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The Church Bells of Lancashire BY F. H. Cheetham File – 04: Part IV The Hundred of Amounderness This document is provided for you by The Whiting Society of Ringers visit www.whitingsociety.org.uk for the full range of publications and articles about bells and change ringing THE CHURCH BELLS OF LANCASHIRE. By F. H. CHEETHAM, F.S.A. FOREWORD. AFTER an interruption of three years I am at last able to continue my task of cataloguing the bells belonging to the older churches of Lancashire. When I began this work in 1914 I expressed the hope that the result of my investigations in the Amounderness Hundred would appear in the 1917 volume of the Transactions, along with the Blackburn Hundred, and of Lonsdale Hundred in 1918. But the course taken by the war upset this calculation, as many others. My thanks are again due to all who have assisted me in my investigations and especially to those incumbents who have so readily afforded me access to the bells under their charge. Where so much interest and goodwill has been shown it would perhaps be invidious to single out anyone name. But I must specially acknowledge my indebtedness to the Rev. S. E. Collinson, vicar of Broughton-in-Preston, for the loan of rubbings of the inscriptions of the three old bells formerly at Broughton Church, from which my drawings have been made. My thanks are also due to the Rev. Canon Elsee, M.A., for help in proof reading; to Messrs. Mears and Stainbank, of Whitechapel, for information regarding bells cast by them; to the Garstang Town Trust for permission to examine the Bailiff's Record Book; and to Mr. H. B. Walters, M.A., F.S.A., who as before, has helped me in many ways, and has been good enough also to read over the proofs. F.H.C. 2 CHURCH BEL LS OF LANCASHIRE TH E HUNDREDO F AM OUNDE RNESS. The hundred of Am ou nderness comp rises the a ncient par ish es of Bispham, Garsta ng, Kirkham , Lytha m, P oultcn-Ie-Fylde, P reston , a nd St. Mich ael-on-Wyre , It also includes part of the parish of Cockerha m, and detached portions of La ncaster. It lies wh olly within the diocese of Man chester and the archdeaconry of Lan caster. There were six ty -three parish es within the Amo unde rne ss hundred in 191 5. The pre-Reforma tion cha pels a re represented by the follow ing churches : Ad ma rs h-in-Bleasdale, Barton , Broughton, Goosn ar gh, H ambleton, Lund, Pi lling , S hireshead, Singleton, S ta lmine, Whitechapel and W ood plumpton. There was a chapel at Fernyh algh in the fiftee nth century, but it fell into decay a nd was not used a fter the R eformati on. There was also a cha pel at I nskip before the Reformati on, but it too disapp ear ed af terwards, and the p resen t church (1848) ca n hardly clai m co nt inuity. It has one bell. St. T homa s, Ga r­ stang, may perhaps clai m descent from a cha pel of the H oly Trinity for which the inhabitan ts of Ga rsta ng obtained a licen ce for one year in 1437, but the origin may not be earlier tha n the 17th century. O nly five ch urches appear to have been built in Amou nde rn ess during the rSth cent ury : G rimsargh (1716), W arton (1722), W rea Green (c. 1722), Co pp (1723), and St. George, Preston (1724). T he schoo l at Marto n was used as a cha pel from 1750 to 1800, whe n a church was built {consecra ted 1804).1 T he present series of papers, as previously explained , is concerned only with hells in churc hes founded before th e end of the eig hteenth cen­ tury. As regards the in ventori es of 1552 in thi s hundred 1. Three bells were placed in the tower in 1868 (Fishwick, H istory of P oulton, p. 61). CHURCH BELLS OFLANCASHIRE 3 nine returns have been preserved-Bispham , Garstang, Goosnargh, Kirkham, P oulton, Preston, St. Michael­ on-Wyre , Stalmine, and W oodplumpton. The originals have been badly preserved and were only made out with great d iffi cult y ,' The Commiss ion sat at Preston, November 18, 1.'1 52. The old est bell in the hundred is th e treble at S t. Michae l-on-Wyre, which is dated 1458, and is of French origin. The forme r trebl e at Brou ghton (melted down with two other bells in 1884) was by Thomas Bett, of Leicester, cast probably about 1533. T o the same cen­ tury, b ut late in Q ueen Elizabeth's reign, belongs one of the W oodplumpton bells. It is dated 1596, but ha s no maker's marie T hree seventeenth century bells st ill rema in in the hundred, the oldest being the second at S t. Michael-on. W yre, which was cast at vVigan in 1663. The othe r two arc at Garstang Town (1668), and L und (1684)' There were formerly two bells of thi s period at Broughton, one by Paul H utt on , of Co ngleton, 1632, a nd the ot her by Wm. Sell er of York, 1681. The number of eig hteenth centur y belIs yet rem aining is only sixteen , made up of two rin gs of six (less one recast )-Goosnar gh and P oulton, and six other bells. The oldest of these are two at Goosn argh, dated 1713, an d next in order Co pp (1714), Wrea G reen (1728), Copp (1732), Poulton (five, 1741), Goos narg h (two, 1742), St. Michae l-on-Wyre (1742), Warton (1743), Goos nargh (tenor, 1753), a nd G rimsargh (1765)' O f these the rings at Goos na rg h a nd Po ulton (less one re-cas t in each) a re from the Rudhall foundry at G louces ter, as ar e the older bell at Copp a nd the tenor at S t. Michael 's. The bells at W rea Green, W arton, a nd the later on e at Copp a re by Luke As hton of W iga n . There is no maker 's name 1. Chetham Miscellanies, Chet . Soc" vol. 47 new series, whe re th e Jn ventol'ies for th e hundreds of Am~ underne ss and Lonsd ale are printed. 4 CHURCH BELLS OF LANCASHIRE or mark on the Grimsargh bell. There was formerly a ring of eight by Abraham Rudhall (1711) at Preston parish church. There are blank bells at Pilling (two) and Stalmine (two). Of nineteenth century bells in the old churches the greater number are from the Whitechapel foundry, which at the beginning of the century was owned by Thomas Mears I. Since 1865 the firm has been known as Mears and Stainbank, Their work is represented in thirteen churches by fifty-three bells. In alphabetical order they are as follows :-Admarsh (one), Bispham (six), Brough­ ton (six), Garstang (six), Garstang Town (one), Goos­ nargh (one), Kirkham (eight), Lytham (eight), Poulton­ le-Fylde (one), Preston (eight), Preston St. George (one), and Singleton (six). The earliest of these is the larger bell at Garstang Town Church, by T. Mears and Son, 1807, and the latest the ring at Bispham by Mears and Stainbank, 1920. Messrs. John Taylor and Co., of Loughborough, cas t the bell for Barton in 1896, and also re-cast two old bells into one for Bispham in 1883. The sing le bell at Hambleton is by John C. Wilson, of Glasgow, and that at Whitechapel is by W. Blows and Sons of Birmingham. The smaller bell at Woodplumpton (1837), and the two at Shireshead (1858), are without maker's name or mark. The above summary deals with 84 bells in 25 churches. There are rings of eight at Kirkham, Lytharn, and Preston Parish Church, and of six at Bispham, Brough­ ton, Goosnargh, Poulton-Ie-Fylde, and Singleton. In nineteen cases the bells hang in towers, in four cases in bell-cotes accessible only by ladders from the outside, in one case in a western turret similarly acces­ sible, and in another the bell is in an almost inaccessible position over the chancel arch. The majority of the CH URCB BELLS OF LANCA SHIRE 5 towers have staircases or ladders, but there are two with no fixed steps, access being by means of a manhole in the ceiling of the porch, to reach which a ladder mu st be carried and erected inside. This occurs in a church erected as recently as 1896. The district between Blackpool and St. Anne's repre­ sents the ancient Kilgrimol-or part of it. Much erosion has taken place on this coast in historic times, and "tradition" affirms that Kilgrimol Church was swallowed up by an " earthquake." T wo or three miles of coast seem to have been worn away by the sea about th e middle of the 15th century . From these events comes a "legend," whic h is a variant of one common in many places and clim es. Kilgrimol, accord ing to this story, " still preserves a ghostly existence in the blue depths, and granted faith strong enough there can be heard in the stillness of the night th e chime of th e bells."! The R ev . H. T . Ellacombe qu otes another version in wh ich the bells are underground instead of beneath the sea: "At Kilgrimol there is a place called (The Church I where on Christmas Eve the bells may be heard by an yone who bends his ea r to the g round pealing most merrily."> ADMARSH.

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