No. V.
THE CATHOLIC REGISTERS OF MOWBRECK NOW THE WILLOWS , KIRKHAM, LANCASHIRE 1775-1820. CONTRIBUTED HISTORICAL
BY J. P. SMITH.
NOTES BY JOSEPH GILLOW.
MOWBRECK HALL . The Westbys, lords of the manor of Westby in Gisburn, in the West Riding of York , which they retained down to a comparatively recent period, obtained possession of the manor of Mowbreck, in the township of Medlar- cum -Wesham , parish of Kirkham , at a very remote date, and made that their principal residence. The family possessed an ancient chapel in the parish church, now called the MowbreckChapel , in which many of them were interred. In his account of this and the Clifton Chapel , the Cromwellian Major Edward Robinson states that in the old Norman structure the lords of Mowbreck had a private chapel in the north -east corner of the north aisle of the church, and that both chapels were only used in " the tymes of Popery for the celebration " of Mass by the chaplains of the two families. 1233 , resided at Mowbreck Gilbert Westby, sheriff of Lancashire in Hall . The family also were lords of the manors of Holmes and Duffield, in Yorkshire, and Westby, in Much Urswick-in-Furness, as well as that of Burn-in - Thornton, in Lancashire . At Burn Hall was a beautiful domestic chapel , the walls of which were lined with oaken wainscot, carved with shields , small statues , and foliage , the ceiling being ornamented with vine leaves and clusters of grapes, while over the portal on an oaken slab was the legend , graven in old characters— Elegi abjectus esse in domo Dei mei , magis quam habitari in tabernaculis peccatorum ." There Mass was said, and the chapel was in frequent use from the reign of Elizabeth till the death of John Westby in 1722 , after which the Burn estate passed to his daughter and coheiress, the wife of the Rev. John Bennison , a parson in London, who ruined the property in an attempt to cultivate it on the plan laid down by Virgil in his Georgics (Thornber, Hist. of Blackpool , p . 311 seq.). The Westbys at the time of the Reformation were strongly opposed to the change, and throughout the dark days of the penal laws remained staunch to the ancient Faith in spite of fine and imprisonment. In 1568 John Westby, of Mowbreck and Burn, was singled out by William Downham, Bishop of Chester , to whom Cecil had written complaining of the small progress which the newly-established religion had made in Lancashire , as the most conspicuous of those gentlemen of the county who treated the queen's mandate with scorn and contempt, and was deemed not unlikely to promote resistance , or to be unwilling to shed his blood if necessary ( Fishwick's Hist . of Kirkham ) . In consequence, he was one of the eight leading gentlemen summoned to appear before the Ecclesiastical Commissioners at Lathom House, the seat of the Earl of Derby, and in his answer to the indictment , on Nov. 1 , admitted that William Allen, the future cardinal, " hathe divers tymes bene in his house, whom he took to be no such person as is in the said article
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