at will. Many, perhaps most, of the original chief or fee farm rents had lapsed before bishop Bridgeman's time (for those mentioned in the various inquisitions from which we have quoted will have been but a small portion of the old manorial chief rents). Several of them, however, remained in his time, of which the greater part have since lapsed, though a few are still payable; but these are now received by the corporation of Wigan and not by the parson. During the usurpation of the manorial rights by the town not only the burgesses but others also seem to have supposed that they were entitled to take possession of any unoccupied land, or waste as it was called, upon which they chose to extend their buildings, or which they took in to themselves as enclosures; or at least they did so under the impression that there was no one to stop them. Many of these, which were recent encroachments within the memory of living man, were recovered in the courts baron by the bishop, who moderately taxed them at easy rents, and obliged the tenants to confess themselves tenants at will to the parson for these encroachments.
In the year 1619 he received from the manorial rents, i.e., chief rents from tenants in fee, £23 16s., and from the rents of tenants at will, £20, namely, of Roger [Miles .?] Letherbarrow for the corn mill, £6 13s. 4d., and for mill hill and barn, 3s. 4d.; of John Hide for his Inn called the Eagle, and a close called four tofts, 20s., and for a close called the chequer, 8s., for a kilne near it, 2s., for an acre in the Lees next the pound, 40s., for Cookstool toft and the Eyes toft, 20s.; of John Orrell for his house, 10s.; of Widow [Katherine] Traves for her house, 8s.; of Lawrence Prescot for his close in the Lees, 40s., for Coppull Mill, 30s. ; of James Langshaw for the School fulling Mill, 40s., for Winstanley's house, 2d., ; of [Alexander] Buckley for Fayrbrother's toft [in Scholes], %s, 4^. ; of [Thomas] Kirby[1] for his house, 4s. 8d.;
- ↑ This house of Thomas Kirby, or Kirkby, was situated in Millgate, between that of widow Katherine Travis towards the Barr on the lower side and a house inhabited by Gilbert Harvy Smith towards the Wint or upper side. It had a croft, garden, and cowhouse belonging to it, for which he had long paid to the parsons of Wigan a rent of 4s. 8d. yearly. (Wigan Leger, fol. 23.)
