owner of a portion of the Lees Hall estate, and his residence in Bent was one of the only two houses within a mile of Oldham Church which were then furnished with sash windows. The Taylors were resident for a considerable time at Thorp, in Royton, but the property at Bent is still in the family, Thomas Taylor, Esq., of Rhodes-hill, Lees, and his brothers, being the present owners. This building is new converted into a public house.

Bent Brow, or Top of Bent, Contained the dwelling of the Hopwoods. There was a John Hopwood held lands at Nether Horsedge, in 1553. Edmund Hopwood, Esq., who, as a magistrate, frequently solemnised marriages during the time of the Commonwealth, was of the Hopwoods, of Hopwood. James Hopwood, of Bent-brow, gentleman, living in 1747, is said to have been a son of Robert or Ralph Hopwood, of Rhodes-green, near Middleton, who married Alice Langley, of Horsedge, before 1735; and this Mr. Hopwood, of Rhodes-green, is described as a younger son of John Hopwood, Esq., of Hopwood. James Hopwood, of Bent, gentleman, died 1752, was succeeded by the Rev. Richard Hopwood, first Curate of Hey, who died 1766, and whose son, Mr. James Hopwood, grocer, died 1792, leaving two daughters, one of whom married John Boardman, Esq., of Manchester, the present possessor of the property.

Coldhurst Hall, in the northern environs of the town, was once a spacious, neat, and genteel mansion. The name denotes a coldly situated grove or thicket of trees. A short time subsequent to 1422, this estate belonged to the Asshetons, of Ashton-under-Lyne, and was then called Copyhurst. The Asshetons appear to have exchanged lands in Clegg, near Rochdale, with Christopher Belfield, gentleman, of Clegg, in Butterworth, for Coldhurst, prior to 1445. The writer's father
once saw a statement in a MS., which he omits to

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