As might be expected, the major landowners historically were the occupants of the largest buildings.  So a convenient way to present the history of landownership in the area from Cockersand to the Trough of Bowland is through a focus on these buildings. The following account goes from west to east.  The buildings are shown on the map below, click to enlarge.

Thurnham Hall  This building dates back to the twelfth century, starting as a peel tower. It was owned and extended by various families including the Flemings, Bonvilles, and Greys. In 1553 the whole estate, and the manor of Thurnham, was bought from Henry Grey, Duke of Suffolk, by Thomas Lownde, of London.  In 1556 he sold it to Robert Dalton of Bispham Green, near Parbold, Wigan.  Dalton married John Kychen’s daughter, Anne, and acquired the Cockersand abbey site as her dowry.  He acquired further local estates, becoming a major landowner in the area, including Aldcliffe, Bulk, and part of Lancaster. The family and its members are still recorded in the names of Dalton Square, and the streets adjoining.  As royalists and catholics, the Daltons briefly lost their estate in the Civil War and again in the Jacobite rebellion, but succeeded in regaining it.  The estate was passed down through the family, despite a frequent lack of direct male heirs, but was apparently gradually sold off during the 20^th century.  Daltons lived in the Hall until the 1970s, when it was sold to Stanley Crabtree. The last Dalton died in 1983 and the remainder of the estate was sold.  The hall is now a holiday resort, owned by an American company, with a leisure centre and time-share holiday apartments in the grounds.

Going east, the next large building is Ellel Grange, on the site of one of the granges of Cockersand Abbey. Richard Atkinson and family lived here in the early 19^th century.  William Preston, a merchant and Mayor of Liverpool who wanted a country house, bought the land and built a new house in 1857-9.  The Preston family had owned land here in the 1500s but, as they were royalists, it was confiscated in the Civil War. Several generations of the family lived in the new house until the 1970s.  The Land Valuation records of 1910 show that the Preston family had acquired a lot of land in the vicinity by that time.  The Sandeman family, of port wine fame, married into the Prestons, and owned the house and around 1000 acres until 1979, when it was sold. It is now a Christian religious retreat.  

Next east is Wyreside Hall, occupied in the late eighteenth century by John Fenton Cawthorne (1753-1831), who in 1781 inherited a lot of land from his mother’s family, the Cawthornes. In 1639 William Cawthorne had bought the four vaccaries, or ancient cattle pastures, of Abbeystead, Marshaw, Dunkinshaw, and Haythornthwaite, plus part of Tarnbrook.  As his descendant, Fenton Cawthorne became a major landowner in the area. He carried out extensive improvements from 1798 onwards by inclosing, draining and applying lime.  He built Wyreside Tower, high on the moors. He also owned property in Lancaster including a house on the site of the recent main post office, bordered by Fenton Street and Cawthorne Street. The entranceway to this house is now the archway at the rear of The Storey. 

In 1778 Fenton Cawthorne had married Frances Delaval, the daughter and co-heiress of Sir John Hussey Delaval of Seaton Delaval, in Northumberland, who brought a substantial dowry.  Nevertheless, he seemed to be constantly in debt and was accused of embezzlement. He was MP for Lancaster three times from 1806-31.  When he died in 1831, without heirs, John Fenton Cawthorne owned about 6000 acres stretching from Ellel to Abbeystead, and covering more than half of our plot.

The purchaser of Wyreside Hall and most of Fenton-Cawthorne’s land, was Robert Garnett, from Manchester. Along with his brother, he had made money through  trading in sugar and cotton from the Caribbean.  Although apparently not involved in the slave trade, as their father and elder bothers had been, they did profit from slave labour on the plantations. They used the wealth accumulated to make successful investments in the emerging railways in England.  The Garnett family acquired more land in our area, having about 12,000 acres in 1876.  Some was later sold, but in 1910 they still owned land around the Hall, plus Corless Mill, Pinnington and Redmond Wood, the Fleece Inn at Dolphinholme, and several more plots. The hall stayed with the family until 1936 when it was sold at auction.  Since then it has had various occupants, and was recently being developed as a hotel and wedding venue by a company which is based offshore. In 2025 it was advertised for sale with 150 acres of land.

Abbeystead House

The Garnetts sold some of their land in 1885 to the fourth Earl of Sefton, William Philip Molyneux, who built Abbeystead House in 1887, the most easterly located of these large houses.  The Molyneux family had owned land in this area previously, being lords of the manor of Ellel from about 1600-1770.  Abbeystead House was originally intended as a shooting lodge, based in the middle of grouse moors, but it became the family home after they left Croxteth Hall near Liverpool.

By 1910 the Earl of Sefton had acquired more land creating a large estate including Abbeystead, Dunkenshaw, Tarnbrook, Marshaw and Whiteside, Haythornthwaite, Catshaw, Wyresdale Estate, and Over Wyresdale Fell.

The Seftons lived at Abbeystead House until after the death of the 7^th Earl in 1972, and his wife in 1979, when the estate was about 20,000 acres.  It was bought by the 6th Duke of Westminster, then the second richest person in in the United Kingdom, with only Queen Elizabeth II above him. When he died in 2016 his fortune was estimated at £9.35 billion. His son Hugh Grosvenor, then aged 25, became the 7th Duke and the richest man in the world under 30. The Abbeystead estate is a very small part of the Grosvenor Estate. It is about 25,000 acres, including several farms and other properties.  Its area is nearly twice as big as our whole slice, occupying most the eastern end of it, plus a lot more to the north and some to the south.  A map of the estate placed on top of the ownership plots map of our area shows its relative size and location.

Lentworth Hall  also in upper Wyresdale, is a relatively small house, but was the home of a significant landowner in the area. It was acquired in 1686 by Richard Shireburne, and later owned by the Tunstalls, Weld, and Allen families, and in the mid 19th century by the Leemings of Lancaster. This family also had a house in Lancaster which is now the Greaves Park Hotel.  Sale details of 1918 show that the Lentworth estate then covered 833 acres, including eight farms.

Several farmhouses in Upper Wyresdale are 17th century and substantial, Catshaw and Swainshead Hall being notable examples, but their occupants may all have been tenants of the Abbeystead estate.

Ashton Hall, outside our study area, a short distance north, was a home of the Dukes of Hamilton from 1698. It became their property through the marriage of the 4th Duke, James, to Elizabeth Gerard, a wealthy heiress. When being sold by the 11th Duke in in 1853, they had 13,000 acres of land here, which included over 100 farms. This land lay mainly north and south of our area, but a large chunk was between Ellel Grange and Wyreside Hall.

Wyresdale Park, with its mansion, is a short distance south outside our patch, but its owner in 1910, Peter Ormrod, owned substantial land in the area including Wyresdale Fisheries. The park is still owned by the family.

The Duchy of Lancaster Another significant landowner within our slice, but not based in a building there, is the Duchy of Lancaster, a private estate owned by the king.  It seems that the Duchy bought some of the Garnett’s land in the 1930s.  The Duchy shield is displayed on the name-plates of several farms, fisheries, and woodlands, near Dolphinholme and along the River Wyre, including Corless Mill, Bantons Farmhouse, and Redmond Wood.  Land Registry data confirmed these observations.  The screen grab below, from MARIO maps, shows the section of the Duchy’s Wyreside estate which lies within our study area.  

The Duchy also owns the land around the coast up to the mid-high tide line, shown by the strange shapes at the left of our ownership plots map. Its ownership of the foreshore extends from the River Mersey in the south to Barrow-in-Furness in the north.

.