17th November 2025 The Brindle Estate & the Cavendish family Darren Cranshaw
On 17th November, Darren Cranshaw, the Society’s own archivist, explained the history of the Brindle Estate and also how the Cavendish pub got its name. Darren was well placed to give this talk, since his family have been tenants on the estate for four generations. He began by noting how history is constantly evolving since he gave a talk on the same subject 21 years previously, but then we met in the old Village Hall which is now consigned to history.
Land as part of the Leyland Hundred was originally granted by Henry III around 1200, and by 1473, Peter Gerard was identified as holding the manor of Brindle. In 1541 in defiance of the King, the catholic Thomas Gerard was supporting two priests in Brindle. At the same time, Bess of Hardwick, one of the country’s wealthiest and most powerful women, owned around 100,000 acres of land and to demonstrate her wealth, she built Chatsworth House and later Hardwick Hall in Derbyshire. Mary Queen of Scots was held captive in Hardwick Hall, and in trying to free her, Thomas Gerard was sent to the Tower of London in 1582. Whilst Thomas was banished, Sir William Cavendish, Bess’s second husband, “purchased” the Brindle estate through dubious means and for the next 250 years, the estate was passed down through the Cavendish family who became the Earls of Derbyshire.
In 1611, an extremely detailed survey of the estate was commissioned which showed that it covered a very similar area to the current parish of Brindle. The survey listed farms, fields and cottages and named all the tenants and many of the names are still found in the village today.
In 1819, the Brindle estate was transferred to a minor branch of the Cavendish family who also owned Holker Hall and Baron Chesham from Buckinghamshire was still the owner in 1915. In 1919, however, the estate was offered up for sale and considerable portions of land were sold, much of it to the de Hoghton family.
Since then the estate has remained largely intact. Lord Chesham was a good landlord visiting Brindle several times and was proactive in building the Parish Institute in 1923 on the site of the current Community Hall. The Cavendish Arms was clearly named for the Cavendish family, but prior to that was known as the Devonshire Arms, and even at one time as the Three Stags after the Cavendish family coat of arms. Brindle Band still use a stag’s head on their insignia.
In the 1950s the estate was offered to each of the tenants at a price of eight times their annual rent, but no-one could afford that outlay. Instead of being broken up, a lady called Patience Aspinall bought the entire estate for £54,000 with money she acquired through selling the mines she owned around Burnley when they were nationalised. Patience died in 1985 and the estate passed to her sister Ruth who owned a publishing house and also wrote romantic fiction. Huggarts Farm and Wilcock Cottage were sold at that time to pay death duties. Miss Aspinall visited Brindle each year from her home in Cornwall and took a keen interest in the tenants and their farms. She had no children, but named her godson, William de Hamil, as her heir and upon her death in 2012, Willliam moved into Lady Hall Farm off Marsh Lane and has been very supportive of the estate since then. He recently moved back to his home in New Zealand but not before instructing that the farm at High Cop should be redeveloped as three dwellings to be let for a peppercorn rent to Brindle residents. These will effectively become the first alms-houses built in the UK for around 200 years.
The Brindle Estate currently comprises around 1,200 acres (down from 4,000) and is now run by land agents on behalf of William de Hamil.
The Home Front in Preston during the first World War 20th October 2026 Keith Vernon
I have a confession. Whilst I thought I knew what the Home Front was, I hadn’t appreciated what it actually meant until the Brindle Historical Society meeting on Monday 20th October. Just in case you are as ill-informed as me, I’ll explain.
The First World War was more than just a military war; for the first time, the whole of society had been mobilised, not just soldiers and weapons production. Now that everyone was involved, the term Home Front embraced those of the population left at home to keep the soldiers fed and armed, and to ensure that there was still a recognisable society for them to return home to. Much of these activities fell to the women, and the speaker, Keith Vernon (Honorary Principal Lecturer in History at the University of Lancashire), focussed on this aspect, explaining how new opportunities arose for women who previously were only seen as mothers and home-makers.
Keith used his specific and extensive knowledge of WW1 history to explain in simple terms how society was changed by the horrific events of a century ago. The new opportunities for women arose largely because the men left to take up arms, leaving women to do the work the men no longer did. Tasks still included the traditional female roles (preparing food and nursing the sick) but now also encompassed munitions work, public service and administration.
Women had long been involved in public service work, but now they were seen in positions of some authority such as post mistresses, cab drivers or firefighters and in administrative roles more women became the decision makers. Whilst munitions production was traditionally a skilled role, the shortage of workers led to the ‘dilution’ of tasks where once technical roles were broken down into smaller, simpler activities requiring less skilled input.
Women’s leisure was significantly affected since for the first time many young women found themselves away from home, earning their own wages and having some autonomy over their lives. One consequence of this was the establishment of clubs and societies such as the famous Dick Kerr Ladies football club.
Not all changes were positive, however. Many women had to endure the loss of their menfolk or needed to care for disabled family members for years afterwards and so while some gained new opportunities and freedoms, these came alongside great emotional and social burdens.
A specific action that combined traditional female roles and the new authority women were assuming was the establishment in Preston of the Sailors’ and Soldiers’ Free Buffet at the railway station. This was started by female volunteers in August 1915 and continued throughout the war operating 24 hours a day for over three years. The buffet grew from providing tea to 386 men on the first day to serving almost 12,500 men in 36 hours just before Christmas in 1916! The women had organised a rota of 300 – 400 volunteers who provided free tea and refreshments to service personnel passing through the station. The women even devised a system of ensuring that men who used the area to catch up on sleep were awakened in time to catch their train.
The many legacies of all this disruption led to a profound change in society over the next few years. Women had proved what they could do and the genie was truly out of the bottle. Many lessons learned during this period of rapid change were also adopted in the 2nd World War (which happened all too soon afterwards). The Home Front, the Land Army and rationing were all new concepts from the Great War which were developed and re-used to good effect two decades later.
Lathom’s Tin City 15th September 2026 Martin Jones
Sadly, our scheduled speaker was taken ill during the summer and was unable to present to the Brindle Historical Society on Monday 15th September, but we were very grateful to Martin Jones who stepped in to continue telling us about the army remount depot established near Ormskirk in 1914. In March last year Martin had explained how he had become interested in this fascinating piece of history on his doorstep and tonight, he described how Lathom House firmly established its place in military history.
He explained the history of the Stanley family of Lathom and described the magnificent castle they built in 1496. The castle was destroyed and replaced by a beautiful house with its own deer park in 1740 and later, in 1880, the first Earl of Lathom was created. We then skip forward to 1910 when the 2nd Earl died young, leaving all his property and land to his son who became the 3rd Earl, but being a minor, a trust fund was established for him, one of the trustees being Lord Derby.
At the outbreak of war the British army only had 19,000 horses it was realised that substantially more animals would be needed. A notice went out to requisition horses from farmers and hauliers and within just 12 days, 165,000 horses were available. If a horse owner objected to his animal being taken, he could challenge the decision but this process could take several weeks and in the meantime, the horse was taken and underwent training before being sent abroad. In 1914, the 3rd Earl along with Lord Derby in his capacity as trustee of the Lathom Park Estate, offered the use of the estate to the War Department. This was established as a remount depot which was where animals could be trained to replace war horses which had died or become too tired to work.
The remount depot at Lathom clearly needed many workers, including men to build the facilities, and later to train the horses and to grow additional produce to feed everyone. Horses were brought from all over the world, with the first 1,600 arriving from Canada in October 1914 on eight trains from Liverpool docks. These horses were wild and took many weeks to train sufficiently for army work. A local circus owner not only donated huge tents to provide shelter for the animals in winter, but he also offered the services of his Mexican trick riders to help train the horses! A railway branch line was built from Skelmersdale station into the Lathom estate to help deliver the horses and by the end of 1918, a total of 330,000 horses had passed through the depot.
At the end of the war, 5,000 remaining animals were sold off and all the buildings auctioned. Although the estate is still there, only one building remains from this time. It was initially built as a theatre so the 3rd Earl could promote his plays and invite well known people, which included Noel Coward and Ivor Novello, to visit the Lathom Club and perform musical evenings for invited guests. Then in 1932, it was used by the local Women’s Institute and later in 2000, the Ormskirk Scouts took it over. It was refurbished and extended in 2017.
The Brindle Workhouse 16th June 2025 Bernard Fleming
Once more, the Brindle Historical Society were delighted to be able to hear a talk from one of our own members, this time from Bernard Fleming who, for almost 50 years has lived at Top o’ th’ Lane in Brindle, very close to the site of the Brindle Workhouse. When Bernard moved to the area friends told stories of the workhouse and he heard talk of a chapel and of a secret mass house. He felt that this oral history may soon be lost, and so he began researching in old documents, maps, census reports, newspapers, parish records and minutes from the Poor Law Union.
From this research, Bernard was able to open his talk with a little drama where he took on the role of Thomas Wilde, a governor of the workhouse. Acting as Thomas, he role-played interviewing applicants to enter the workhouse, explaining that entering would be far from an easy option. For being housed and fed (at the parish expense), inmates will have to work very hard from 6am to 6pm (perhaps breaking stone for road construction, or chopping firewood), live in separate male and female accommodation with no contact between the sexes. Evening attendance at prayers was compulsory and bed time was strictly 8pm. Largely, although the conditions were harsh, most people voluntarily applied to enter the workhouse since the alternative was to starve.
Early records indicate that the catholic Gerrard family owned a small chapel where mass was secretly held but after 1715, this was confiscated and given to the parish. By 1734, it was being used as a workhouse and lunatic asylum. In 1760, a survey of workhouses indicated that 60 people lived in the Brindle workhouse, far more than the size of the village would suggest. (A much larger building must have been built to accommodate such numbers). It appears that the Brindle workhouse had begun to accept paupers and lunatics from other establishments, probably the hard cases that they couldn’t cope with.
In 1826 a local JP visited the site and declared that “…the house is too small, the food insufficient and of poor quality and the people were wretchedly clothed”. Despite these complaints, and the workhouse being transferred to the Poor Law Union, the same people continued to run the place with little improvement to the conditions.
Over the years, the numbers in attendance fluctuated widely, probably due to changes in local economic conditions. From over 200 people in the early 19th century, the 1851 census suggested that 51 people were in attendance, more men than women with only five actually from Brindle, and over half from outside the region. In 1861, the census records 75 inmates with half aged over 60. One third were cotton weavers and eight were handloom weavers.
Around that time, the conditions in the Brindle workhouse were reported in the national press with accusations of poor treatment and even manslaughter. Despite this, conditions barely improved and in 1871 there were 99 inmates, including 20 cotton workers and 19 labourers. In December of that year, they were all transferred to new accommodation at Eaves Lane in Chorley (which later became a hospital)
There is very little left to see of the Brindle Workhouse, just a plaque on the wall commemorating a few of the many people who passed through its doors.
Finally, Bernard offered a treat to the attendees, as a bowl of gruel was available to any who wanted to try it. There were very few takers, and certainly no-one asked for more.
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