St James, Brindle

A Parish in the hundred of LEYLAND, county palatine of LANCASTER, 4-3/4 miles (N.by E.) from Chorley, containing 1,574 inhabitants.

The living is a discharged rectory, in the archdeaconry and diocese of Chester, rated in the king’s book at £12/8/4d, and in the patronage of the Duke of Devonshire.

The church, dedicated to St. James, is a small edifice.

The work-house, about a mile from the village, was formerly appropriated to the reception of pauper lunatics, and the idle and refractory poor from other townships; but since the erection of the county asylum at Lancaster, it has been open for the poor of any township, the inhabitants of which choose to contribute toward its support, and there are now about eighty townships thus incorporated.

The free school, supposed to have been founded by Peter Burscough, has an endowment of £16.16. a year, arising from various benefactions, and is open unlimitedly for poor children.

From: A Topographical Dictionary of England, by Samuel Lewis, Vol.1,London,1831,page 259.

Entered here 30 August 2004 by Lynn Ransom Burton.