Newton-in-Maker-Field
The parish comprises 3101 acres, whereof about 697 are arable, 1958 meadow and pasture, 28 wood, and the remainder villages, roads, and waste or common. The district is delightful and healthy, and the land very fertile, the soil being one-third clay loam and two-thirds loam, with a substratum of the new red-sandstone formation, of which there are excellent quarries. Newton Hall, a venerable building of lath and plaster, stands on the south side of the town; the vestiges of a moat, formerly visible, have merged in the adjacent brook, and the ancient mount or tumulus, with its subterraneous passages and walls, now forms part of the embankment of the Liverpool and Manchester railway. The late John Blackburne, Esq., M.P. for Lancashire, sold this Hall and estate to Mr. Legh. Oak-tree House, at the northern extremity of the town, is another fabric of frame-work; the Brotherton family were the ancient proprietors, and sold it to the Leghs. Hey, in Newton, consists of two farms; Old Hey was the mansion of the Brothertons, by whom the property was sold to the Leghs at the beginning of the present century.
Newton was formerly a chapelry in the parish of Winwick, but was erected into a distinct parish, by act of parliament, in 1844. The living is a rectory, in the patronage of the Earl of Derby: the tithes have been commuted for £300, and there are two acres of glebe land, and a glebe-house. The parish church, situated at Wargrave, and dedicated to Emmanuel, was built in 1841, and is a neat stone structure in the early English style, with a spire, forming a commanding object in the scenery: the cost of its erection was defrayed by the rector of Winwick. The old chapel, which was dedicated to St. Peter, was built in 1682, by Richard Legh, Esq., and rebuilt in 1834; it is also in the pointed style, and of red-sandstone. After the creation of the parish of Newton, it was made a district church. The living is a perpetual curacy; net income, £114; patron, Mr. Legh. The burial-ground has been extended, and inclosed with a stone wall and iron palisades, by the patron; it contains an obelisk formed of one very large block of stone (brought from Lyme Park, in Cheshire), in lieu of an ancient cross. There is a free school, the master of which receives about £50 per annum, arising from the proceeds of certain inclosures of Leyland common, and the rent of a messuage called Dean-School; and national schools, adapted for 400 children, have been built by government grants and private subscription, on a site given by Mr. Legh, from the designs of his agent, Mr. Mercer.
About half a mile northward of the town are the remains of a barrow, supposed to be of great antiquity, named Castle Hill; it is from eight to nine yards in height and about 25 in diameter, and beautifully situated on a high bank near the confluence of a small brook with the river Dean; the sides and summit of this barrow are covered with venerable oaks. At the distance of about a quarter of a mile south of the town, in the footpath of the turnpike-road leading to Warrington, is a large stone laid in the pavement, called the Bloody Stone, on which the peasantry of the surrounding country invariably spit when passing. The legend is, that on this stone, the Welsh knight who had married Lady Mabel Bradshaigh, of Haigh Hall, on the supposed death of her husband, Sir William, in the Holy wars, fell murdered by the latter, who had been taken prisoner in Palestine, and returned after a long captivity.
Transcribed from A Topographical Dictionary of England, by Samuel Lewis, seventh edition, published 1858.