A Landscape History and Village Survey

The Historic Lathom Project was conceived by the Trust in January 2001. The project was designed to involve the local community in investigating the rich history of the village, and to enable the results to be presented to local audiences in an interesting and understandable manner.

THE PROJECT TEAM

Vernacular Buildings Survey:
Alison Plummer (Consultant)
Eric Joinson and Stephen Baldwin (co-ordinators)
Paul Smith, Vicky Hodge,
Kevin Brookfield,
Alison Moore, Pauline Davies, Mark Sephton, John Hartley,
Ross and Fiona Duggan, Peter Smith, Del Ellis,
Peter Ferguson, Lynn Lomas and Jeff Ratcliffe.

Duttons Farm:
Ron Cowell, National Museums Liverpool

Medieval Park Survey:
Stephen Baldwin and John Trippier (co-ordinators)
Dr Peter Sewell (Tithe Award Supervisor)
Fay Alexander, Charles and Jenny Coombes,
Pauline Davies, Vicky Hodge,
Eileen Rooney, Paul Smith, Mark Sephton, John Hartley, Pat Boylett, Jeff Lane,
Mollie Yates, Mark Hill and Jeff Ratcliffe.
Nigel Neil and Dr Alan Crosby (Consultants)

Web Site Design Group:
John Knowles and Stephen Baldwin (co-ordinators)
Ron Cowell, David Dunn, Peter Ferguson and
Jamie Quartermaine

Local History/Guide Booklet: Stephen Baldwin, Ron Cowell, David Dunn, Peter Ferguson, Mark Fletcher,
John Hinchliffe,
John Knowles, John Hayton, John Trippier and
Jamie Quartermaine

THE PROJECT

Lathom is a large township in West Lancashire, first recorded at Domesday and which was important throughout the medieval and post-medieval period, being associated with the seat of the Stanleys, one of the largest landholders in the region. The Lathom Park Trust aims to undertake a survey of the historic settlement in the township in order to identify and explain the nature and development of the landscape associated with Lathom throughout this period.
The study will be particularly involved in looking at what form the earliest settlement took, when it originated, where it was located, what the landscape looked like in the medieval period and how this changed. This should form the basis for many local initiatives associated with education and heritage matters that will allow a wider appreciation of the historical richness of the surviving landscape of Lathom.

The research will be done by means of a Vernacular Building Survey, a programme of work at the Duttons Farm Iron Age site incorporating a geophysical survey, fieldwalking and archaeological excavation. Also, a documentary study of existing and former medieval deer park boundaries and then the presentation of the results to a wider audience through a dedicated web site, non-technical booklet, interpretation boards, open days, guided walks and talks.

FUNDING

In April 2001, the Lathom Park Trust submitted a grant application to the Local Heritage Initiative (LHI) in order to fund the first stage of a long-term historic landscape and village survey: The Historic Lathom Project. LHI is part of the National Heritage Memorial Fund administered by the Countryside Agency to fund a wide range of local community led heritage projects and restoration schemes.

HOW TO GET INVOLVED

Members of the Trust and the local community can express an interest and actively participate in future projects by contacting the Trust.

In August 2001 the Trust accepted a grant awarded by LHI.
In addition to this grant the Trust has been awarded a further sum from the Nationwide Building Society to fund publication and presentation of the results. 'In kind' contributions have also been promised to the project by other partners, including the British Trust for Conservation Volunteers (BTCV)..

The Medieval Period

There is no modern centre of settlement in Lathom that can be identified as being in existence in the late medieval period. With this in mind the last two season's work at Dutton's Farm are concentrated on the later medieval part of the site (1100-1400 AD). Whereas earlier excavations have attempted to understand the nature of the Iron Age and Roman settlement, the current work is intended to bridge the gap in the understanding of the period from c.400 AD to 1400 AD, or as it is otherwise known, the Lathom Dark Age !

The 2005–06 excavations followed on from an earlier programme of fieldwalking at Dutton's Farm in the field adjacent to the A5209 road between Burscough and Newburgh. It was thought that a series of medieval pottery scatters may represent occupation sites which could provide new insights into the more recent development of historic Lathom. One explanation for the pottery finds (rare in the north west) could be that there was a small, late medieval settlement or hamlet lying alongside the road that did not survive into the modern period.

The recent excavation project investigated whether the largest surface scatter of pottery, lying adjacent to a 13th century (or earlier) ford across the River Tawd, represents the site of a former medieval farm or other kind of settlement. The road also approximately marks the potential ancient boundary between the Dutton's Farm estate and the medieval deer park associated with Lathom House. The latter is the most important site in the township in the late medieval period because of its association with the nationally prominent Stanley family, so here is a chance to understand how the two estates co-existed.  In trying to do so, the origins of the Burscough-Newburgh road itself, which is assumed to be late medieval, if not earlier, might also be clarified.

The site has produced the largest amount of medieval pottery, numbering over 900 pieces so far, from a rural site in the region. Medieval rural sites are generally rare in Lancashire, and only two or three small sites have been excavated in Merseyside. The style of the pottery suggests that this site was probably in use up to about 1400 AD or slightly later, before being abandoned, as there is hardly any later pottery in this area. It seems, therefore, that the activity here had stopped by about that date. This may be of relevance in the future in trying to interpret the relationship between Dutton's Farm and Lathom House, as this was about the period when the park was expanding and a document of 1464 AD suggests it may even have grown to include the Dutton's Farm estate within the land use of Lathom’s deer parks.

Future work is also intended to clarify the origins of the late medieval settlement, if that is what it is. The excavations have produced a number of other features not associated with late medieval pottery and which, therefore, might be relevant to this aim. These include a small slightly irregular, rounded structure, a wide shallow gully and various short lengths of curving gully, some of which lie outside the area between the late medieval ditch and the road. These could be of any age from Iron Age to early medieval, prior to the inhabitants on the site starting to use pottery in about the 12th or 13th century AD.

Project Director: Ron Cowell, Curator Prehistoric Archaeology, National Museums Liverpool

The Medieval Deer Parks of Lathom

An historical survey of the development of the parks within the parish of Lathom, in
West Lancashire has been undertaken by the Lathom Park Trust, funded by the Local Heritage Initiative in 2001 and the first, documentary, stage was completed in October 2004.

The elaborate wrought iron entrance gates to Sir Thomas Bootle’s
neo-classical park at Lathom.

The study was intended to identify and explain the nature and development of the landscape associated with Lathom throughout this period, and has studied the form of the earliest settlement, what the landscape looked like in the medieval period, and how this changed over the intervening centuries to the present day.

One of the main priorities was to define topographically the boundaries of the various ‘incarnations’ of the medieval deer parks - Lathom Park, the smaller New Park, and Burscough Priory Park - and their subsequent development.

The eighteenth century oval-shaped Lathom Park first documented in 1250 and possibly founded a century or so before this date.

An important aim of the project was to get the local population involved in
researching their own heritage, and this entailed the establishment of a training
programme to teach the local volunteers the rudiments of documentary research and enable the detailed study.

The documentary research was undertaken by volunteers and professionals at local and national document depositories, particularly the Lancashire Record Office and Manchester Central Library

One of the remarkable results of the project is that it has identified the existence of one of Humphry Repton’s Red Books for Lathom dated 10 September 1792, and which was purchased by the Lancashire Record Office (LRO) at auction in 2004. The Red Book provides vital mapped, written, and illustrated evidence for landscape and architectural features from up to a century before Repton’s visit, features for which other evidence is sparse or entirely lacking.

Smith’s 1603 map showing the two Lathom Parks (top centre)
enclosed by oak paling – note large buildings within park paling

From the Compotus of 1521-2 it is evident that the Lathom parks showed many of the typical parkland features of woodlands, launds and open spaces, extensive grassed areas normally used for animal pasture, tracts of arable land, a rabbit warren, ponds, deerhouses, and substantial and well-maintained perimeter fences, hedges and ditches.

New Park or Lady Park, created before 1470 by Sir Thomas Stanley
For his first wife Lady Eleanor Neville

The smaller New Park, also known as the Lady Park, of about 114 ha (281.7 acres) is now known, from a statement in the 1521-22 compotus, to have been created in 1470, and was probably imparked for Thomas Stanley’s first wife, Eleanor Neville.

It can be suggested that the hamlet of Alton, or Olton, later corrupted to Halton, may have lain close to the moated site known as Halton Castle, which lies within New Paårk. The lack of documentary sources after 1366 suggests that this settlement may have been deserted before New Park was imparked in 1470.

An aerial photographic and walkover survey of the Halton Castle site has revealed that there are extensive low earthworks which may relate to the remains of this former village.

Burscough Priory Park, now known to be in the north-west corner of the study area, but previously only known from late twelfth century documentary references in the Burscough Cartulary , has been located from field names on the 1846 tithe map. Its constituent parcels were also listed in estate accounts of 1611, and totaled at least 56 customary acres in extent (128 statute acres, 51.8 ha). Documentary evidence has also produced evidence for an enigmatic Stand Park, referred to in a 1697 document which was presumably at or near Stand Farm.

Following the Civil War sieges, the later medieval house was partially demolished. The project has established that, in the second half of the seventeenth century, the 8th and 9th earls not only went to considerable expense to re-build the siege-ravaged Lathom House, but to transform the deer park into a designed landscape with one of the longest and widest avenues in England. This was known as The Lines, and was as much as 3000 metres in length and 200m in width, and is of potentially national importance.

Charles 8th earl of Derby who spared no expense when rebuilding Lathom House and parks after the damage caused by two prolonged civil war sieges.

In about 1724-25, the estate was acquired by Thomas Bootle, and the house was rebuilt to the designs of Giacomo Leoni, evidently retaining much of the earlier standing masonry. The moat was infilled, a ha-ha was created on its line and the park was designed incorporating pleasure gardens, a screening wood called The Belt around the park perimeter, Temple Wood to the south of the House and a circular building within, ice houses, deer houses, and several major water features. By the late eighteenth century, there were no visible traces of the earlier medieval house.