Transactions of the Lancashire and Cheshire Antiquarian Society, from the pen of Mr. J. S. Slinger.

Directly we cross the bridge, a good view may be obtained of the border hills near Kirkby Lonsdale, dividing Lancashire from Westmoreland and Yorkshire, and of the ancient parish church of Melling.

Continuing some half mile further, we arrive at the village of Gressingham. No fewer than six forms of spelling this word have been observed in the course of my researches in preparation for this paper, i.e., Gressingham, Grysingham, Girsyngham, Gersingham, Grassingham and Grissingham.

The township appears as Gersictone in the Domesday Survey. There are frequent references to it in the Testa de Nevill. In Domesday, it was estimated to contain two carucates, and was part of the Saxon manor of Witetune, belonging to Earl Tosti. Alice, daughter of Geoffrey de Gersingham, being in the donation of the Crown, was married by King John to Thomas of Gressingham. They held five carucates for tending the King's hawks in Lunesdale till they became strong, when they were handed over to the Sheriff of Lancashire. Roger de Montbegon in the following charter, extracted from Mr. Roper's Materials for the History of the Church of Lancaster, says:

"To all the sons of the Holy Mother Church, to whom the present writing shall come Roger de Montbegon greeting in the Lord. Let all of you know that I have quit claimed to the Church of St. Martin of Sees and to the Church of St. Mary of Lancaster and to the Monks serving God there the whole right and claim. from me and my heirs for ever which I had in the Chapel of Gressingham if I had any right; and if any of mine or of my heirs. shall move a question against the aforesaid Churches and monks. concerning the aforesaid Chapel I and my heirs will stand faithfully with the said monks against him and will defend their right to the best of our power. I have also granted that whosoever shall hold the Church of Melling by my presentation or that of my heirs shall execute a juratory obligation to the said monks. that he will pay annually in charity to the Church of St. Mary of Lancaster for lighting two shillings at Easter for the welfare of my soul and the souls of my ancestors. The presentee also shall swear at the said Church that he will never move any question concerning the above written Chapel against the aforesaid Monks.

And the aforesaid Monks shall exact nothing more from him or from the same Church than the said two shillings. These being witnesses-G. fitz Reinfrid, H. the Seneschal, Gilbert de North, Roger of Burton, Robert of Bury, Richard of Wyresdale, Adam son of Orm, Helyas of Wemth, Walter of Parles, John of Torrisholmw, Peter of Hull, Orm son of Adam of Kellet, Patrick of Borwick, and others.".

From this time (1225) to the present the presentation to the living has remained in the hands of the vicar of the parish church of St. Mary of Lancaster. There is a

curious local belief that for many centuries the wax candle-ends from the mother church of Lancaster were the perquisite of the incumbent of her daughter church of Gressingham.

The charters set forth in detail with such care by Mr. Roper, in his Materials, contain many references to the church of Gressingham. In particular, the charter of Archdeacon John Romanous and that of Henry of Newark, and the confirmations of the Archbishop, and Dean and Chapter of York are full of such references.

Again we find Gressingham mentioned in the charters of Geoffrey of Gersingham. Benedict de Gersingham (whose family name was possibly Garnett, or Gernet), is a witness to several of these charters.

Further references in the fourteenth century are found in the Birch Feodary, printed by Matthew Gregson in his "Portfolio of Fragments"; in the Exchequer Lay Subsidy, 1332, printed by the Record Society; and in the "Survey" of 1320 to 1346, published by the Chetham Society, under the editorship of John Harland, in his Three Lancashire Documents.

The same Society have published some interesting references to Gressingham in the particulars of an aid granted to John O'Gaunt on the occasion of the marriage of his eldest daughter, forming part of the Coucher Book of Furness Abbey.

We now come to the sixteenth century. In 1523 we find a reference to Gressingham in a description in the Chetham Society's publication on "Lancashire Chantries", in the account of the Hospital or Bede-house in Hornby, in the parish of Melling.

Again, in 1553, we find that two soldiers were sent from Gressingham as part of the military muster of the county, as detailed in the Lancashire Lieutenancy Papers. In 1560 the manor of Gressingham passed to Lord Monteagle, himself a member of the Stanley family. In 1646 the Manchester Presbyterian Classes records

on its minutes that the eights classes was to contain Lancaster parish, and that Mr. John Sill, of Gressingham, was a fit minister for the classes.

Other references occur in the "Plundered Ministers' Accounts", published by the Record Society.

In 1650 the church was in the hands of the said Mr. Sill, and the people petitioned that they might be made. into a separate parish church, and that the inhabitants

of Aughton, four miles from Lancaster, and the congregation of Arkholme (separated from the parish church of Melling by the river Lune," which they cannot pass without danger of life"), may be separated from their respective parishes and united to the congregation and church of Gressingham.

In 1734 a brief was directed to Milnrow Church, near Rochdale, for the collection of money for the restoration of Gressingham Church. It was then restored, and was further altered by Messrs. Paley and Austin in

1862.

So much for the history of the parish, and now for a description of the church itself and its surroundings. It

is dedicated to St. John the Evangelist, and is in the main in the Perpendicular style of architecture. The most interesting feature of the church is the fine Norman south porch, of which an illustration is given (p. 262), and (for purposes of comparison) two illustrations of a similar doorway in the old church of Overton, near to Heysham and the mouth of the Lune.

Gressingham Church consists of a chancel, a nave of three bays with clerestory, north aisle, and a western

tower. This tower contains one bell, bearing the following inscription: "Gloria in excelsis deo. Thomas Williamson Warden 1740, Luke Ashton, Wiggan".

There is an interesting eighteenth-century pulpit, with an inscription: "R. T. 1714", with a Tudor rose between the two letters. This was given by, or was commemorative of, the Rev. Richard Thompson, one of the Vicars of Gressingham.

The church contains three or four brasses, of which the following is the most interesting: