Page:History of the Fylde of Lancashire (IA historyoffyldeof00portiala).pdf/226

 also assumed the title of Brockholes, and his descendant is the present proprietor.

A family of the name of Barban preceded the Heskeths at the manor house, and Gyles Curwen, a descendant of the Curwens, of Workington, in Cumberland, espoused, about 1550, the daughter and co-heiress of—Barban, of Little Poulton Hall, having issue—Thomas, Elizabeth, Grace, and Winefrid. Thomas Curwen died unmarried; Elizabeth became the wife of—Camden, by whom she had William Camden, Clarenceux king-at-arms; Winefrid married and settled in London; and Grace espoused Gilbert Nicholson, of Poulton, by whom she had issue—Francis, Grace, and Giles. Francis Nicholson had six children—Humphrey, Grace, Bridget, Thomas, Isabell, and Dorothy. Grace Nicholson married Thomas Braithwaite, of Beaumont, and was the mother of nine children in 1613, the eldest, Geoffrey, being fifteen years of age.

On the south side of the Hall is a wood, covering about two acres of land, and freshly planted within the last half century. Until recent years, numerous decaying tree stocks were turned up out of the soil, and their size plainly evidenced the massive nature of the timber formerly growing there. There is a rookery in the modern wood, and it is surmised that there was one also amongst the branches of the ancient trees, and that a large quantity of bullets discovered in a field on its outskirts record the periodical onslaughts on the unfortunate rooks in days when marksmen were not so unerring as long practice and improved firearms have rendered them now. In the hamlet of Little Poulton there are, in addition to the Hall, three antique houses of considerable pretensions, which were erected and occupied by persons of good social standing. One of them, on the opposite side of the road, and a little removed from the old mansion, was built by a gentleman named Fayle, and on an oaken beam over a doorway, now bricked up, in an extensive barn, is the inscription, EF: IF: 1675, the initials of the erector and his wife, with the date when the edifice was completed. This E. Fayle was probably a relative, perhaps grandfather, of Edward Fayle, of the Holmes, Thornton, and afterwards of