John No. II.
THE CATHOLIC REGISTERS OF ST. MARY'S , GREAT IN THE FYLDE, CO . LANCASTER. 1771-1832.
ECCLESTON
CONTRIBUTED BY J. P. SMITH. HISTORICAL NOTES BY JOSEPH GILLOW.
Great Eccleston , in the parish of St. Michael's- on-Wyre, now perhaps the most secluded village in the Fylde, being situated from five to seven miles from the railway stations at Kirkham and Poulton to the west , and Garstang and Brock to the east, was in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries considered a centre of social activity, in so much that it acquired the sobriquet of Little London. Many members and connections of Jacobite families reduced to impoverishment after the Rising of 1715 settled in the village or vicinity ; and several artists of repute at different times resided in Great Eccleston whilst painting family portraits for the surrounding gentry . One of the last, a native, was Thomas Barrow, a pupil of Romney, who died in the village in 1822 , aged 85. The Holy Sacrifice of the Mass never ceased to be offered up throughout the dark ages of persecution either in the village or in the houses of recusants in the neighbourhood, such as Eccleston House , subsequently called Leckonby House , in the village, and the Demesne of Elswick, some little distance away, both seats of the Leckonbys; Great Eccleston Hall, the residence of the Stanleys from early in the seventeenth till the middle of the eighteenthcentury ; CrossHouse , in Great Eccleston , the seat of the White family from the reign of ; Gillow House , in Little EcclesEdward down to that of George ton, a seat of the Gillows from the middle of the seventeenth century , the seat of the Blackburnes till 1855 ; Stockenbridge Hall , in Tarnacre to 1726 , after which it passed through for about a hundred years prior an heiress to the Leckonbys ; Rawcliffe Hall, in Out Rawcliffe, the seat of the Butlers till the estate was confiscated in 1718 , in consequence of the family's staunch adherence to the Stuarts ; Upper Rawcliffe Hall, commonly known as White Hall , the seat of the Kirkbys , an ancient Catholic family, till about 1631 , and afterwards of the Westbys 1857 ; and Turnover Hall, the seat of the till they sold the estate inpassed Shuttleworth family till it through marriage to that of Westby in the middle of the eighteenth century. There were secret chapels in all these houses, and Mass was said in them either according to the convenience of the itinerant priests or the exigencies of the times. In 1654 a priest passing under the name of John Sefton is found serving Stockenbridge Hall, the seat of Edward Blackburne, gent. (Foley , Records S.J., vi ). He had previously been one of the chaplains at the Manor of Furness, the seat of John Preston , Esq., in 1629 (ibid., iv, 535). About this period another priest is met with attending to the locality . This was the Rev. George Richardson alias Benison , whose history is exceedingly interesting. He was either a curate or
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a Puritan minister during the Commonwealth, at the parish church of St. Michael's-on-Wyre . After his conversion he was befriended by the