Hale in Halton nr. Liverpool / Hales

No individual entry found for this Hale in the Domesday survey, but it appears in charter rolls of 1066 as one of six 'berewicks' belonging to King Edward's manor of West Derby. The Victoria County History (Lancaster, vol. 3, 1907) notes: "The chapel of St. Mary is of ancient origin. It is mentioned in a suit of 1260 [...] The fourteenth-century tower is standing; but the church, said to have been a 'black and white' timbered building, was replaced in 1754 by the present one, which was in 1874 renovated and refitted [...] In the time of the Commonwealth the commissioners recommended that Hale should be made a parish church, because of the distance from Childwall, and 'because there is not any person hath any seat or burial place within Childwall church.'" Pollard & Pevsner (2006) note: "The font under the tower was returned after a century adorning a garden. The bowl, with cherubs, C18." [NB: the tower of the church dates from the 14th century; the earlier font may have been destroyed in the fire that gutted the church in 1977; Pollard & Pevsner (ibid.) report that the fire "revealed the foundations of a narrower, timber-framed church." We have no information on the medieval font].