at the homes of the people. Soon after this improved machinery and power were introduced into this work, by the inventions of Arkwright and others, and in the days when Arkwright and Peel were laying the foundations of their colossal fortunes, this Ralph Bower, catching the spirit of the times, migrated from this old farm behind Chorley Hall to Wilmslow, where there was a river for water-power (steam-power was not used as yet), and here he erected what was then called the new building, a little water-power cotton mill at the foot of Hawthorn Carrs. This place is now known as the silk mill. It was for many years worked as a silk mill by the late Mr. Charles Barber. It has been stated that he built it. This is an error. It was built by Mr. Bower before Mr. Barber was born. Other mills followed, and he eventually introduced steam into a mill, which stood almost in the street, near Wilmslow town pump. His many sons grew up, and each in his turn became a spinner or manufacturer, and soon Wilmslow became noted for its cotton shops. Some of these firms even issued money and notes. Indeed, Wilmslow at this time was far in advance of many places that are now important towns, so far as the cotton trade was concerned. For some reason in after years this trade declined in Wilmslow, and eventually left it altogether. Ralph Bower, of Chorley and Wilmslow, seems to have done well; for about the beginning of this century he bought the Hawthorn estate, an historic place near Wilmslow. It was then very much larger in extent than It included a large slice of what is now Pownall, and extended to the Bollin in a northerly direction, while it came up to Parsonage Green on the easterly side. When this Ralph Bower died, or rather some time after his death, in effecting a division of his estate by arbitration, the Hawthorn was cut into sections by making Hawthorn Lane and Kennerleys Lane, and to William, a son of the said Ralph Bower,

fell that portion of the Hawthorn estate now called The Grove. Soon after this the Grove house was built for an inn and posting-house, and this it was for many years. William Bower, like his father, was, in a small way, a cotton manufacturer in Wilmslow, and he had a mill on Mill Brow, behind where Isaac Sumner lives, in Church Street. This mill was pulled down when Pownall Hall was rebuilt, about the year 1836. This William Bower, was the father of George Bower, an attorney-at-law, to whose memory there is a stained-glass window in Wilmslow Church, and also of the late Misses Isabella and Ann Bower, of the Grove. Hawthorn Hall fell to Ralph Bower, of Wilmslow, a son of Ralph Bower, of Chorley, and from him it descended to his daughter, Eliza Bower, who had only a life interest. Mr. Ralph Bower, of Wilmslow, a greatgrandson of Ralph Bower, of Chorley, is the present heir. I have been somewhat more lengthy on the Bower family than I ought to have been. My excuse is, that Ralph Bower, of Chorley, was very intimately connected with the history of Wilmslow at an important epoch-say about a hundred years back. He was a contemporary of the first Mr. Greg, of Styall, who has found a prominent place in our history, and for noticing this Ralph Bower at some length it may be further urged on my behalf that he was a born Chorley-man, a native of Wilmslow parish. Gorst House, an antiquated mansion on the Knutsford Road, in Chorley, formerly belonged as an appanage to the Hawthorn estate. It was inherited by and now belongs to William Gouldthorpe, Esq., barrister-atlaw, a great-grandson of Ralph Bower, of Chorley.

We have a few other old places in Chorley which I shall mention, and only mention, as they may suggest connections in the minds of some. We have Orrell's Well, Grange House, Lingard's, Lydyate, &c. With this I must leave Chorley and its history.

Alderley Church is before your eyes, and its history is in the books; and, furthermore, were I to attempt to do anything with ecclesiastical antiquities it would simply be an absurd impertinence and a folly which I shall avoid. The escutcheons and monuments are to be seen. The chief ones relate to the Stanley family. A short reference, however, to the good Bishop Stanley, of Norwich, may be allowed. In the rectory adjoining the churchyard for long years dwelt Edward Stanley (brother to the first Lord Stanley), rector of Alderley, afterwards Bishop of Norwich. In this quiet spot, and in his rural walks and rides along the hursts and shaws and lanes, and upon the beetling cliffs of the Edge of his large parish, in addition to his sacred vocation, he studied birds and insects and plants; and from this place he gave to the world his valuable books upon natural history. He was always a man of the widest sympathies, and his daily life was a communing with nature and the diffusion of a glow of warm Christian charity and loving-kindness. We might almost expect to find such a son as Dean Stanley from such a father and from such associations. Bishop Stanley was a man far ahead of his times. While rector of Alderley his parochial school was the best in the locality, and he himself superintended the whole of the work of his large cure. Nothing was too small for him. In the school hard by he superintended the education of the boys, and in the Radnor mere in the park he taught them to swim. In every way he was the kind helper and friend of his flock. It only strikes me while writing that fifty years back or rather more, in Wilmslow National School, I received a prize from the hand, and was kindly admonished by the sweet voice of one of the highest type of man the world has seen, this gentlemanly English clergyman of the old school, a man of the highest culture and of the most excellent moral worth.