Huntingdon Hall (re-built in 1619) as it was in 1919
Four or five hundred years ago people with familiar names began to emerge from the mists of time and some of the houses built then can still be seen today.
In 1534 Henry VIII rejected the Pope’s authority over the Church in England. He proclaimed himself head of the “Church of England” and new services were introduced. However, a substantial number of gentry throughout Lancashire did not accept this change and continued to worship according to the “old faith”. They tried to protect their “recusant” tenants (those who refused to attend Church of England services). Local families such as the Townleys, the Seeds, the Crumbleholmes and the Cottams remained Roman Catholic and suffered for their faith.
The story of Thomas Cottam who was born in 1549 to Lawrence and Ann Cottam of Knowle Green is an example of the religious turmoil and brutality at this time. They were people of substance who gave their son a good education. He went to Oxford and graduated in 1568. He then became a master at a London school and during his time there was formally converted to Catholicism. He went on to study theology in France at Douay but because of ill health he returned to England where he was immediately arrested after a tip off from an informer. Although he could have escaped with help from sympathisers or by agreeing to convert to Protestantism, he refused and was sent to the Marshalsea prison where he was racked and tortured. He still refused to confess his sins and in 1582 “for his priestly character” he was dragged on a hurdle from Newgate to Tyburn and there hung drawn and quartered. He was 33 years old.
William Crumbleholme of Huntingdon Hall on the other hand escaped with his life. He was arrested as a Papist in 1584. There are differing accounts of this but he certainly seems to have been imprisoned in the Tower of London for some time. What happened then is not clear. It was rumoured that he had become a missionary priest in Lancashire where he kept a low profile!
For many centuries the nearest Church for Knowle Green folk, including those in Dilworth and Dutton was St Wilfreds, Ribchester, although there was a Chapel of Ease, St Lawrence in what is now Longridge. (It was not until 1837 that the law was changed to allow marriages to take place in Chapels of Ease). Interestingly the first marriage recorded in Longridge Chapel is that of a Knowle Green couple, on 26 May 1838 - “Mr James Bond of Knowle Green to Miss Elizabeth Jump of Dilworth”.
In earlier times the people of Knowle Green would baptise their infants, marry and be buried at St Wilfreds. The first surviving Parish records date from 1598. They are inconsistent and irregular but still make interesting reading when entries refer to familiar names in the Knowle Green area.
| Christenings | “1602 Feb 25 Thomas Rodes son of James Rodes, miller” “1609 Aug 7 Ric. Cottam ye son of Thomas Cottam of ye High House” |
| Marriages | “1599 Sep 25 Ric Greenall of the Parish of Blackburn and Eliz. Boulton of this Parish.” “1611 Jan 21 John Cottam and Grace Byrley, both of this Parish” |
| Burials | “1602 June 21 The wyfe of Mr Henry Townley of Dutton, gent” “1618 Jan 26 Thomas Harrison de Faunay” (Fawna Lodge) “1618 Nov 24 Robte Seed of Greenmyre Lane.” “1659 Aug 29 2 children of Thomas Hille in Dilworth being murthered” |
It would be no easy task to take bodies for burial from Knowle Green to Ribchester. Perhaps the stone crosses, which are recorded on older maps, date from this time. Could it be that mourners stopped for a well-earned rest and prayed at these convenient stones? The base of one such cross can still be found locally, “Preston Wives Cross”. There is evidence of others for example “the White Cross” near the New Drop recorded in the past but now lost, another on Duddel Hill and one at Ward Green near the Cross Keys.
Two branches of the Cottam family were still living in Knowle Green in the 17th century. One was at High House on the old Clitheroe road over the fell, the other in the house situated on the knoll between the Chapel and Cowley Brook and known variously as Cottam Hall, Knoll Hall, Dilworth Hall or Manor House. John Cottam, of Knowle, refused a knighthood in 1625 and paid a fine rather than provide men to fight for the King. (It was only gentlemen with a high income who were expected to become knights). The architecture of this attractive old house suggests that it was built in the early 17th century although the Cottam family like the Townleys had been living in the area for many centuries. John Cottam, the last member of the family to live at Knowle Hall, left the district in 1787 when, apparently, his affairs “became embarrassed”. The hall then became Manor House farm and was worked by the Hesmondhalgh family in the 19th century. Later the house was divided for a number of tenants. In the last 50 years the house has been bought and restored by new owners.
A branch of the Shireburne family was living at Buckley Hall in the 17th century. Richard Shireburne built Buckley hall in 1662. This was pulled down in 1895 though a new house now stands on the site.
The Shireburnes were related to the Townleys who lived at Dutton Hall. In 1625 Henry Townley appears in a list of “esquires” in Lancashire who, like John Cottam, preferred to pay a fine rather than incur the expense of becoming a knight.
The Radcliffes were living at a house on the site of the farm now called ‘Written Stone’, named after the large curious stone embedded in the banking outside the farm. Engraved on it are the words “RALFFE RADCLIFFE LAID THIS STONE TO LYE FOREVER AD 1655.” There are many stories that recount the misfortunes visited upon people who attempted to move it. The stone probably commemorates the death of the third Ralffe Radcliffe who, in his will of January 1655, left £20 to his wife Catherine Walker and 16 acres of land called Hordsall Barn. (The present Written Stone house was built by John Bourn in 1781. The Radcliffe family seems to have left in the later 1600s but a branch re-appeared in Alston)
The Seeds were living at Seed Green. In 1630 Thomas Seed and his wife Jennet were named as recusants and later were punished by having their land seized by the government.
The Rhodes family were millers, probably at Lum Mill. In 1696 Francis Rhodes the miller’s widow died and bequeathed the rent of a house, shippon and 4 closes, to the poor distressed housekeepers of Dilworth. This became known as “Poor Lands”, later Charity Farm, the name still used today.
Greenall is the name of another family known to have lived in Dutton since 1634. In the 1700s a Richard Greenall was a feltmaker and hat manufacturer. Evidently he prospered, as he had to pay a window tax on his house for nine windows in 1752! Members of the family continued to trade as hat makers living at Moor Nook and Manor House, Dutton.
In 1642 civil war broke out. Supporters of Parliament rebelled against the autocratic rule of King Charles 1st. The conflict reached Lancashire and in August 1648 Cromwell and his forces marched through the Ribble Valley. They halted for the night “at Mr Sherburne’s house called Stonyhurst about Hodder Watter”. The following day he marched on to win the crucial battle of Preston - the first skirmishes of which took place around “Longridge Chappell”. News of these events would no doubt have spread rapidly around the households of Knowle Green and some of the people living here then may well have been caught up in them.