Buildings of Interest

Description

Documents published by the Commission on Historical Manuscripts indicate that buildings in this vicinity were used by dissenting preachers in the latter part of the 17th century. A house and barn belonging to John Hasleden “in Park Lane, in Ashton in Makersfield”, thought to have been on the site of the present Farm, were licensed for this purpose under the Toleration Act of 1689. Shortly after this John and his brother William built the present Park Lane Chapel on an adjacent plot and donated it, together with the land on which it stood, to the Chapel trustees (Wigan Archives ref. D/NU 1/4/58). Rev George Fox writes in his “History of Park Lane Chapel” (Rawson & Co, 1897):

The Hasledens appear to have laboured most zealously for the infant church. By them the land was originally bought for the purpose to which it was applied, and by them conveyed to the trustees. By this document presumptive evidence is found that the chapel was built in the year 1697. This becomes reduced to certainty by the fact that that date was carved on a number of the pew doors, together with the initials of the owners.

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