AN ACCOUNT OF THE CHARTERS, DEEDS, AND OTHER DOCUMENTS, NOW PRESERVED AT AGECROFT HALL, CO. LANCASTER.

THE

BY J. P. EARWAKER, M.A., F.S.A.

HE great importance of original documents in the investigation of local and family history, as well as for the general history of any particular country or district, is year by year becoming better understood. The labours of the Historical Manuscripts Commission have been the means of bringing to light a vast amount of manuscript material, not only for the history of England, but also for the history of particular counties and families. The great value attached to the bundles of deeds and papers, which have accumulated in the muniment rooms of old county families, &c., is at last beginning to be appreciated, and most families, who are fortunate enough to possess such documents, are now only too anxious that their literary and historical treasures should be properly cared for, arranged, and calendared. There is perhaps nothing, which more thoroughly distinguishes an old family from a modern one, than the number of family papers and deeds, which have been preserved, and the relative importance of such a family in days gone

by, cannot be better illustrated than by the value of the manuscript treasures, which their muniment room can show. But unfortunately, in most cases, these manuscripts are in a state of utter confusion. Deeds of the thirteenth, fourteenth, and fifteenth centuries are mixed up with old letters and papers of the last century, or are tied up in packets, endorsed "deeds of no value," because, forsooth, they have no bearing on the present title of the estates to which they relate, whilst in most cases their real value, from another point of view, is far greater than is generally imagined. Deeds relating to one county are mixed up with those of others, and whoever wishes to search for any particular record has a most difficult task before him. Few people, moreover, have either the time or the inclination to wade through a large collection of unarranged manuscripts, frequently very illegible and difficult to decipher, or else discoloured and dirty. But how different is the case when they have been properly examined, sorted, and calendared. They are then all chronologically arranged, numbered consecutively, and each deed bears on the back a concise endorsement of the nature of its contents. The family deeds, grants of lands, wills, marriage settlements, &c., are put together, so that each step in the family pedigree can be proved by documentary evidence, and it is not necessary to invent bogus ancestors to bolster up an imaginary old descent. The deeds, which have come into the muniment room in consequence of marriages with heiresses or in other ways, are kept by themselves, and those of one county are, as far as possible, separated from those of another. Then, with a proper calendar, it is possible for any one, specially interested in the past history of any particular parish or district, to ascertain very quickly what deeds are likely to prove of assistance to him, and he can find them at once by their numbers. To sum the matter up concisely,

the difference between the two cases is in fact the difference between chaos and confusion and order and arrangement.

The charters and deeds, which form the subject of this paper, when placed in my hands, were in the state of chaos and confusion above described, and considerable time and trouble were required before they were able to be properly arranged and calendared as they now are. But before proceeding to describe them it may be interesting to give a few particulars of Agecroft Hall, and the families, which have owned and lived on that estate.

AGECROFT HALL, one of the finest of the old black and white, timber and plaster, halls now remaining in the neighbourhood of Manchester, is situated in Pendlebury, about five miles distant from that city. The original owners of the manor of Pendlebury were a family who bore the local name, and who were probably descended from one "Elias son of Robert," to whom one carucate of land called "Peneburi" was granted by King John in the year 1199. They were succeeded, probably through marriage, by the Prestwiches, who owned the adjacent manor of Prestwich and the advowson of the church there. Joan, the daughter and ultimately the heiress of Jordan de Tetlow, by his wife Alice, daughter and ultimately heiress of the last Adam de Prestwich, married Richard de Longley, about the year 1360, and so brought the manors of Pendlebury, Prestwich, and Alkrington, and lands in those and the adjacent townships, into the Longley family. The Longleys or Langleys, of Agecroft, became a family of considerable importance in this part of Lancashire during the fourteenth, fifteenth, and sixteenth centuries, and are frequently mentioned in local deeds and public records. There were several members of this family rectors of Prestwich, and one of them, Ralph Longley, held the wardenship of Manchester from 1465 to 1481. Sir Robert Langley, of Agecroft, Knt., who died on the 19th