Places: Low

LOW (or WALTON-LE-DALE)

Walton-le-Dale was a township and chapelry in the parish of Blackburn. The chapel, dedicated to St Leonard, was also known as Low Chapel and it seems that the chapelry was known both as Low and Walton-le-Dale. It is situated on the south bank of the River Ribble at the confluence of the River Darwen, almost opposite to the town of Preston. The banks of both rivers rise steeply, and the chapel is situated of high ground overlooking the rivers. Farming in the parish was largely pastoral with some arable and woodland and there was market gardening on the lower ground. By the mid-nineteenth century the cotton industry had developed and there was an iron foundry.

The manor of Walton was owned by the Banastre family and passed by marriage to the Langtons in the fourteenth century and then to the Hoghton family in the reign of Elizabeth. In a tithe cause brought by Thomas Langton against Laurence Banastre, Langton is described as ‘baron of Walton’.

The chapelry belonged to the monastery of Whalley. However, it seems that local residents resented the influence of the monastery. In 1525 Thomas Langton refused to allow any priest appointed by the abbot of Whalley to serve the chapelry and in 1526 some residents refused to pay mortuaries to Whalley. They were summoned to appear before the consistory court at Lichfield, but the case was eventually dismissed. Following the suppression of Whalley in 1537 the chapel with its tithes was valued at £27 11s 2d and  passed under lease to Richard Breame and then, in 1547, to Archbishop Thomas Cranmer together with the rectory of Blackburn (A History of the County of Lancaster: Volume 6). It became a perpetual curacy.

The tower of the parish church building is late medieval, as is the chancel, but most of the rest of the building dates from the beginning of the twentieth century.

Sources:

Christopher Haigh, Reformation and Resistance in Tudor Lancashire (Cambridge, 1975), pp. 32, 57 (Haigh refers to this chapelry as ‘Lawe’)

‘Walton – Walton, Wood’, in A Topographical Dictionary of England, ed. Samuel Lewis( London, 1848), British History Online https://www.british-history.ac.uk/topographical-dict/england/pp453-457 [accessed 5 January 2025]

‘Townships: Walton-le-Dale’, in A History of the County of Lancaster: Volume 6, ed. William Farrer, J Brownbill( London, 1911), British History Online https://www.british-history.ac.uk/vch/lancs/vol6/pp289-300 [accessed 5 January 2025]

Historic England:
Church of St Leonard, Church Brow (1074102)
https://historicengland.org.uk/listing/the-list/list-entry/1074102 National Heritage List for England