Page:The History of the Church & Manor of Wigan part 2.djvu/92

them service, though they have threatened them and set a fine upon their heads, but dared not try it by action at law; and Higham having since been distrained has recovered charges of the bailiffs by order of law.^[1] In this same month of September, 1622, he records the completion of the masons' work of the new chancel which (before he began it) was open to the churchyard, parson Fleetwood and Mr. Roger Bradshaw's grandfather having only begun with the middle pillar of the south side and so left it. He began with the old chancel, and flagged it and raised it a step higher than the body of the church; he also raised the new chancel five steps higher than the old, and the high altar two steps higher than all, which cost him 4d. a foot for all the stairs (or steps), and 6d. a yard for all the flagging, besides carriage and laying. John Wigan and the other carpenters had for felling, framing, and setting up the roof and doors, &c., about which they spent the whole summer, above £50; and he paid for timber for it (which he bought in Kenyon wood of Mr. Holland) £32. He paid Michael Ford, the plumber, of Scoles, for three tons of lead for the covering, £28 but he was fain to buy a ton and more after Ford's death, for which, and for his work in laying it, he paid Laurence Langshaw £17; he paid Wm. Ormshaw for iron for the great east window and eight side windows . . . . . . . He also provided for the east window some painted glass, and meant to have glazed it all at the same time with coloured glass of the several coats of the nobility of England, Scotland, and Ireland, but because Sir Peter Leigh and Mr. Bradshaw did not go forward with their two side chapels he dared not glaze it till theirs were finished, lest it should be broken. As for seating it round he likewise intended it, but he purposed (and advised his successors) to keep the old half-round seats still in the old chancel, lest encroachers in time should throw them out which have been in ever since the beginning, and because his own new chancel is too far from the pulpit and minister's seat.^[2]

1. Wigan Leger, fol. 82.
2. Ibid.