No. I.
THE CATHOLIC REGISTERS OF LEAGRAM AND CHIPPING, Co. LANCASTER, 1780-1840. CONTRIBUTED
BY J. P. SMITH
EDITED BY RICHARD TRAPPES- LOMAX . INTRODUCTION .
Leagram Hall, otherwise Legram, Legrim, Laithgrim , and sometimes spoken of as Chipping Laund, was anciently the Lodge (for the Keeper) in the Park, laund, or enclosure within that part of the Forest of Bolland ( not Bowland) , called for distinction Little Bolland, which lies in the ancient parish of Whalley and County of Lancaster. The larger district of Bolland lies in Yorkshire. Leagram adjoins Chipping on the east, and is about 12 miles north-east from Preston . was, with Bolland and the Fee of Clitheroe , the property of the great de Lacy family from about 1102 to 1321-2 , when it was forfeited remained in the Royal House till 1563 , when it to the Crown . was granted by Queen Elizabeth to Robert Dudley, Earl of Leicester , who , 24th June of the same year, sold it with the Park or Laund and Windyhills to Sir Richard Shireburn of Stonyhurst for £1,618 10s. remained in the possession of this family until the death in 1754 of Mary Winifred Frances , daughter of Sir Nicholas Shireburn, and wife of Thomas , eighth Duke of Norfolk . She left the family estates to Edward Weld of Lulworth, co . Dorset , who had become heir of line to the Shireburns, as representing Elizabeth Shireburn, sister of Sir Nicholas , and wife of William Weld of Lulworth, father of Humphrey, father of Edward Weld the legatee. Edward Weld (d. 1761) was followed by his son Edward (d. s.p. 1775 ), and he by his brother Thomas , who in 1794 gave the mansion of Stonyhurst and about 45 acres of land to the Jesuits from Liège . George, eighth son of Thomas , succeeded to Leagram, and dying in 1866 was succeeded by his son John (d. 1888), whose grandson John Berkeley ( now Berkeley-Weld) now owns the Leagram estate . The earliest chapel at Leagram (which served for the Catholics of Chipping , as well as for those of Little Bolland) stood at the northwest corner of the court-yard behind the present house, and is believed to date from the early part of the seventeenth century. It was endowed with £20 a year by Richard Shireburn who died in 1689, aged 62. was a very small building, and becoming inadequatefor the Catholics of the district, was disused and fell into decay . still existed in the early years of the nineteenth century, but was in a ruinous condition. In 1787 a larger chapel , 60 feet long and 25 feet wide, was built on the was a plain site of the old west wing of the ancient Park Lodge . building, lit by five round-headed windows on the west side. The altar was at the south end, and there was a gallery and organ at the other end . is now converted into bedrooms and offices. The congregation eventually outgrew this, and in the period 1827-9 a new Chapel , dedicated to St. Mary, was built, with Priests House, etc. , on land given
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