Page:Lancashire Legends, Traditions, Pageants, Sports, Etc., with an Appendix Containing a Rare Tract.djvu/198

 flat ground forming a delta of the river Irwell, between Broughton Suspension Bridge and Pendleton, near Castle Irwell, the house of Mr Fitzgerald, the owner of the ground. Here the races were held for many years in the Whitsuntide week; but of late railway and other excursions and pleasure-trips have largely competed with the races in the popular favour of some half million of holiday Lancashire lads and lasses.

KERSAL MOOR RACES IN THE EIGHTEENTH CENTURY. , or, as provincially pronounced, "Karsy Moour," was one of the oldest race-courses in the kingdom, and was unrivalled for the crowds of merry gazers who annually witnessed its sports. "Nimrod," in an article in the Sporting Magazine for 1822, thus incidentally writes: "No course I was ever on is so well kept as Manchester. I have ridden over it amongst a hundred thousand spectators, and nothing can be better than the clear way for the race-horses, and the good-humour of the people." So far back as 1730, races were first established on the Moor. In that year John Byrom issued a pamphlet against them, condemning all such sports on the score of their immoral tendencies. Nevertheless, the meetings were continued until 1745, in which year Prince Charles Edward Stuart marched into the town at the head of his Highland clans. Kersal Moor races were discontinued during fifteen years, the influence of Byrom and his friends being sufficient to prevent their renewal, until Wednesday, the 1st October, 1760. Manchester races consisted then, as now, of three days' sport; but, uninfluenced by Whitsuntide, they took place on the 7th, 8th, and 9th September.