Townships: Netherton

A History of the County of Lancaster: Volume 3. Originally published by Victoria County History, London, 1907.

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'Townships: Netherton', in A History of the County of Lancaster: Volume 3, (London, 1907) pp. 74-75. British History Online https://www.british-history.ac.uk/vch/lancs/vol3/pp74-75 [accessed 26 April 2024]

NETHERTON

There is no variation in the spelling; the definite article was formerly prefixed.

This township was originally a hamlet of Sefton, but appears to have been recognized as a distinct township as early as 1624, when the county lay was fixed. (fn. 1) It lies to the south-east of Sefton, and has an area of 1,126 acres. (fn. 2) The population numbered 589 in 1901.

It is in the heart of flat, agricultural country. The land is principally arable, producing crops of potatoes, wheat, barley, oats, and rye, in a soil which is a mixture of clay and sand. The country is not interesting, for there is nothing picturesque about the scattered farmsteads, and the trees are only large enough to give a slight protection to the buildings around which they cluster. The greater part of the township lies upon the lower keuper sandstone of the new red sandstone or trias, but on the south-eastern side the waterstones of the keuper series occur near the boundary of Aintree. The strata are obscured by sand and thick boulder clay and by alluvial deposits.

The principal road is that from Aintree village to Sefton Town. The Leeds and Liverpool Canal passes through the township, and upon it is the village, about ¾ mile south of Sefton church. The green is enclosed with railings.

The southern corner is crossed by two lines of railway, and contains the Aintree stations of the Lancashire and Yorkshire Company and the Cheshire Lines Committee.

The township is governed by a parish council.

Before 1212 Richard de Molyneux had given to his son Robert three oxgangs of land, to be held by knight's service, (fn. 3) which, no doubt, constitute the parcel called Arland, afterwards held by the Thornton family. (fn. 4) Though described as 'in the vill of Sefton' it was in Netherton, but the earliest mention of this place by name is in a charter of Richard de Molyneux of Sefton in 1318, granting his younger son Peter certain lands, together with the water-mill in 'the Netherton.' (fn. 5) A junior branch of the Sefton family appears to have settled here, for Simon de Molyneux of Netherton is mentioned in 1373. (fn. 6) In 1433–4 William Fairfellow and Agnes his wife released their lands here to Sir Richard Molyneux, Agnes making oath that she had made no feoffment of her lands in Sefton, except to a daughter of Simon de Molyneux, named Emmote, who had died at the age of fourteen. (fn. 7)

The township does not seem to have formed a distinct manor, but was included in Sefton. (fn. 8) A park called the Stand or New Park was formed here early in the seventeenth century, (fn. 9) but discontinued about 1800. Stand House preserves the name. (fn. 10)

The story of St. Bennet's Church has been given in the account of Sefton.

Footnotes

  • 1. Gregson, Fragments, 16.
  • 2. 1,124 in census of 1901; this includes 14 acres of inland water.
  • 3. Lancs. Inq. and Extents (Rec. Soc. Lancs. and Ches.), 13.
  • 4. 'Arland in the vill of Sefton' was held in 1398 by the heirs of Robert Molyneux of Thornton; Lancs. Inq. p.m. (Chet. Soc.), i, 70. The charter quoted in the following note shows that it lay on the border of Aintree. In 1779 fields in Netherton were called Old and Little 'Ireland.'
  • 5. Croxteth D. Genl. i, 10, 14. The boundaries began at the water-mill, following the 'fleam' of the mill stream to the Croft ditch, and thence in a straight line through the carr to the Alt; up this river as far as the Strindes, and thence to the land of Robert de Molyneux called Arland; following the ditch of Arland to the boundary of Aintree, and so to the house of Adam Leanothewind and to the cross on the Aintree boundary; thence by the boundaries of Walton and Litherland, the moss, and a ditch by Sefton field to the mill pool and mill.
  • 6. He was one of the feoffees of John Blundell of Ince; Gibson, Lydiate Hall, 97. He may be the Simon de Molyneux who fifteen to twenty years earlier was plaintiff in a case concerning a house and land in Sefton. This Simon was the son of William (who had a brother Henry), son of Adam de Molyneux, the owner of the property in the time of Edward I; Duchy of Lanc. Assize R. 4, m. 25. The case is also mentioned in Rolls 3, 5, and 6, m. 5. The defendant was Henry de Aintree; and the doubtful point was the soundness of mind of the claimant's grandfather at the time he granted them to his son Henry. William de Molyneux of Netherton, clerk, occurs in 1419; Kuerden fol. MS. 315, n. 458.
  • 7. Croxteth D. V. i, 2, 3. Their property seems to have been derived from a certain John del Dam, who in 1387 gave his lands in Netherton and Sefton to feoffees; ibid. V. i, 1. But few particulars concerning Netherton have been preserved. In 1415 Richard Wilson and Emmota his wife released to Thomas de Osbaldeston and his heirs all their right in the vill and territory of Netherton; Dods. MSS. cxlix. In 1467 Roger Wright granted to Thomas Molyneux his lands in Netherton; Croxteth D. V. i, 4, 5. In 1691 John Molyneux of Copy in Netherton and George Bradley of Melling and Ellen his wife (only daughter of William Molyneux, late of Netherton), sold Copy to the Hon. William Molyneux of Croxteth; draft deed at Croxteth.
  • 8. The Halmote of Sefton took cognizance of what happened in 'the Netherton'; roll of 5 Hen. IV, preserved at Croxteth.
  • 9. A grant of free warren, made by Jas. I on 2 Dec. 1615, mentions 'Sefton and the park there' among the Molyneux manors to which it applies; Pat. 13 Jas. I, pt. x-xiii. So also does another grant of 1637; Croxteth D. L.
  • 10. There are several allusions to it in N. Blundell's Diary (e.g. p. 221) in the first quarter of the eighteenth century. It is marked Stand Park on Teesdale's map of 1830, but had 'gone to decay' even in 1770; Enfield, Liverpool, 112.
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