| Description | These records cover all aspects of the Ushaw College estates, including ledgers, journals, cash books, account statements, tax and audit records, rental records, and estate valuation papers. They also include a large series of deeds and property papers relating to all areas of the Ushaw estate and property held by the college in Lancashire and North West England. The college's role in the local coal trade is also reflected in deeds and papers on the selling of land for the working of coal by colliery companies, as well as account statements of, and correspondence with, these companies. There are also a large number of inclosure, estate, and colliery maps and plans dating from the 18th - 20th centuries. |
| Admin_History | Until recently, the Ushaw College estates comprised land from Hill Top to the north and River Deerness to the south, and as far east as Auton Stile. The college had continued its policy of land acquisition since the purchase of the original estate by Bishop Gibson in 1799. Of significant note were Hareholm Chapel Farm (1826), Red House Farm (1857 and 1867), Cornsay House Farm (1852), Biggin Farm (1858 and 1859), and Broom Hall Farm (1862). The heavy liabilities incurred during the presidency of Charles Newsham (1837 - 1863) had encouraged the authorities to rely more heavily on land investments and, increasingly from the early 1860s onwards, the sale of coal rights. Broom Hall Farm was particularly valuable in the latter respect, as well as the seams rented from the Smythe family at Esh. From 1868, royalties came to the college also from the mineral rights attached to the freehold portion of the Ushaw estate, for in that year the authorities bought the rights from Sir Frederick Smythe. Through these means, the college could afford to pay off the huge debts incurred during Newsham's reign, to replace investments which had been lost by an incompetent solicitor, and to build up a reservoir of capital. Owing to increasing financial pressures from the mid - twentieth century onwards, the college has been forced to sell off a large portion of its estates, particularly the closure of its own farm in the 1970s. |