Lancashire Legends, Traditions, Pageants, Sports, &c./Part 1/Clayton Hall and Kersal Cell

CLAYTON HALL AND KERSAL CELL.

Further down the same by-lane (from the moor) that contains Kersal Hall, stands Kersal Cell, the retreat of "Dr" Byrom in the middle of the last century. It is a snug substantial residence, reminding us of Hawthorne's "House of Seven Gables." In the "Doctor's" time, it would be all that a poet could desire. In fixing here his hermitage, hundreds of years ago, its original recluse, Sir Hugh le Biron, showed taste as well as sanctity. He was no "friar of orders grey," no monk of the fraternity of Black Penitents; but a stalwart knight, once owner of Clayton Hall and Kersal Cell; both of which mansions have since become linked with nobler though untitled names. Tradition asserts that Sir Hugh left Clayton Hall for the Holy Land, with an esquire bearing his shield, and a hundred stout followers in his train. As the knight and retainers marched away, his lady prettily waved her handkerchief from the tower or turret of Clayton Hall. Arrived at the Holy Land, Le Biron dealt out his deadly blows with no niggardly measure, spreading dismay through the ranks of the enemy. Wherever an infidel's head was visible, there also was the arm of Sir Hugh, ready to cleave it in twain. At length his conscience became troubled, and he began to doubt the righteousness of his righteous cause. The ghosts of those slain by his valour rose in vast numbers before his distempered vision; the wailing of widows and the weeping of orphans, seemed to haunt him wheresoever he went, until he was glad to escape from the land thus rendered unholy, and turn his steps towards the English home from which he had been too long estranged. As he passed slowly up his own avenue he met a funeral train, bearing the remains of his lady to her final resting-place, there, as the tomb-stone sweetly expresses it, to "sleep in Jesus." Year after year she had pined for her absent lord, gradually sinking, the victim of "hope deferred." This blow severed the last link that bound Le Biron to the world, and he retreated from its turmoil to that solitude of Kersal Cell. Here, a "hermit lone," he alternately prayed and wandered,—climbing the picturesque heights of Kersal, or the wooded ways of Prestwich—until death, remembering the repentant warrior, removed him to the peaceful grave.—Procter's "Our Turf, Stage, and Ring."