THE CATHOLIC REGISTERS OF ST. MARY'S, FERNYHALGH, LANCASHIRE , 1771-1833 . HISTORICAL NOTES BY THE REV. RICHARD
L. SMITH , PH.D. , M.A.
Fernyhalgh is a beautifully wooded country district, lying in the eastern part of the township of Broughton, some four miles north of Preston . The history of Catholic worship here stretches back long before the Penal times, and has been written by the Rev. Daniel O'Hare for the Ushaw Magazine of December , 1892 , reprinted as an appendix in Dom F. O. Blundell's Old Catholic Lancashire . For the sake of completeness we summarise the story in these introductory notes to the Fernyhalgh Registers . A spring of water at Fernyhalgh has for ages been known as the Ladye Well and the first chapel stood close by. We do not know when was built. The first mention of the place is on January 8th, 1348-9, when a licence was granted to Thomas , son of Gilbert de Singleton, to have Divine service by a fit chaplain within his manors of Broughton, Fernyhalgh and Farmunholes for three years , without injury to the parish church of Preston in Amounderness . " (Chauntries of Lancashire , Cheetham Society. ) Possibly it was at the same time that lands , known as the Chapel Meadows and the Chapel Tenement , were made over to support the chantry chaplain. A legend , recorded by the Rev. Christopher Tuttell, ascribes a far earlier origin to the chapel, dating from the vow of an Irish merchant who was miraculously saved from drowning off the Lancashire coast . And there is at Fernyhalgh a chalice inscribedas the gift of Conosus Maguir, Prince of Fermanagh , 1529 , who is presumed to have been a descendant of the chapel's founder. The history of Ladye Well in pre- Reformationtimes was peaceful and therefore unrecorded . But the Act of 1547 against chantries led to the destruction of the old chapel and the confiscation of its furniture and revenues. Still the medieval renown of the place led Catholicsto meet for prayer at the well all through the reigns of Elizabeth and the first Stuarts, as under the Commonwealth. Although Fernyhalgh is so near Preston , it is a hidden spot among its trees, well off the main road northwards, and priests' hiding places abounded in the neighbourhood. When James came to the throne, local Catholics courageously set about building a new chapel on the old site by the well. In 1685 half an acre of the Chapel Tenement was bought from Hugh Charnley, yeoman , who for a certain sum of money , and for other causes and considerations , granted a lease thereof for a thousand years to George
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Leyburne of Nateby, Nicholas Wadsworth of Haighton, Cuthbert Hesketh of Whitehill, Goosnargh , and Robert Shepherd of Broughton, gentleman , with a yearly rent of one peppercorn , if the same should be lawfully demanded . The building was designed to look outwardly like the larger houses of the district inside, the ground floor was the priest's house and a big upper room served for the chapel . The whole cost £225. 7. 2 d. and was finished by the end of 1686. Catholics flocked to , so that in September 1687 Bishop Leyburne could confirm 1,099 people there. The number is not incredible if we suppose he
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