attested by VVilliam de Oldham and others, states William de Werneth to have granted to Adam his son in fee part of his lands called Abram Hills lying nigh Greenacres-moor, and all the fee rent in the town of Oldham, and all his wastes therein called Greenacres-moor, Oldham-edge, Northwood (North-moor), Travis-bent, and Hollinwood. It seems from Birche's MS. Feodarium (the roll of the tenantry of the earldom of Lancaster, of the date of 1311), that Richard, son of Richard de Oldham, held by service of 7s. 8d. a carucate of land in Werneth and Oldham, which had formerly belonged to Adam de Eccles. - The family of the Oldhams, of Werneth, are conjectured to have been the original stock of the local name, whilst it appears that the descendants of a younger son enjoyed the estates of Hall Bottom (Holebottom), and Hall Edge (Horsedge). Of the latter family was probably Hugh Oldham, L.L.B., Bishopf of Exeter, who was born, according to Wood and Goodwin, at Manchester, but according to Dodsworth, who wrote in the reign of Elizabeth, in a "house still standing" in Gouldburn-street*, in Oldham,* soon after the middle of the fifteenth century. The History of Manchester School, by W. R.Whatton, Esq., 4to., 1828, contains the following passage: "The lordship of Oldham was originally in the possession of the Radcliffes, under whom the progenitors of the Bishop of Exeter held, and from which place they had their surname: - part of the property, it appears, was alienated, on the marriage of one of the daughters and co-heiresses of Matthew de Oldham, to John de Cudworth, in the reign of King John, and from a branch of the family of this Matthew, doubtless, the Bishop was descended." Upon this extract I have to remark, that there is no satisfactory evidence of the lordship of Oldham ever being in the possession of the Badcliffes, it is also doubtful whether Matthew de Oldham had ever an existence, and the Werneth property passed to the Cudworths from

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* This house was pulled down a few years since.

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