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It is now some years since I visited the scene of the fore-going traditions. At that time I was wholly unacquainted with the last of these legends, and I knew little more about "Boggart Ho' Clough," in any way, than it's name indicates. I sought the place, then, solely on account of its natural attractions. Feeling curious, however, respecting the import of its name, and dimly remembering Roby's tradition, I made some inquiry in the neighbourhood, and found that, although some attributed the name to the superstitious credulity of the native people, there was one gentleman who nearly destroyed that theory in my mind at the time, by saying that, a short time previous, he had dined with a lawyer who informed him, in the course of a conversation upon the same subject, that he had recently been at a loss how to describe the place in question, having to prepare some notices to be served on trespassers; and, on referring to the title-deeds of the property, he found that a family of the name of "Bowker" had formerly occupied a residence situation in the clough, and that their dwelling was designated "Bowker's Hall."
This he adopted as the origin of the name, and described it accordingly. But the testimony of every writer who notices the spot, especially those best acquainted with it, inclines to the other derivation.

But the locality has other points of interested, besides this romantic nook, and the tales of glamour connected with it. In it there is many a boggart story, brought down from the past, many a spot of fearful repute among native people. Apart from all these things, the chapelry of Blackley is enriched with historic associations well worth remembering, and it contains some interesting relics of the ancient manner of life there. In former times the chapelry had in it several fine old halls: Booth Hall, Nuthurst Hall, Lightbowne Hall, Hough Hall, Crumpsall Hall, and Blackley Hall. Some of these still remain. Some of them have been the homes or the birthplaces of men of eminence in their day - eminent for worth as well as station - among whom there is more than one who has left a long trail of honourable recollections behind him. Such men were Humphrey Chetham, Bishop Oldham, and others. Bradford the martyr, also, is said to have resided in this township. William Chadderton, D.D., Bishop of Chester, and afterwards Bishop of Lincoln, was born at Nuthurst Hall, about the year 1540. George Clarke, the founder of the charity which bears his name, and one of Fuller's Worthies, resided in Cumpsall. The following particulars respecting the district and its notabilities I glean from the recently-published "History of the Ancient Chapel of Blackley," by the Rev. John Booker,B.A., of Magdalene College, Cambridge, curate of Prestwich.

First, with respect to the ancient state of Blackley, in the survey of Manchester, as taken in the 15th Edward II. (1322), and preserved by Kuerden [1], the following official notice of the township occurs:- "The park in Blackley is worth, in pannage, aery of eagles, herons and hawks, honey-bees, mineral earths, ashes, and other issues, fifty-three shillings and fourpence. The vesture of oaks, with the whole coverture, is worth two hundred marks (?133. 6s. 8d.) in the gross. It contains seven miles in circumference, together with two deer-leaps, of the king's grant." This short but significant passage is sufficient to give the reader a glimpse of the appearance of Blackley township five hundred years ago. From the same authority, we learn that Blackley park (seven miles in circumference) was, at the time, surrounded and fenced in by a wooden paling. "The two 'deer-leaps' were probably cloughs or ravines, of which the most remarkable is the 'Boggart Hole Clough,' a long cleft or dell between two rocks, the sides of which rise abuptly and leave a narrow pass, widening a little here and there, through which flows a small brook. This is the last stronghold of Blackley's ancient characteristic features, where rural tranquility still reigns, free from the bustle and turmoil of mercantile industry around it."

The following particulars respecting the etymology of the name "Blackley," will not be unacceptable to students of language:- "Its etymology is yet a disputed point, owing to the various significations of the Anglo-Saxon word, blac, blaec, bleac which means not only black, dark, opaque, and even gloomy, but also pale, faded, pallid, from 'blaecan,' to bleach or make white. And, as if these opposite meanings were not enough sufficiently perplexing, two other forms present themselves, one of which means bleak, cold, bare, and the other yellow ; the latter syllable in the name, ley, legh, leag, or leah, signifying a field or place of pasture."

On this point, Whittaker says, in his "History of Manchester" "The Saxon blac, black, or blake, frequently imports the deep gloom of trees; hence we have so many places distinguished by the epithet in England, where no circumstances of soil and no peculiarities of water give occasion to it, as the villages of Blackburn and Blackrod in Lancashire, Blakeley-hurst, near Wigan, and our own Blackley, near Manchester; and the woods of the last were even seven miles in circuit as late as the fourteenth century.

"Leland, who wrote about the year 1538, bears testimony to the unaltered aspect of Blackley, under the influence of cultivation, and to the changes incident to the disafforesting of its ancient woodlands. He says:- 'Wild bores, bulles, and falcons, bredde in times past at Blakele, now for lack of woode the blow-shoppes decay there.'[2]

"Blackley had its resident minister as early as the reign of Edward VI., in the person of Father Travis, a name handed down to us in the pages of Fox and Strype. Travis was the friend and correspondent of Bradford the martyr. In the succeeding reign he suffered banishment for his Protestant principles, and his place was probably supplied by a papist."

The site upon which, in 1815, stood the old hall of Blackley, is now occupied by a print-shop. Blackley Hall "was a spacious black and white half-timbered mansion, in the post and petrel style, and was situated near to the junction of the lane leading to the chapel and the Manchester and Rochdale turnpike road. It was a structure of considerable antiquity, and consisted of a centre and two projecting wings - an arrangement frequently met with in the ancient manor-house of this country - and bore evidence of having been erected at two periods.

"Like most other houses of similar pretensions and antiquity, it was not without its traditionary legends, and the boggart of Blackley Hall was as well known as Blackley Hall itself. In the stillness of the night it would steal from room to room, and carry off the bedclothes from the couches of the sleeping, but now thoroughly aroused and discomforted inmates."[3]

[1]Kuerden's MS., fol. 274, Chetham Library.

[2]Leland's "Itinerary" (Hearne's edit.), vol. vii. P. 42

[3]The following note is attached to this passage in Mr. Booker's volume:- "The annals of Blackley bear ample testimony to the superstition of its inhabitants. It has had its nine days' wonder at every period of its history. Hollingworth, writing of that age of portents and prodigies which succeeded the Reformation, says:- 'In Blackley, neere Manchester, in one John Pendleton's ground, as one was reaping, the corne being cut seemed to bleede; drops fell out of it like to bloud; multitudes of people went to see it; and the straws thereof, though of a kindly colour without, were within reddish, and as it were bloudy!' Boggart-hole Clough, too, was another favourite haunt of ghostly visitants, the legend of which has been perpetuated by Mr. Roby in his "Traditions of Lancashire," vol. 2, pp. 295, 391. Nor has it ceased in our day ; in 1852 one of its inhabitants imperilled the safety of his family and neighbours, by undermining the walls of his cottage, in his efforts to discover the hidden cause of some mysterious noise that had disturbed him."