But

been kept at Wardley ever since, and many superstitious notions are entertained concerning it, not worth repeating." After the Downeses ceased to reside there, Wardley Hall was occupied for a time by Lord Barrymore. Towards the end of the eighteenth century, Thomas Barritt, the Manchester antiquary, visited the Hall, where he says there is "a human skull, which, time out of mind, hath had a superstitious veneration paid to it, by [the occupiers of the hall] not permitting it to be removed from its situation, which is on the topmost step of a staircase. There is a tradition that, if removed, or ill-used, some uncommon noise and disturbance always follows, to the terror of the whole house; yet I cannot persuade myself this is always the case. some few years ago, I and three of my acquaintances went to view this surprising piece of household furniture, and found it as above mentioned, and bleached white with the weather, that beats in upon it from a four-square window in the hall, which the tenants never permit to be glazed or filled up, thus to oblige the skull, which, they say, is unruly and disturbed at the hole not being always open. However, one of us, who was last in company with the skull, removed it from its place into a dark part of the room, and there left it, and returned home; but the night but one following, such a storm arose about the house, of wind and lightning, as tore down some trees, and unthatched outhousing. We hearing of this, my father went over in a few days after to see his mother, who lived near the Hall, and was witness to the wreck the storm had made. Yet all this might have happened had the skull never been removed; but withal it keeps alive the credibility of the tradition (or the credulity of its believers). But what I can learn of the above affair

from old people in the neighbourhood is, that a young man of the Downes family, being in London, one night in his frolics vowed to his companions that he would kill the first man he met; and accordingly he ran his sword through a man immediately, a tailor by trade. However, justice overtook him in his career of wickedness; for in some while after, he being in a riot upon London Bridge, a watchman made a stroke at him with his bill, and severed his head from his body, which head was enclosed in a box, and sent to his sister, who then lived at Wardley, where it hath continued ever since." Barritt adds"There is likewise a skull near Wigan of this surprising sort, of which I have heard stories too ridiculous to relate." In the "Traditions," the substance of this legend is given with graphic effect under the appellation of the "Skull House." It is there remarked of Wardley that," A human skull is still shown here, which is usually kept in a little locked recess in the staircase wall, and which the occupiers of the Hall would never permit to be removed. This grim caput mortuum being, it is said, much averse to any change of place or position, never failed to punish the individual severely which should dare to lay hands upon. it with any such purpose. If removed, drowned in the neighbouring pond (which is in fact a part of the old moat which formerly surrounded the house), or buried, it was sure to return; so that, in the end, each succeeding tenant was fain to endure its presence rather than be subject to the terrors and annoyances consequent upon its removal. Even the square aperture in the wall was not permitted to be glazed without the skull or its long-defunct owner creating some disturbance. It was almost bleached white by exposure to the weather, and many curious persons have made a pilgrimage there,

even of late years." Mr Roby then relates the freak of Barritt and his companions, and gives the story of the skull from Barritt's MS. The editor of the present volume visited the Hall some years ago, and found that a locked door concealed at once the square aperture and its fearful tenant. Of this "place of a skull," two keys were provided; one being kept by the tenant of the Hall, who farms some of the adjacent land, and the other being in the possession of the late (and first) Countess of Ellesmere, the lady of the lamented "Lord Francis. Egerton." The Countess occasionally accompanied visitors from the neighbouring Worsley Hall, and herself unlocked the door and revealed to her friends the grinning skull of Wardley Hall. The writer paid another visit to this quaint old Hall in October 1861, and again held the old skull in his hands. The bone of the lower jaw had become detached; but there is no sign of violence about the skull itself. If the tradition as to the violent death of its owner be correct, that result has been effected without any fracture of the bone. The keystone of an arched entrance into the courtyard has on its outer face, "R. H. D. 1625,” and beneath this, " 1818." On its inner face, "1846." These dates doubtless indicate the times of rebuilding or repairing a portion of the old place.

WARDLEY HALL.

WARDLEY Hall was originally the property of the Worsleys or Workedleys, who were settled at Worsley about the time of the Norman Conquest. They retained possession of Wardley till about the reign of Edward II., when Thurston de Tyldesley marrying Margaret, daughter

and heiress of Jordan de Workesley, it passed to the Tyldesleys; and, prior to the herald's visitation of 1567, became the residence of the elder branch of the family; a younger branch being settled at Morley Hall in Astley, which had come to the family by the marriage of Edmund, second son of Thurstan Tyldesley, of Tyldesley and Wardley, with Anne, daughter and sole heiress of Thomas Leyland, of Morley; and from that line descended the unfortunate and gallant royalist Sir Thomas Tyldesley. Wardley continued the property of the Tyldesleys until the beginning of the seventeenth century, when Thurston, son of Thomas Tyldesley, of Gray's Inn, Attorney-General for the Duchy of Lancaster, sold the estate in parcels, and Wardley passed to the Cheshire family of Downes. Roger Downes, the first of the name settled at Wardley, was Vice-Chamberlain of Chester to William Earl of Derby, and James Lord Strange, his son. He died about 1638, leaving by his wife, a daughter of John Calvert, of Cockerham, three sons and one daughter. Francis and Lawrence both died young; John succeeded to the estates on the death of his father; and Jane married Robert Snede, Esq., of Keele, Staffordshire. John Downes, a zealous Roman Catholic and supporter of the Royalist cause, accompanied Lord Strange (afterwards the unfortunate Earl of Derby) to the siege of Manchester in September 1642. He married Penelope, daughter of Sir Cecil Trafford, knight, the only issue being Roger, son and heir (who was unfortunately killed by a watchman at Epsom Wells in June 1676), and a daughter named Penelope. How the story of the skull arose, it is impossible to say; but it seems to have been to a great extent true; at least, as regards Roger Downes, who is represented as being one of the wildest and most licentious of the courtiers of

Charles II. Upon the wall of Wigan Church is a tablet to the memory of this same Roger Downes, with the inscription:" Rogerus Downes de Wardley, armiger, filius Johannis Downes, hujus comitatis, armigeri, obiit 27 Junii 1676, ætatis suæ 28"-(Roger Downes of Wardley, Esq., son of John Downes of this county, Esq., died 27th June 1676, aged twenty-eight years).

Thomas Barritt, the antiquary, besides the story he has given relating to the skull in his "MS. Pedigrees," offers the following explanation :-" Thomas Stockport told me that the skull belonged to a Romish priest, who was executed at Lancaster for seditious practices in the time of William III. He was most likely the priest at Wardley, to which place his head being sent, might be preserved as a relic of his martyrdom. . . . The late Rev. Mr Kenyon of Peel, and librarian at the College in this town [Chetham's Library, Manchester], told me, about the year 1779, that the family vault of the Downeses in Wigan Church had been opened about that time, and a coffin discovered, on which was an inscription to the memory of the above young Downes. Curiosity led to the opening of it, and the skeleton, head and all, was there; but, whatever was the cause of his death, the upper part of the skull had been sawed off, a little above the eyes, by a surgeon, perhaps by order of his friends, to be satisfied of the nature of his disease. His shroud was in tolerable preservation; and Mr Kenyon showed me some of the ribbon that tied his suit at the arms, wrists, and ankles; it was of a brown colour-what it was at first could not be ascertained." Penelope, sister and heiress of Roger Downes, conveyed the estate by marriage to Richard Savage, fourth Earl Rivers, who died in 1712, leaving an only daughter, Elizabeth, married to James, fourth Earl of Barrymore, the repre