The Doles

First reference to the land on which our house is built is taken from a sketched map of the town, which dates back to 1769 and was in the possession of John Stanton Esq. This is not drawn to scale but the area is referred to simply as "The Doles" and was pasture land.

In the 1800s, it was known as Dole Fields, as the OS map from 1844 below records.

1844 Map

At this time the town was very much smaller than it is today, a small market town developed around the main thoroughfare, Market Street. Lying to the west of the town centre we see Dole Fields and Chancery Lane, now known as St Thomas' Road, leading towards the neighbouring village of Euxton. 

A small cul-de-sac can be seen leading off Chancery Lane towards a marked 'Well'; this was to become Devonshire Road but at the time continued as a footpath linking Dole Fields to Moor Road on the west side of Chorley. You can see that Crown Street also existed at this time on the north side of Chancery Lane, but there was no real development to the west, on either side of the road from that point back in the mid-1800s. Further to the west we can see an unnamed road running south, dissecting Beech Cottages and West Cottage; Ashfield Road as we know it today.

The nineteenth century saw huge development in and around the town, summed up in the following excerpt from St George's Church website.

As a cotton town, Chorley's industrial revolution was centred on that industry, which had been introduced into the town as early as 1660. A century later the mechanisation of the industry was prompted by the inventions of the flying shuttle (by Kay of Bury), the spinning Jenny (Hargreaves, Blackburn,1766) and Arkwright's water frame which took the spinning industry out of cottages and into the mill This was followed by Crompton's mule (in Bolton) which likewise forced the automation of the weaving industry. Indeed, Arkwright lived for a time at Birkacre within what was to become part of the original parish of St George and where, in 1779 serious anti-mechanisation riots occurred.

Thus, 1790 saw the construction of spinning mills in the town and the town's population explosion began. It was soon evident that the parish Church of St Laurence, part of which dates back at least to the thirteenth century, was insufficient for a burgeoning population. St Laurence's itself was only elevated from the status of a chapelry of the Rector of Croston to a parish Church in its own right in 1793. In 1791 the citizens of Chorley had applied for St Laurence's to be enlarged, but the Rector of Croston refused the application on the grounds that this would make it more difficult to speak in, and would require a very strong voice and such a clergyman might not so easily be met with for so uncertain a salary. The Curates salary at that time had just been reduced from £20 to £10 pa. Yet, only thirty-two years later the great Church of St George was erected . This is where the Napoleonic wars were instrumental in the history of St George's.

Although these wars dislocated trade in the early years of the nineteenth century, and the cotton trade in particular, thus affecting the towns prosperity, the town's population continued to grow. In 1818, three years after the decisive battle of Waterloo an Act of Parliament popularly known as the Million Act, was passed, empowering King George III to grant the Church Commissioners sums of money for the building of new Churches in the growing industrial areas. This million pounds was to be derived from the reparations exacted from the French after the wars. The people of Chorley were among the first to make application, the success of which led to the building of St George's hence, to this day the church is known as a Waterloo or Commissioners church.

The original deed for the purchase of the land ,which at that time was previously undeveloped, gives the names of the owners as Edmund Leigh of Chorley (d.4 Jun 1817 buried St Laurence's Church), Edmund Grundy of Bury (d.1855 Bury) and Mary Anne Grundy nee Leigh (d.1848 Bury) his wife (married 28 Nov 1814 St Lawrence's), John Cunliffe of Crooke and Myerscough House and Sarah Cunliffe his wife. Mary Anne Grundy and Sarah Cunliffe were the only children of William Leigh (d.16 Apr 1817 buried St Laurence's Church) and Ann Leigh (d.7 Jun 1802 buried St Lawrence's) and were co-heirs and nieces of Edmund Leigh and John Pollard of Chorley, a surgeon, and Robert Topping. 

The families highlighted above were the owners of huge areas of land throughout Lancashire and were also the owners of Dole Fields, which was offered for sale by 'public competition' in sections in 1898, which included both the plot of land on which our row of terraced houses and Coronation Recreation Ground lie; their ownership can be traced back to the 1500s.

John, son of Robert and Isabel Legh (or Lee) in 1550 obtained a third part of two messuages and various lands in Chorley and Duxbury. This estate seems to be that held in 1618 by John Leigh of Westhoughton.

www.british-history.ac.uk

Messrs. Cunliffe and Grundy were landed gentry and records show that John Cunliffe lived at Myerscough House with his wife Sarah in the Ribble Valley area of Lancashire.

1835 Register

With six servants living at the house as well as extended family John Cunliffe was clearly a wealthy man and the 1851 census describes his occupation as, "Deputy Lieutenant and one of her Majesty's Justices of the Peace for the county of Lancashire, landed proprietor and occupier 210 (sic. acres) employing 10 agricultural labourers"...some title!

However, it was actually John Cunliffe's wife Sarah and her sister Mary Ann who were from Chorley and inherited the land from their uncle after his death in 1817. Records show that Messrs. Cunliffe & Grundy owned property in Anglezarke, Chorley, Euxton, Leyland, Shevington, Tockholes and Wheelton.

1889 Map

By 1889 the shape of Coronation Recreation Ground, as it later became known was already evident, some 13 years or so before it was formally opened on 26th June 1902 by King Edward VII, although it appears that Dole Fields had been used since the 1860s as an unofficial playground by the town. By this time we can see there had been substantial development along St Thomas' Road including Woodville Road, Royle Road and Harrington Road bordered by Queens Road to the north, and Bank Street and West Street to the south.

The following press cuttings from a Chorley Guardian and Leyland Hundred Advertiser article dated 28th June 1902 detail some of the history of the ‘Coronation Pleasure Ground’.

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Dole Fields was the home of Chorley Cricket Club between 1883 and 1893, after which time it was taken over by Chorley Football Club, but they moved on to Rangletts recreation ground in September 1901 to allow for preparation of the land to be converted to a formal recreation ground.

Victory Park was built adjacent to Ranglett's recreation ground in 1919 and was opened in 1920. It was named Victory Park to commemorate the end of World War I and remains the home of the town's football club to this day.