History & Heritage
in and around Greater Manchester

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The Ainsworths were a family of bleachers who moved into the Halliwell district of Bolton in 1739 and leased surrounding estate lands from Captain Roger Dewhurst. Later they purchased other lands in Halliwell and in 1801 bought Smithills Hall for £26,000. They were to become extremely wealthy and influential in the area, in fact, the head of the family, Peter Ainsworth, was known locally as the "opulent bleacher". The district of Ainsworth and the Ainsworth Road are named after the family. Richard Ainsworth was largely responsible for the building of Jubilee School, and his father, John Horrocks Ainsworth was instrumental in building Saint Peters and Saint Paul's churches as well as many farms and other buildings in Halliwell.

In 1542 James Anderton was born at Clayton Hall, He was to become a lawyer at London's Gray's Inn by the age of 20, and had built a house at Lostock Hall near Bolton. His cousin was reputed to be a farmer to Elizabeth I. Despite this, the family were devout Catholics - several of their number had taken religious orders at a time when such things were dangerous and potentially treasonous acts. Out of favour for their support of Catholic Stuarts, much of their lands were sold to the Marlboroughs and the Molyneux families about during the seventeenth century and the family was ultimately reduced to poverty.

The Arden family, (sometimes called Ardern, Arderne or Harden), trace their ancestry back to the 12th century, and have held substantial lands and properties throughout Cheshire and Lancashire since medieval times. The Ardernes originally moved to Chester from Warwickshire, when Sir John de Arderne of Alvanley married Joan de Stokeport, daughter of Richard de Stokeport in 1326. William Shakespeare's mother also came from the Warwickshire branch of this family. Their history in Cheshire was one of intermarriage with other county families, particularly the Davenports, the Leghs and the Dones. The family's Cheshire seats and estates were in Alvanley, Bredbury, Harden, Tarporley, and Utkinton, as well as lands in Haughton, Lancashire.
Perhaps the most celebrated member of the family was Richard Pepper Arderne, born in 1745, a brilliant lawyer, successful politician and a friend of Prime Minister, William Pitt. Richard became Attorney General, was knighted in 1788 was created Baron Alvanley of Alvanley in 1801.
The Cheshire and Chester Archives and Local Studies Unit has papers dating from the 13th to the 19th century relating to Arden family deeds, rentals, accounts, estate and family papers.
Underbank Hall in Stockport, built in late 15th to early 16th Century, was the town house of the Arderne family and remained so until it was sold by Lord Alveney in 1823. It was eventually purchased by a banking company and serves as a banking hall to this day. In 1825 the Bredbury estate also had to be sold to pay off family debts. The last male members of the family line were William Arderne, personal friend of the Prince Regent, who died in 1849, and his brother Richard, who held the title Baron until his death in 1857.

This Assheton family dates back to the Norman Conquest, and had fought with the Conqueror at Hastings in 1066. They had formed an alliance by marriage with the Hothams. Asshetons and Hothams were to become members in Cromwell's Long Parliament and fought at the Battle of Agincourt. Ralph Assheton knighted by Richard III in 1483 and known as The Black Knight. Later Sir John Assheton was knighted on the battlefield at Northampton by the king. The family acquired many lands throughout Lancashire, Middleton, Whalley, Clitheroe, Rochdale and around Preston, where their new home, Downham Hall was built. Formally lived at Middleton Hall. Lord of the Manor, Ralph Assheton took the title of Lord Clitheroe when knighted in 1955.

The Manor of Barlow in Chorlton-cum-Hardy, Manchester, was long held by a family who adopted that surname, with one Thomas de Barlow having been in residence there from about 1200. By 1389 Roger de Barlow was in possession not only of lands in Barlow, but others in Chorlton, Hardy, and Withington.
The Barlows had built Barlow Hall, as well as a small half-timbered chapel, on lands which they had held in the area since the 13th century. In 1567 Alexander Barlow was Lord of the Manor, and unfortunately for him, was among many local Manchester Catholics who fell foul of the religious changes made by Queen Elizabeth I, was committed to prison and died in custody on 24 August 1584.
A notable member of the family was Edward Barlow, later known as Saint Ambrose Barlow, a famous local Catholic martyr. Ambrose Barlow, who had done missionary work in Lancashire, was several times imprisoned, and was finally executed for his priesthood on the instructions of Parliament on 10 September 1641 at Lancaster.
In 1773 the family estates were sold and Barlow Hall has since then remained the property of the Egerton family of Tatton. In March 1879 a fire broke out at Barlow Hall in and its west wing was almost entirely destroyed. All trace of the original great hall were lost and a great deal of damage done to other parts of the building. The Barlow family name is still rmembered by Barlow Moor Road which runs east-west through much of the district. Barlow Hall is now a golf club house!

In 1485 Cecily Radclyffe married her second cousin John Barton, and thereby came into ownership of Smithills Hall in Bolton. The Barton family extended considerable influence over the affairs of the Smithills Deane district of Bolton over several centuries. In 1516 John gave the lands to his young son Andrew, who had married Agnes. This couple lived at the Hall as did their descendants. Finally, Grace, (the only daughter and heir of Thomas Barton and last generation of the family), married Henry, first Lord Viscount Fauconberg, whose descendants sold the manor in 1721 to the Byron family of Manchester. Sir Roger Barton had been a celebrated magistrate in the Bolton district in the mid-16th century renowned for the burning of heretic cleric George March.

The Baskervyle (Baskerville) Family lived at Baskerville Hall near Chelford - Sir John Baskervyle had acquired the manor house and estate in 1266 from one Robert de Camville. The Hall is sometimes known as "Old Withington" or Withington Hall, and the last owner was the descendant of a Baskervyle who took the name of his wife's family - Glegg. The original Baskervyles (sometimes spelt Baskervyyles) lived there from 1266, and according to the parish records of Prestbury their family remained at "Ould Withington" till around 1570, with a branch of the family, the Baskervyle-Gleggs, moving to Goostry in Cheshire around 1737 onwards and on well into the 1890s.
The family held substantial lands in Cheshire over many centuries including on the Wirral Peninsula. There is an account that during the building of the Hooton to West Kirby branch railway in the 19th century, the landowner, a member of the Baskervyle-Glegg family insisted upon a station being built at Thurstaston, much against the railway company's wishes.
In 1906 John Baskervyle-Glegg of Withington Hall and Egerton Leigh of Joderell Hall are joint Lords of the Manor of Goostry. Both of these families are listed in the 1937 edition of "Burke's Landed Gentry". The last Withington Hall on the site, thought to have been built around 1790, was demolished in 1958.
Sometime around 1865, Lucy Baskervyle Glegg of Withington Hall, was married to the son of the Third Viscount St. Vincent of Norton Disney in Lincolnshire and Sutton-in-Derwant in Yorkshire.
In more modern times, during the mid-1950s a John Baskervyle-Glegg is known to have attended Rugby School. Another celebrated John Baskervyle-Gregg played in the England Cricket team as a member of the Combined Services in 1962. There are other military connections. More recently, the year 2000 Edition of the Royal Horticultural Society's yearbook "The Garden" contained a chapter entitled "A Rector's Pastoral - Adam's Apples" by Diana Baskervyle-Glegg. The Sparkford, branch of the Royal British Legion, near Yeovil in Somerset, currently has a John Baskervyle-Glegg as its President.

The Birch family are best remembered for Birch Hall and Birchfields Park in Rusholme. Birch Hall was the family's property. The Birches sided with the Parliamentarian faction in the English Civil War and were principal agents in securing Manchester against the Earl of Derby. In 1689 John Birch, of Birch Hall, Manchester, was the High Sheriff of Lancashire.

The Bold family, of the Lancashire township bearing the same name, trace their origins back to Anglo-Saxon times before the Norman Conquest of 1066. The earliest known record mentions a William de Bold in 1154, but it is thought that the foundations Bold Hall (old hall) were laid well before that.
It was in 1402, that John de Bold was the garrison commander who defended Caernarfon Castle against Owen Glendower. He was subsequently knighted, made Sir Constable of the Castle and was granted 5000 acres at Bold. In 1407 Sir John became the High Sheriff of Lancashire, and held the post until his death in 1410, the first of six Bold family descendants to hold that office. It was he who in 1406 had founded the Chantry, which is now the site of Bold Chapel in St Luke's, Farnworth (Bolton). Later, his son Thomas de Bold fought alongside King Henry V at Agincourt 1415.
By 1588 the Bold family held extensive lands in Lancashire, with estates amounting to some 33,000 acres with 2,000 retainers helping maintain them. Their estates extended as far as Buckinghamshire and Yorkshire, and minor branches of the family also had holdings in Ireland.
In more recent times, in 1802 Jonas Bold became the Lord Mayor of Liverpool and Bold Street in that city is named after him.
In 1829 Sir Henry Bold-Hoghton, also High Sheriff of Lancashire, married Dorothea Patten-Bold the daughter of Peter Patten-Bold.
The family also has royal connections, in the personage of Mary Patten-Bold (1795-1824), daughter of Peter Patten-Bold and Mary Patten-Bold (nee Parker). Mary was married to Prince Sapieha (Ostafi Eustace Sapieha Rozanski), of Dereczym in the Duchy of Lithuania.
The Bold family are represented in the Knowsley Coat of Arms, the Halton Coat of Arms and the old St Helens Coat of Arms.

We are indebted to Gordon Bold for providing us with details of the Bold Family.

The Booth family of Dunham Massey trace their ancestry back to early medieval times when their name appears in several different forms, including Bouth, Booths and Bothe. Around 1275 William de Booths had married Sibel, daughter of Sir Ralph de Brereton, in 1474 John Legh of Booths was married to Raufe Egerton, and by Tudor times, the family had married into most of the neighbouring aristocratic families. For example, Sir William Booth (1540-1579) married Elizabeth Warburton of Arley, and yet another George Booth (1515-1543) was married to Elizabeth de Trafford.
One daughter of the family also married into the Grey family - it was of that same family that the unfortunate Lady Jane Grey came, before she fell prey to Henry VIII's axeman. Thus the family extended their influence and power base in the county.
Certainly the Booths held many lands in the area around this time, as evidenced in the House of Commons Journal of the 30th July 1660 which passed "…a Bill to enable Sir George Booth Baronet to lease and sell Lands, for Payment of his Debts, and raising Portions for Advancement of his younger Children".
This same Sir George Booth had fought for the Parliamentarian cause during the First Civil War and was elected MP for Cheshire in May 1645. He was also elected to the First Protectorate Parliament in 1654 and was commissioned to assist the Major-Generals in Cheshire. However, he appears to have fallen out of favour when he described them as 'Cromwell's hangmen' and by 1659 was plotting with Royalists to bring about the Restoration.
He headed an abortive insurrection during the summer of 1659, which was easily defeated, Booth was arrested and briefly imprisoned in the Tower of London but was soon released on bail.
In April 1660, Booth was elected to the Convention Parliament. He was one of twelve MPs appointed to convey Parliament's invitation to Charles II to return as King. It was also granted "That the Sum of Ten thousand Pounds be conferred on Sir George Booth Baronet, as a Mark of Respect unto him, for his eminent Services and great Sufferings for the Publick". At the King's coronation in April 1661, Booth was made Lord Delamere. In the 18th century the Booths were also created Earls of Warrington.
It is recorded that the Dunham Massey deer park had existed in 1362 and it is known that the moat, which today partly survives as the ornamental lake, once surrounded the old Manor House, which was possibly a Norman motte and bailey castle before then.
The last owner of the house and estate at Dunham Massey was the Earl of Stamford, and since 1976 they have been National Trust Property.

The Tameside Metropolitan Borough - the district is named after the family.

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