History of the Fife Pitcairns

2 8o THE FIFE PITCAIRNS.
The vicarage house was described in a terrier of Eccles
Glebe, 1663. After mentioning various lands and crofts it
went on : —
Item. One orchard, two gardens, and folds lying about the
Vicarage house. Total, 13 acres, 3 roods, 20 p.
Item. The Vicarage House, counting divers cross buildings
joined together, in which are fifteen rooms — viz., the kitchen, the
kitchen parlour, and two chambers over them. The body of the
house, the great parlour, the buttery and milk house, with two
chambers over them, the parlour in the side of the passage leading
from the body of the house to the great parlour, the little parlour
and larder, and two chambers over them.
Note. — In Mr Blackburne's time (18 18-1836) a drawing- and
dining-room were added, a square hall and two bedrooms and
dressing-room above them.
Item. The Vicarage barn, containing four bays of building.
Item. The cow house, stable, and hay house ; the hen house
and pig stye.
The Rev. Thomas Blackburne was Vicar of Eccles from
1818 to 1836, and was living at the vicarage at the time of
Mr Huskisson's accident, at the opening of the Manchester
and Liverpool Railway, in September 1830, by the Great
Duke of Wellington. Mr Huskisson was taken to the
vicarage, where he died. The other guests also went
there, and tradition states that, everything being natur-
ally in confusion, there being illness in the house as
well, they could get nothing to eat. So the Duke and
Lord Wilton went to forage for something, and found a
leg of mutton in the larder. There was a very large old-
fashioned kitchen with an immense fireplace and spit.
The Duke of Wellington turned the spit, cooked the
mutton, and no doubt was quite equal to the occasion. A
vivid picture of life in Eccles, and of the sad incident
at the vicarage at this time, is given by the mother of
the late Dean Stanley, who, writing to her sister, while
on a visit at High Legh in Cheshire, a year or two after
Mr Huskisson's death, says : —