Robert de Prestwich 1193

Nevertheless, because of that theft at the Church in 1296, the first reference we have to the name of the village and to the manorial family called de Prestwich is the Pipe Roll of 1193.

King Richard I was away on Crusade and his younger brother Prince John attempted a coup. Prince John mustered his supporters at various places such as Lancaster. But King Richard’s Regent, William de Longchamp assembled his own troops in defence of the rightful King. The Regent stormed northwards destroying several of John’s castles and hanging his followers. Prince John took the hint ; he made his peace with Longchamp and his followers dispersed homewards.

That still didn’t stop reprisals and Longchamp drew up lists of knights and others who had supported Prince John and fined them. That is how we first hear about Prestwich. Robert de Prestwich held the manor of Prestwich and he had turned out in support of Prince John. He was fined 5 marks as a result. It should be noted that other local squires were also fined – Adam de Bury, William de Radcliffe etc. What they all had in common was that they held some of their land from the Baron de Montbegon of Hornby Castle. Montbegon was a friend and leading advisor to Prince John. So he probably summoned out all his Lancashire vassals, such as Robert de Prestwich, in his cause. Robert de Prestwich might not necessarily have believed that Prince John would make a better King than his brother Richard ; Robert de Prestwich was just obeying a summons from his feudal overlord, Adam de Montbegon. He had to do forty days a year knight’s service for his manor of Prestwich and a quarter of that for Alkrington.

The de Prestwich family held the manors of Prestwich and Alkrington from at least 1193 until 1362. In the end Prestwich went to the Langley family through marriage to the heiress but a subsidiary branch of the de Prestwich family obtained Hulme and Hulme Hall by marriage and became a leading Manchester family from 1350 to 1660.

Sir Adam de Prestwich, Lord of the Manor from 1275 to 1319, started a collection of deeds relevant to his estate in 1297. No doubt it was in response to the theft of charters from the church. He preferred to keep important documents under lock and key at the Manor House from then on. The Langleys continued collecting deeds and the collection grew into the Agecroft Deeds, a series that runs from 1297 through to the early nineteenth century. Most of the early deeds from 1297 to 1561 were about Prestwich. The Agecroft Deeds are a rich seam of material on the history of Prestwich which so far has not really been tapped. The present writer is compiling an analysis of the Agecroft Deeds with particular reference to the light they shed on Prestwich.

The large Parish of Prestwich.

Something should be said about the Parish of Prestwich. Historically it was huge, stretching from the Irwell to the Pennines beyond Oldham. The original Parish included Prestwich itself, Alkrington, Tonge( Middleton ), Chadderton, Heaton,Oldham, Werneth, Royton and Crompton. It covered about fifteen miles west to east.

Large medieval parishes like Prestwich have been subject to historical research in other areas of England. A hypothesis has been put forward that they show the boundaries of “unitary estates” from the Roman period. The Romans and Romano-British created big estates in order to get a mix of all kinds of farmland in them – arable land, pasture, meadow, moor, heath etc. It is not known whether Prestwich parish was one of those unitary estates but there are Roman remains scattered across the area.

Also in Saxon times when an Earl or King founded a monastery or religious house he endowed it with a large hinterland designed to be big enough to support the monks. That takes us back to Sir John Prestwich’s assertion that his family had founded a monastery in the village. Even if there was not a monastery, the Church at Prestwich might need a substantial area to draw tithes and fees from in order to support it.

This area was poorly populated, there were few people here until the sixteenth century. Perhaps in a poorly populated area the parish would need to be large as a matter of course simply because of the scattered settlement. Eccles and Middleton, the two neighbouring parishes were also large in extent.

Eventually the large parish of Prestwich became untenable, it came to be called Prestwich-cum-Oldham which reflected the fact that Oldham had outgrown its parent like a cuckoo in the nest. Nineteen parishes ended up being carved out of the medieval parish of Prestwich.But the Mayor of Oldham is still one of the Patrons of Living of Prestwich.