HISTORY, DIRECTORY, & GAZETTEER, of the COUNTY PALATINE of LANCASTER in TWO VOLUMES |
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John, became possessed of this estate. In the thirty-fourth of Henry VI the manor-house took fire, and was destroyed, and the family records shared the fate of the mansion. In due time the house was re-built, and the manor and estate remained in the family till the early part of the last century. Dr. Ralph Cudworth, son of Ralph Cudworth, "Chief Lord of Oldham," as Fuller calls him, was born here. About a century after his death, Joshua Cudworth, Esq. the representative of the family, sold Wernith Hall, and the estate, to Sir Raphe Assheton, of Middleton, who presented it as a portion to his third daughter, Catharine, on her marriage with Thomas Lister, of Arnoldsbiggin, Esq. This estate, which consists of about one hundred acres of land, with valuable minerals, chiefly of coal, and extensive common rights, was sold to Messrs. Parker and Tidebottom, of London, for £25,000 and re-sold by them, in the year 1794, for £30,000* to John Lees, of Oldham, Esq. the father of Edward Lees, Esq. the present owner. Hugh Oldham, Bishop of Exeter, who lived on the eve of the Reformation, was born at Oldham, in a house still standing, in Goulburn street, and was doubtless a descendant of Matthew de Oldham. Fuller says of this prelate, that he "was no ill scholar, and a good man, most pious according to and above the devotion of the age he lived in; he was a foe to monkish superstition, and a friend to university learning. Brazen Nose College, in Oxford, and Corpus Christi College therein, will for ever bear witness to his bounty·to advance religion and learning. Besides the town of Manchester has good cause to remember him, who founded and endowed a school therein** (the Free Grammar School), with large revenue, appointing the warden of the college therein Caput Schola. This bishop, having a tough contest with the Abbot of Tavistock, was excommunicated for refusing to stand to the decision of the court of Rome, and dying excommunicate*** was buried upon the brink of his own chapel, on the south side of the cathedral." Oldham Church was originally a small, simple edifice, suited to the manners and the means of the inhabitants. As the number of parishioners has increased, the Church has been enlarged, and it consists at present of a body, a chance], and two aisles, with a tower attached. The Rev. John Fallowiield is the incumbent. The dilapidating hand of time, operating upon a building never remarkable for its strength, and necessarily impaired by the alterations it has undergone, combined with the circumstance of the inhabitants within the chapelry having swelled to upwards of 40,000 souls, has suggested the propriety of providing suitable accommodation, and an act has accordingly just been obtained, conformable to the resolutions of the parishioners in vestry assembled, for taking down the present Church, and building a new one in its place; the funds for defraying the expense of the erection to be raised by an assessment upon the inhabitants, to which the owners of property are to contribute two thirds, and the tenants one-third. The commissioners under the million act have it also in contemplation to build a new Church, on a site near the bottom of Greenacres moor, in this township, principally to accommodate the inhabitants of the populous village of Mumps, the cost of which is estimated at £15,000. St. Peter's Chapel, in Chapel-street, High-street, was built in 1765, by a voluntary subscription raised by the inhabitants; and in the year 1804, this structure was enlarged, and provided with a fine-toned organ. The incumbent is the Rev. William Winter. ............................................................................................................................................. * Butterworth's Oldham
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