Leyland, Lancashire

Description
Leyland, a village, a township, a parish, and a hundred in Lancashire. The village stands near the river Lostock, three-quarters of a mile W of the N.W.R., and 6 S of Preston; is a seat of petty sessions, and has a post, money order, and telegraph office under Preston, and a station on the railway. Fairs are held on 24 March and 26 Oct., and an agricultural and horticultural meeting is held in Sept. The township comprises 3726 acres; population, 5972. The manor belonged, in the time of Edward the Confessor, to the Crown, and had then a royal hall and court of justice. Worden Hall stands about half a mile S of the village, in a park of more than 300 acres, and is approached through a handsome modern archway adjacent to the village. The Old Hall is a Tudor mansion, now converted into a farmhouse. Many of the inhabitants are employed in cotton mills, gold thread works, and in extensive india-rubber works. The township is governed by a local board, who have erected waterworks. The parish contains also the townships of Clayton Ie Woods, Cnerden, Euxton, Hoghton, Whittle Ie Woods, Withnell, Wheelton, and Heapey. The ecclesiastical arrangement divides the area into Leyland St Andrew, Leyland St James, Euxton, Whittle-le-Woods, Withnell, Hoghton, and Heapey, but Leyland St James includes also a small portion of Croston parish, and it was separately constituted in 1855. Both the living of Leyland St Andrew and the living of Ley-land St James are vicarages in the diocese of Manchester; gross values, £1018 and £320 with residences; population of the ecclesiastical parish of St Andrew, 6719; of St James, 1635. The parochial church, or church of St Andrew, was mainly rebuilt in 1817, is in the Early Decorated English style, retains, in its chancel, a fine arch of the previous edifice, together with sedilia and a piscina, includes a chantry chapel of the Haringtons, containing brasses and handsome monumental tablets of that family, and has at the W end a fine massive tower. The churchyard contains tombstones with crosses of the 13th or 14th century, and others with inscriptions of the 17th. The church of St James, built in 1855, is in the Early English style, consisting of chancel, nave of three bays, aisles, north porch, and a western tower with lofty spire, and contains a beautifully carved octagonal font. The chapelries of Withnell, Whittle Ie Woods, Hoghton, and Heapey are separately noticed. Chapels for Congregational-ists, Wesleyans, Primitive Methodists, and Roman Catholics are in the township. St Ambrose is a chapel of ease, built in 1884-85, in the Early English style, consisting of chance], nave, aisles, north porch, and a tower. The Roman Catholic chapel is a plain but spacious edifice of 1846. The Congregational chapel, erected in 1877, is in the Early English style. A grammar school stands at the extremity of the parochial churchyard, is an ancient building, and has an endowed income, transferred to it by Queen Elizabeth from the Harington chantry. Balshaw's Free School, founded in 1784, is at Golden Hill, and has an endowed income of about £300. Almshouses, for six persons, were founded in 1649, and rebuilt in 1849; five modern cottages are near them, the rents of which are appropriated to them; almshouses for six aged women were founded by Osbaldeston in 1665, and rebuilt in 1870; and in 1887 four others were erected and endowed by Mrs Walton and Miss Ryley. The total yearly value of charities is about £600. There is also a police station, erected in 1869.