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Dutton

DUTTON, a township, in the parish of Great Budworth, union of Runcorn, hundred of Bucklow, N. division of the county of Chester, 5¼ miles (E.) from Frodsham; containing 361 inhabitants. This place, called in Domesday book Duntune, was the seat of the family of Dutton, who exercised peculiar authority over the musicians and minstrels of the county, under a grant from the Lacys, barons of Walton, requiring them to pay suit and service at a court held before the lord of Dutton, or his deputy, at Chester, every year on Midsummer-day, and to take out a licence for the exercise of their calling. One side of Dutton Hall, erected in 1542, is still standing, furnishing a remarkably rich relic of the domestic architecture of that period. The township comprises 2040 acres, of which the soil is sand and clay: Sir Arthur Ingram Aston is the principal owner. The Liverpool and Birmingham railway passes through the township, near which it is carried over the valley of the river Weaver by a viaduct of stupendous dimensions, consisting of 20 arches, each 60 feet span, and 60 feet in height to the crown of the arch, and 72 including the battlements; the whole is 1400 feet in length, and faced with red sandstone, procured from Bolton and Runcorn, and cost £50,000. The Grand Trunk canal, also, passes in the vicinity. Tithe rent-charges have been awarded, of which £62. 6. 8. are payable to Christ-Church, Oxford, £10 to the vicar, and £2 to an impropriator. Dutton gives the title of Baron to the family of Douglas, dukes of Hamilton, who, through the marriage of James, fourth duke, with Elizabeth, heiress of Digby, last lord Gerard, are descendants of the family of the Duttons, of this place.

Transcribed from A Topographical Dictionary of England, by Samuel Lewis, seventh edition, published 1858.

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