Preston Patrick Hall.

A late-14th-century house with 15th- and 17th-century alterations.¹ The upper room on the right was used as a courtroom for the Court Baron: several Quakers, including Thomas Camm, appeared there for non-payment of tithes.
Thomas Machell says:

Here I saw preston Hal which giues Name to that family — an old rambling house with slender tower ouer the Gate; the Lower Rooms all pavd with Cobbles: but not a . The old Maps of Speed Camden² Thus from smal heads doe great Rivers flow; ³ It stands — in Boggy Bottom Ground ... [page 386]
It has bin in the Prestons time immemorial & gaue name vnto them — but was odly Quitted by Sir Thomas Preston; who being a Priest (before It fell to him by the death of Sir John Preston his Brother) maryed & had Isue 2 daughters — maryed to the Lords Montgomery & Cliford — [margin] place this elsewhere [end margin] and being in widdowhood was over persuaded by the Romish priests that the Estate would not prosper vnless he returned to his former function agane; vpon which he settled It on his 2 da^ughters, have first geuen his Estates in Lancashaire calld the Manner (formerly an Abby)⁴ vnto the Jesuites, & so went beyond sea. Putting a Period to the continuation of that ancient family vpon this Estate. [page 301]

This event was yet to come when Fox passed through, but these Prestons were Royalists, and the previous Lord of the Manor, Sir John Preston, had been killed in battle in 1645. The current Lord was another Sir John Preston, brother to the Sir Thomas who was a ‘Romish priest’ and who succeeded him in 1663. Both Sir John and Thomas appear in the 1650 List of delinquent papists and ministers sequestered in the Barony of Kendal. After a court case, the gift to the Jesuits was anulled, and the manor was adjudged forfeit to the Crown. The tenancy passed to the Prestons of Holker.

NGR listing: SD5443083748.

Image © Meg Twycross, 1 April 2003

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