Page:History of the Fylde of Lancashire (IA historyoffyldeof00portiala).pdf/425



possesses a male fowl it is forbidden to him to sell it without a license. The duke of Lancaster owns the aforesaid tenements with right to hold a court. It is to be noted that each of the above mentioned bovates of land is to pay at first 2s. 7d. per annum, with work at the plough and harrow, mowing meadows in Ryggeby, and carrying elsewhere the lord's provisions at Richmond, York, Doncaster, Pontefract, and Newcastle, with 12 horses in Summer and Winter. But afterwards the land was freed from this bondage, and paid per bovate 14s. 3d. ob."

The lands of Thomas Banastre, before named, in "Syngleton Parva, Ethelswyk, Frekulton, Hamylton, Stalmyn," etc., were escheated to John of Gaunt, duke of Lancaster, in 1385, after the death of Banastre.

Edmund Dudley, who was attainted in 1509 and afterwards executed, held Little Singleton, as well as lands in Elswick, Thornton, Wood Plumpton, Freckleton, etc.; and in 1521 Thomas, earl of Derby, held the manor of Syngleton of Henry VIII.

In the reign of James I. Great Singleton appears to have belonged to the crown, for amongst a number of estates purchased from the crown by Edward Badbie and William Weldon, of London, for the sum of £2,000, is the "manor or lordship of Singleton, alias Singleton Magna," the annual rent of which is stated to have been £16 17s. 0d. Subsequently the manor passed to the Fanshaws, and from them to the Shaws; William Cunliffe Shaw, of Preston, esq., sold it to Joseph Hornby, of Ribby Hall, esq., and afterwards it was purchased by Thomas Miller, esq., of Preston, who greatly improved the property by draining the low lying lands known as Singleton Carrs, which in former days were frequently in a state of partial or complete inundation. Thomas H. Miller, esq., the present owner and eldest son of the late Thos. Miller, esq., has recently erected a noble mansion on the estate, where he resides during most of the year.

The earliest notice to be discovered of Singleton Grange is in an old schedule of deeds, in which the land is mentioned as having been granted by King John in 1215. In 1297, during the reign of Edward I., Edmund Crouchback, earl of Lancaster, received yearly the sum of 20s. from the estate. Subsequently the Grange passed into the possession of the abbot and convent of