St Luke's Church, Goostrey - People of Goostrey

People of Goostrey

John Hulse, incumbent in the village from 1735 to 1754, left money to Cambridge University to found a professorial chair, which is still known by his name. Some families have achieved parochial renown by their memorials in church. The Kinseys whose last male representative died in 1814, acquired land here about 1380 by marrying one of the heiresses of the last Goostrey. The Armitsteads, who provided four vicars of Goostrey, three successively from 1859 to 1923, came from Horton in Ribblesdale in the middle of the eighteenth century, Lawrence whose memorial is on the north wall, purchased the Hermitage and Cranage estates. The Baskervyles whose memorials are in the north east corner of the chancel were squires of nearby Withington Hall from 1266 until 1954 when John Baskerville Glegg was buried at the east end of the church with his ancestors. On the south wall we read of the Booth family who lived at Twemlow Hall. The Booths originated from Barton near Manchester and were a family of note in the North West by the fifteenth century. Through marriage with a Venables heiress they acquired Dunham Massey and later a cadet branch by marriage with a Knutsford heiress obtained part of Twemlow whilst the other Knutsford heiress married a Jodrell from Yeardsley who obtained the other part. A Jodrell heiress in 1778 married Egerton Leigh of West Hall, High Legh, and in 1863 their grandson Colonel Egerton Leigh bought the other 900 acres (3.6 km2) of the Twemlow Manor estate from the Booths. Leigh family sold most of their Jodrell and surrounding estates in 1924.

Today most of the land here is owned by the families who farm it, though at the north east corner of Goostrey, Manchester University owns land where their radio telescope, Jodrell Bank overlooks a collection of Neolithic barrows.