . The different Stone, Bronze and Iron Ages overlap to a great degree. It is impossible to separate Phom : D . worralt, them completely into successive The Kimmeridge bracelet, eras, but an approximate date may he suggested for Lancashire's Late remains of Celtic the Bronze Age . Between 139-161 A .D. the Egyptian geographer and astronomer Ptolemy was living in Alexandria . From notes which he left it would appear that near, or at, Lancaster there already existed a Celtic headquarters, Rigodunum (i.e. " king's town, or fort"), " and it was precisely in that vicinity that such evidence of Late Celtic art as exists is mostly to be found.-9 Mention must first he made of an early Celtic bronze double-looped spear-head from the Piethorne waterworks, 1° and of the socketed iron spear-head with traces of wooden shaft, and fragments of an ox's horn found by Mr . J. H . Price in 1933, 1 1 300 yards south of the Roman road on Blackstone Edge . Early in the 19th century, and by an accident which has an almost fairy-tale element about it, the magnificent Late Celtic torque was disclosed . In 1832 a workman was uprooting the stump of an oak-tree at Mow Road, Calderbrook 1- (near Handle Hill). Coming upon a large flag-stone, he broke it, and beneath it was the necklet . Its lower semi- circle is made of alternate convex and concave bronze beads, strung on a piece of iron ; the upper half is a bronze tube, ornamented with a late Celtic design .13 The two halves are dowelled by iron pins ; the whole cir- clet weighs about I lb . 5 oz. with a diameter of some four inches . In 1889 the Rochdale historian Lt. Colonel Henry Fishwick reported that the torque was in the possession of the Lord of the Manor of Rochdale . The present descendant of the family and Lord of the Manor is James Peregrine Dearden, who lives in New Zealand . His father, Peregrine Robert Dearden, died there in 1952 . It is pleasing to add that, while this book was being completed, Mrs . G. Dearden, of Walcot Hall, Lincolnshire, presented the torque to the Rochdale Museum in May, 1955 .

6 ROCHDALE RETROSPECT THE ROMANS COME NORTH . The history of late Celtic art in the county (of Lancashire) is interwoven with the Roman occupation, and later also the Anglo-Saxon period."l4 After the Romans landed in Britain in 55 B .C. they found a land peopled with warlike tribes who fought with spears and long swords, buried their dead in funeral urns and worshipped strange gods but were already partly civilized : they lived in huts, tilled the ground, kept herds of cattle and used saws, axes, hammers, needles and dyes such as black graphite, reddish iron-ore hematite and vegetable blue woad . In Lancashire, cut off from the north and and east by mountains, and from the west by sea, it is probable that the majority of the inhabitants were of Celtic origin . Not until after A .D. 78 did the Roman general Agricola (having conquered Wales) subdue the lands north of the Mersey and the Humber . The first Christian emperor, Constantine, was proclaimed ruler of Britain m306. In A.D. 410 the emperor Honorius, attacked by barbarians nearer home, could no longer aid this island against its invaders, and within twenty years the Romans finally withdrew, leaving the northern Britons to defend themselves against the unconquered Picts of Scotland . The Romans had come in order to extend their empire, and to take away slaves and grain ; they brought the example of law and order, built forts, temples and villas and a nation-wide system of roads throughout a defenceless country. When they left there radi- ated out from Manchester, like wheel-spokes, massively built ruler- straight roads through oak and alder forests and thickets, including at least three roads of which sub- stantial traces remain today : 1 5 the north-western to Ribchester, the south-western to Chester, and the roughly north-eastern to Oldham Photo : D . Worral . and Castleshaw . (There are also The Celtic torque. various theories concerning a direct route from Manchester and via Blackstone Edge to Yorkshire) . From this last Stanedge route probably branched the Blackstone Edge road to Ilkley, where it joins the Ribchester road to York . Route 11 of t Antonine Itinerary gives York as the headquarters of the Sixth gton. The Itinerary, or road-book, is considered to date from the beginning of the 3rd century A.D., or earlier . Before entering into a brief discussion of the Blackstone Edge road it would be best to summarize the main Roman finds in the Rochdale area,

ROCHDALE BEFORE DOMESDAY : 1086 7 THE SILVER ARM . During 1793, at the Tunshill quarry (belonging to Robert Beswick of Pike House), some workmen unearthed " the right arm and hand of a silver statue of Victory, of undoubted Roman origin . It is nine and a half inches long, and weighs six ounces, and is made of pure silver . The hand is solid, but the arm is hollow . An armlet surrounds the arm above the elbow, and from another on the wrist is suspended a silver plate, upon which is inscribed (by small holes drilled through it) VlCTORIAE LEG . VI. VIC . VAL . RUFUS . V .S.L . M . ' To Victory of the Sixth Legion the victorious Valerius Rufus performs his vow willingly to a deserving object .'"In

Adaptarion : H . Harre. The Silver arm . The arm eventually came into the possession of Dr . Whitaker, the historian of Whalley, and descended to his grand-daughter, Mrs . Guthrie of Trewyn, near Abergavenny, Monmouthshire . In 1870, during the Franco-Prussian war, Mrs . Guthrie was in Paris, but escaped, bearing the silver arm with her, before the Germans took the city .17 In 1889 it was still with her at Trewyn, but recent efforts to find it have been un- successful . Although this superb trophy was discovered very close to a theor- etical bee-line between Royton and Littleborough, this is no proof that the Roman armies passed close by, as it was probably loot wrenched from a complete two-foot-high statue and carried to a hiding-place . ROMAN COINS AND OTHER FINDS . It is noticeable that the principal finds of coins have come from the north-eastern half of Rochdale, through which the Royton-Littleborough line passes : also that the two main date-groups fall between A .D . 41-78, and from A .D. 275-305. There is now in the Museum a Roman silver bracelet, presented by Captain Royds and found in 1865 at Walmersley, Bury . In addition the Museum possesses sixteen coins which date from A.D. 253-282. These are the residue of 700 mostly corroded and un- identifiable coins discovered in 1856 on the bank of the Roch, near Hooley Bridge, Heywood,ls during the preliminaries of building one of the Bam- ford houses of, appropriately enough, the banking family of the Fentons,

8 ROCHDALE RETROSPECT THE ROMAN ROAD . Any traveller from Rochdale to Halifax today may see the parallel grass-grown grooves which, just before the last left-hand turn below the White House, leave the modern motor-road and rise in a straight line over the rocks, peat and hummocks of the high moors . The problem of proving the Roman origin of this Blackstone Edge route has long held the interest of contributors to the Rochdale Literary and Scientific Society's transactions, and the investigations by Dr . March in 1879 were followed by those of Mr . Baldwin and Mr. Sutcliffe in 1906 In 1881, together with Canon Molesworth and Lt . Col. Fishwick, W. Thompson Watkin inspected the road and in his Roman Lancashire, two years later, wrote " There are few, if any, Roman roads in Europe whose pavements are as perfect as this one." In 1923 the Society financed the extensive excavations which were in the charge of Professor Richmond,19 and in 1932 provided further funds, together with the Ancient Monuments Society, towards the res- toration and clearing made by Mr . J. H . Price,20 who, helped by the voluntary labour of several unemployed men, used stone from Mrs. Harvey's Summit Quarry, with transport given by Messrs. Fothergill and Harvey and by Mr . Alfred Law, M .P. The cleared section on the Lancashire side is over 16 feet from kerb to kerb, being slightly arched, with ditches at each side ; it is paved with

The Roman road, Blackstone Edge .

ROCHDALE BEFORE DOMESDAY : 1086 9 squared stone blocks of local sandstone, grooved by well-worn wheel tracks, and runs as straight as a die over a gradient as steep as I in 5 . In all these details it is characteristic of Roman roads in general . 1 . A. Richmond compares the stone ribs, which are built across the direction of the surface, with other similar transverse ribs on Roman roads in Algiers and in Sardinia. The central trough which is a striking feature of the steepest gradient is made of millstone grit and has caused much theorizing . Dr . March suggested that it was used as a kind of brake, whereby charioteers skidded their wheels when going downhill . W. T. Watkin thought that its groove was made by a three-wheeled vehicle . Fishwick quotes that trailing-stones acting as brakes were used to hold back heavily- laden carts coming down from the Blackstone Edge quarries, but Rich- mond has found that the groove was gradually produced by wear soon after the surface had been used by traffic. The fact remains that this central trough is unique and the reason for its formation has not so far been proved . J. H . Price describes it as containing two further shallow depressions some 8 in . apart . It seems fairly certain that the Blackstone Edge road is Roman ; even the approximate date of its building has been discussed . The late Professor Haverfield suggested to the Yorkshire Archaeological Society that it was made by Hadrian (who visited Britain in 199 A.D.), and I. A . Richmond confirms this view . Apart from the central trough two mysteries remain : first, concerning the origin of that ancient way which J. H . Price unearthed beneath the Roman foundations, and second, whether there is any proof behind the early historians' belief that there was a Roman fort at Littleborough -possibly below the still-surviving walls of Windy Rank . It is true that the Old English words " Litel Burh " imply a small castle or shelter, but is equally true that Wuerdle, or Wordehill, may be construed as the Old English " Weord Hyll " or " hill on which an army was stationed" Without some definite and material evidence there is so far no proof that there was a Roman camp or station at Littleborough . Those of us who wish to follow up the prehistory of Rochdale more fully, and without the strenuous physical efforts of the early pioneers, may do so indoors and at their ease today by consulting the large relief map presented to the Museum by Mr . F. Lye through the Rochdale Literary and Scientific Society, and on which the sites of the antiquities have been mapped out by Professor Richmond . THE DARK AGE TILL DOMESDAY . After the Romans departed, Britain became entangled in warfare and invasions in which three Germanic tribes, Angles, Saxons and Jutes, took part. From the first of these tribes the name of England was eventually derived. 0

1 0 ROCHDALE RETROSPECT

Over hundreds of years, the history of the area now known as I ancashire is obscure, but it is reasonable to suppose that it was occupied by Celts until the 7th century, when it was invaded by Angles from the two kingdoms of Northumbria (North of the Humber) and Mercia (March-, or border-land, adjoining Celtic Wales) . For some time the possession of South Lancashire was disputed between the kings of Northumbria and Mercia, but it is probable that, after about the middle of the 7th century, the whole of the Lancashire lands formed an insecurely held part of the Northumbrian kingdom. Amongst events which affected the Lancashire area, Aethelfrith, King of Northumbria, defeated the British at Chester, between 613 and 616 A .D., and this battle " is usually regarded as the event which brought the English to the shore of the Irish sea, and separated the Britons of Wales from their compatriots to the north .'^- 1 In 919 A .D., Edward the Elder of Wessex, son of Alfred the Great, repaired the Roman fortifi- cations of Manchester, which was within Northumbria, and within twenty years the Lancashire lands were brought under West Saxon rule by Ed- ward's son, the flaxen-haired Athelstan, who died in 939 A .D. Accord- ing to an Old English poem, " The Battle of Brunanburh," Scottish and Cumbrian forces and Danes from Northumbria and Ireland were decisive- ly defeated at Brunanburh by Athelstan and his Wessex and Mercian army . Bacup is amongst the many places which have been suggested as the possible site of this battle, which, however, remains unidentified . CHRISTIANITY IN THE NORTH . Northumbria became the stronghold of Christianity soon after 627 A .D ., when the Northumbrian king, Edwin, was baptised by Paulinus, the disciple of Augustine . In about 665 A .D., Ceadda, or St . Chad, the disciple of St . Aidan at Lindisfarne, was first made Bishop of York and then, some five years later, Bishop of Mercia, with his see at Lichfield . Early in the 10th century, the Ribble-Mersey area, having become Crown land, was included in the Lichfield bishopric . Nevertheless, in 1066 no monastery held even a small part of land in Lancashire, though there were a few parishes, with churches probably built of wood . At Lancaster and Heysham, however, and perhaps at Manchester, stone churches almost certainly existed before 1066 A .D.

THE SETTLERS . It may well be understood that, during these troubled times, the more peaceable of the invaders, looking for homes where they might hope to live undisturbed, would travel for convenience along the Roman roads, but, for safety, would leave them well behind and make clearings deep within the forests, choosing the richest soil of the river-valleys and living as free men in huts and homesteads with walls of wattle, or wood, and roofs of thatch.

ROCHDALE BEFORE DOMESDAY : 1086 II Gradually, during or after the seventh century, handfuls of these early farmers must have grouped their dwellings into villages and settled their disputes at open-air meetings, or moots . By the I Ith century, most of the country had been divided into shires, many of which were sub-divided into " hundreds "-adminis- trative units of which the origin is not yet clearly understood . The hundred-moots were held in the open air every four weeks and were attended by the king's representative, or reeve . The king himself was advised by his council, or Witenagemot, which was often attended by bishops and abbots, but was always attended by ealdormen, or earls, and the king's war-like thanes, who had been granted lands and privileges and who served the king . ROCHDALE PLACE-NAMES . This brief survey has been necessary in order to show the varying influences which may have affected the Rochdale district : Celts, Anglo- Saxons, Danes and Norsemen had passed through the Ribble-Mersey area. To what extent they left their mark locally is, perhaps, best surmised through a study of the still-existing Rochdale place-names, although it must be remembered that this kind of exploration is not always conclusive and leaves much to he debated . In 1935, Dr . O . K . Schram 22 completed a systematic investigation into the meaning of local place-names, partly aided by earlier works by Fishwick and by Professor Eilert Ekwall . Under the late Dr . J. R. Ashworth, the Municipal High School boys card-indexed collections of names, and a complete gazetteer was compiled from all the places recorded on the Ordnance Survey six-inch maps, together with more from other sources. As a result it was found that " No Celtic terms for settlements have been encountered among the names of the Rochdale district . The majority of words used to denote human habitation are of English origin . Scandinavian terms are exceptionally rare ." Of the few Celtic and Danish terms, an example of the former is " Calder," or rapid stream, and of the latter, " Booth," or herdsman's hut. Of the old Norse there are more, such as CARR : marsh ; CLEGG : hillock ; GALE : ravine ; GARTH : enclosure ; KIRK : church ; SCOLE : hut on a hillside . By far the greatest number of the early terms are Old English, i.e., dating from Anglo-Saxon times to approximately 1150 A .D. A few, taken in alphabetical order, may suggest how Rochdale must have devel- oped under its early settlers : BOLD : house ; BURH : fortified place ; DEN : valley or dell ; FIELD : open ground, capable of tillage ; GREAVE : thicket ; HOLT : wood : HURST : wooded hillside ; LEY : clearing in the woods ; MOSS :

12 ROCHDALE RETROSPECT

bog ; ROD : cleared woodland ; SHAW : copse ; TON : a few houses, or hamlet ; WICK : a farm ; WORTH : an enclosure or homestead . As I . A. Richmond says : 2 1 " It is to the Saxon that we owe the clearing of the woods and jungle . . . . This expansion must have begun soon after the close of the 7th century ; and to it belong names indicative of clearing . . . quite close to Rochdale, doubtless contributing to make it the centre of Saxon life which it had become at the time of Edward the Confessor," and he refers, also, to the Norse names which cannot have arrived until the 10th and IIth centuries . Very shortly after the reign of Edward the Confessor (1042-1066), the Battle of Hastings heralded the new era of the Norman kings and the Feudal System .

Adaptation: H. Harle. Plan of Rochdale Castle .