Burscough

"BURSCOUGH, a township in the parish of Ormskirk, hundred of West Derby, in the county palatine of Lancaster, 4 miles to the N.E. of Ormskirk. It gives name to two stations, Burscough Bridge and Burscough Junction, on the Lancashire and Yorkshire railway. The Leeds and Liverpool canal passes near the town. Burscough was the site of an Augustine priory, founded in the reign of Richard I. by Robert Fitz-Henry, lord of Latham, which had a revenue at the Dissolution of £129. For a long time previous to the Reformation this priory was the burial-place of the Stanley family. Nothing remains of the buildings except a small portion of the conventual church. There is a new church at Burscough Bridge, the living of which is a perpetual curacy, in the gift of the Vicar of Ormskirk. In the vicinity is Latham House, the seat of Lord Skelmersdale, rendered famous in history by the heroic defence made by the Countess of Derby against the parliamentary forces, who besieged it for three months during the Civil War. The inhabitants of the village are chiefly employed in the cotton manufacture."