Page:The History of the Church & Manor of Wigan part 2.djvu/152

the town is too full) will els not spare to swear y^t is and hath been a way past memory; whereas in truth even in my tyme there was not, nor could be, any way there, for when I came to be parson of Wigan, a^o 1615, the shippons and houses for cattle stood all along from the stable dore by the syde of the house till you come to the end of these buildings westward towards the milking fold; and the said shippons were over all the stone pavement, so as there was no possible way by reason of those shippons w^ch stood over all that way; but Dr. Massey my predecessor had let them goe into so great decay as I was fayn to take them down, and new build up the shippons narrower, as now they stand, in a right lyne equall w^th the barn and stables, and for that end I made up a wall w^th a foundation of stone under it from the stable-dore nere to the milk fold, w^ch was open before. This I did w^thin a year after I became parson, and John Price, &c., yet live who were the workmen, which I sett down lest my successors be wronged hereafter. Jo. Cestrien."^[1]

In this year, namely, on 22nd December, 1629, bishop Bridgeman bought the estate at Great Lever, in the county of Lancaster, together with lands at Farnworth, Bolton, and Lady Hall, in the same county, which are still in the possession of his descendant, the Earl of Bradford. They were purchased from Sir Ralph Assheton of Whalley, baronet;^[2] and in the following year he rebuilt Lever Hall. Pepys relates a conversation with Mr. John Swinfen, M.P. for Tamworth, who, "among other discourse of the rise and fall of familys, told us of Bishopp Bridgeman ..... who lately hath bought a seat, anciently of the Levers, and then the Ashtons; and so he hath in his great hall window (having repaired and beautified the house) caused four great places to be

1. Wigan Leger, fol. 142, 143.
2. Ralph Assheton of Great Lever and Whalley, Esq., was created a baronet, 28th June, 1620. He inherited the estate of Great Lever by the marriage of his ancestor Sir Ralph Assheton, knight, with Margaret, daughter and heir of Adam Lever, Esq., of Great Lever. The baronetcy expired with his grandson. Sir John Assheton, bart., in 1697.