one time of the late Colonel Parker; this was retained, and it now forms the centre of the pile. Two retiring wings were added, the whole forming three sides of a quadrangle. Accommodation is provided for the governor and his family, and forty students, together with a library and lecture and class rooms. Separated from the college is the chapel, a neat brick building in the pointed style, containing sittings for about three hundred persons, intended not only for the institution but also for the inhabitants of the village. On either side of the chapel are the residences of the theological and classical tutors. The college was opened September 22nd -1842, when the Liturgy of the Church of England was read and a sermon preached by the President of the Conference. The cost Xof its maintenance is about £2,500 per annum.

The Wesleyans were not without their religious services at Didsbury before the erection of the chapel just adverted to. Upwards of thirty years ago they occupied a large room over a wheelwright's shop for the purposes of public worship, in which also they conducted a Sunday school. This room having become too small a larger one was built about sixteen years since, which is yet devoted to its original use.

The earliest Population Returns for Didsbury are in the year 1774, at which time the township included within its limits but 84 houses, tenanted by 86 families or 499 individuals. Of these, two hundred and nine were under the age of 15; sixty-five above 50; fifteen above 60; two above 70; seven above 80; and one exceeding 90 years.

In 1801 the township contained 116 houses and 619 inhabitants. In 1811 the inhabitants had increased to 738; in 1821 to 933; houses 159, families 172, of whom 51 were engaged in agriculture, 107 in manufactures, and 14 otherwise employed; in 1831 there were 3 houses uninhabited and 181 occupied by 187 families, of whom 81 were engaged in agriculture, 83 in manufactures, and 23 otherwise, total population 1067; in 1841 there were 4 empty houses, 2 building, and 234 occupied by a population of 1248; in 1851 there were 274 houses tenanted, 4 empty, and 6 building, — total population 1449.

In 1655, 61 persons were rated to the relief of the poor within the township, amongst whom were Mr. Robert Twyford, Edward Chorleton, James Birch, Colonel Birch, Mrs. Goodyeare, Sir Edward Mosley, Widow Mosley, William Wood (parish clerk), his widow, Thomas Blomeley (Bankes), Thomas Birch, Henry Ridinge, Thomas Blomeley alias Kings, Mr. Levenshulme, John Rudd of the Oak, &c. In 1854 the number of ratepayers in the township was 383, and the total amount of rates collected £787 19s. 10d. The gross annual value of property rated for the relief of the poor was in the latter year £11,911 15s. 4d.

In 1692 the annual value of real property in the township as assessed to the land tax was £245 9s. 2d.; in 1815, as assessed to the county rate £3,933; in 1829, £6,318; in 1841, £9,662; and in 1853 £9,780. Didsbury is in the polling district of Manchester, and in 1854 contained 62 county voters. There were in the township in 1854 three public-houses and three beerhouses.

List of Roads belonging to the township of Didsbury, describing their beginnings and endings, with the measurement thereof liable to be repaired by statute duty, made November 7th 1795:

1. Highway Turnpike Road. Beginning at Cheadle Bridge and ending at a stone set up on this side Withington Bridge; length 1 mile 2 quarters 433 yards.

2. Boulton Wood Gate Lane. Beginning at the Three Lane Ends on the turnpike road, and ending at a stone set in the hedge on this side Barlow's Gate; length 426 yards. 3. Milngate Lane. Beginning at Thomas Whitelegg's on the turnpike road, continued over Gatley Ford, and ending at the commencement of Watry Lane; length 1 mile 311 yards.

4. Stenner Lane. Beginning at Duke's Hill, continued over Northen Ford, and ending immediately over a culvert in King's Lane; length 3 quarters 7 yards.

5. Car Brow Lane. Beginning at Crabb Croft's Gate and ending at the Alder's Fender, near the Braddiley; length 1 quarter 246 yards.

6. Barlow Moor Lane. Beginning at the Grey Horse publichouse and ending at a fence across the road behind Samuel Mycock's house; length 1 mile 1 quarter 88 yards.

7. Fogg Lane, Beginning at the fifth mile stone from Manchester and ending at a nicked oak near to Barcicroft Gate in Burnage; length 2 quarters 125 yards.

The above are all the roads belonging to the township of Didsbury liable to be repaired with statute duty and composition; all other roads are repaired by tenure or occupation.

Didsbury Chapel is the most ancient of all the chapels in the parish of Manchester, having been founded, as it is supposed, about the year 1235. At first it was probably nothing more than a private oratory limited to the use of the lord of the manor or other influential persons who planned its erection, but increasing in importance and size as permission was extended to the tenantry and others to worship there until at length in 1352 it became a parochial chapel. "In this year," according to Hollingworth, commission was granted by Roger de Norbury, Bishop of Lichfield, for the consecration of the chapel-yard of Didsbury within the parish of Manchester, in order to the burial of such as died of the pestilence in that hamlet and in neighbouring hamlets in the chapel-yard there, because of their distance from the Parish Church of Manchester." There is a local tradition that the ma

a

1 Chronicles of Manchester, p. 36. On the 30th of November 1823 an additional plot of land adjoining the chapel-yard was consecrated by the Bishop of Chester for the interment of the dead. It was purchased of Robert Fielden Esq. after the rate

terials used in the erection of the first structure were the remains of an old church pulled down in St. Mary's Gate, Manchester, brought in the first instance to Withington Green and afterwards. removed to Didsbury; but as this is a claim shared also in common with the halls of Ordsall, Clayton and Trafford, which were said to have been in part built from the old materials of Manchester Church, it is little to be relied on except so far as possibly justifying the inference that in material at least the early chapel of Didsbury resembled the early church of Manchester, both being composed of transverse beams of wood filled in with lath and plaster, a style of building very generally adopted in the more ancient chapels within Manchester parish, of which the only instance now remaining is the chapel of Denton.

In 1620 Didsbury Chapel was entirely rebuilt of stone, a tower being now probably first added. No faculty seems to have been obtained for this rebuilding, nor can any deed be found relating to the consecration of the earlier chapel which had given place to this, or of the chapel-yard solemnly set apart in 1352, notwithstanding a careful search in the Episcopal Registries of York, Lichfield and Chester, and also in the Court of the Archdeaconry of Richmond.

The style of architecture is that known as the Debased, thus denominated from the general inferiority of design as compared with the style which it immediately succeeded. The plan comprised a nave 45 feet by 34 feet 6 inches internal admeasurement, a chancel 24 feet by 24 feet, and a tower at the western end, the details throughout being extremely plain. The nave was divided on either side into three bays, two of these being filled with plain square-headed windows, exhibiting an almost total absence of of 14d. the yard, or eighteen years' purchase, £50 being paid in addition, the estimated value of two small cottages thereon; the cost was defrayed by a subscription of £360 and a church-rate of 6d. in the pound. Amongst those who assisted by their subscriptions were Wilbraham Egerton Esq. £50, Robert Parker Esq. £40, Robert Fielden Esq. £20, Joseph Birley Esq. £20, Francis Philips Esq. £20, William Wood M.D. £20, Rev. Joseph Newton £20, Thomas Mottram Esq. £20, Messrs. Thomas and James Borron £20.

ornamentation, the third bay towards the extreme west on the north and south sides constituting the principal entrances to the church. The chancel was lighted by two triplet windows of singularly inelegant design, placed one over the other, the centre light arch-headed, and rising above the lateral. The roof of both the nave and chancel was of more acute pitch than is usually found in buildings of this period, and extended some distance beyond the outer surface of the walls in what are termed dripping eaves. In 1770 the chancel was rebuilt, and in 1791 galleries were erected on the north and south sides of the nave, a gallery having been previously erected at the west end, - particulars of which successive alterations will be seen in the abstracts of faculties elsewhere given. In 1855 the north-east, north-west, and south-east entrance doors were closed, and one large entrance to the church made through the tower at the west end. The church underwent a thorough restoration, and considerable alterations were made both in the internal and external appearance of it. In these alterations, though of a somewhat earlier style than the edifice itself, the details are correct in design, and in perfect keeping with the style adopted. The outer walls have been re-cased with stone, the old square windows removed, and their place supplied by others chiefly pointed, and Tudor-arched, divided by mullions into three lights, transomed, and the heads filled with perpendicular tracery of good design, the principal as well as the subordinate lights cinquefoiled, and the whole surrounded by a hood-moulding finished with a plain return. Buttresses are placed at intervals against the walls, those flanking the eastern gable and at the junction of the nave with the chancel being carried up to the extreme edge of the parapet, and terminating in octagonal pinnacles crocketted at the angles. The windows of the chancel are of two and three lights, square-headed and divided horizontally by a transom, the lights foliated in the head. The east end of the chancel is lighted by a large Tudorarched window of five lights, cinquefoiled, the mullions carried vertically through to the head, and transomed. This window is filled with richly stained glass by Wailes of Newcastle. In the