Civil War Documents from Houghton Green - Continued

Where is/was the cottage?
​What happened to the documents?

​This week whilst undertaking some completely unrelated history research, I came across some documents that mentioned the manuscripts found in 1851. I can only say that these were written after the 1930’s as no other dates are given.

Here is a transcript of the documents:

The series of papers relating to the local government of the rural areas of Houghton, Middleton and Arbury were housed for some years in an outhouse attached to the Plough Inn at Houghton Green.

Formerly they had been kept in a nearby cottage which was pulled down, and the site used for the present bowling green. In this cottage were also found, many years before, bricked up in one of its walls, a quantity of documents relating to the civil wars of Cromwellian times. These are now in the archives of the Warrington Municipal Library.

The papers were contained in an oak chest about three feet long by twelve inches high and ten inches wide and standing on four legs. The attention of the owners of the Plough Inn, Messrs Greenall, Whitley & Co. was directed to their presence, and the papers were given for safekeeping to the Warrington Museum committee on the 7th April 1930. The chest remains in possession of Harry Higham the landlord of the Plough Inn.

Only one book was found in the chest namely “Willian Turner’s and Thomas Atherton’s (Constables) weekly accounts for 1819 and 1820. The book is bound in parchment and was fastened with two brass clasps, now broken.
The loose papers may be classified into the following categories-

1. Constables Papers (earliest 1705, latest 1799)
2. Papers relating to the High Constable
3. Overseers of the poor papers
4. List of persons receiving poor cloth
5. Workhouse receipts
6. Settlement Papers
7. Doctors’ bills
8. Undertakers’ bills
9. Bastardy papers
10. Prices of clothing and commodities
11. Supervisors of Highways papers
12. Building and Highway materials account
13. Wages
14. Indentures
15. Female Society forms
16. Household Inventories
17. Assessments
18. Legal Papers. Murder Indictment.
19. Window and land tax receipts
20. Robert Bates will
21. Miscellaneous receipts
22. Notices and forms
23. Miscellaneous papers
24. Plough Inn Licences

There are then some transcriptions of a selection of the accounts and the following image with the description-

Statement formerly in the Houghton, Middleton and Arbury Parish Chest, now framed and hanging in the Plough Inn at Houghton Green

An expenses list dated 1735

Looking at the old maps of Houghton Green, there is one clear building which must have been the cottage pulled down to make way for the bowling green. The outbuilding is also shown.

So, we know where the cottage was and where the documents were, but are they still there?
​To be continued...

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