Page:History of the Fylde of Lancashire (IA historyoffyldeof00portiala).pdf/442

 transfer was effected:—"Richard Fitz Roger, to all men, both French and English, who may see this letter, greeting: Let all and each of you know, that I, with the consent and wish of my wife, Margaret, and my heirs, for the Salvation of my lord, Earl John, and for the souls of my Father and Mother, and mine and my heirs, have given and granted, and with these presents confirm as a pure and perpetual offering to God and the Blessed Mary and St. Cuthbert, and the monks of Durham, all my estate of Lethum, with the church at the same vill, with all things appertaining to it, in order to build a house of their own order; namely, within these divisions—From the ditch on the western side of the cemetry of Kilgrimol (Lytham Common) over which I have erected a Cross, and from the same ditch and Cross eastward, going along the Curridmere (Wild Moss or Tarns) beyond the Great Moss, and the brook, as far as Balholme (Ballam), which brook runs towards Snincbrigg (Sluice Bridge). Likewise from Balholme directly across the moss, which my lord John, earl of of Moreton, divided between himself and me, as far as the northern part of Estholmker (Estham), going eastward as far as the division of the water which comes from Birckholme (Birks), and divides Etholmker and Brimaker (Bryning), following this division of water southward as far as the middle point between Etholme and Coulurugh (Kellamergh), and thus returning towards the west and going southward across the Moss as far as la Pull from the other side of Snartsalte (Saltcoats), as it falls upon the sand of the sea, and thus going southward across to Ribril to the waterside, and thus following the line of the water to the sea on the west, and so to the ditch and across aforementioned," etc., etc. In a charter dated 1200-1, it is specified that the whole of the lands of Lytham, amounting to two carucates, had been presented by King John when earl of Moreton, to Richard Fitz Roger, by whom, as just shown, they were immediately conveyed to the monks of Durham.

There are unfortunately no means of ascertaining the extent or appearance of the Benedictine cell established at Lytham, but its site would seem to have been that now occupied by Lytham Hall, in the walls of some of the offices attached to which remains of the ancient monastic edifice have been incorporated. Dr. Kuerden alludes, in a manuscript preserved in the Chetham library, to an