The Pilkington family has its origins in the ancient township of Pilkington in the historic county of Lancashire, England. After about 1405 the family seat was Stand Old Hall which was built to replace Old Hall in Pilkington. The new hall was built on high land overlooking Pilkington's medieval deer park. Stand Old Hall was replaced by Stand Hall to the south in 1515 after the Pilkingtons were dispossessed. Stand Old Hall became a barn. It is possible that Sir Thomas Pilkington had permission to “embattle” his manor house in 1470 building a stone tower. It was a ruin by the 1950s and demolished in the early 1960s.[1][2]
The Pilkington name is taken from the manor of Pilkington in Prestwich, Lancashire.[3] The Pilkington arms consist of an argent field with a cross patonce voided gules. The Pilkington crest has a mower with his scythe and has a legend that an ancestor of the family, being sought at the time of the Norman Conquest, disguised himself as a mower and escaped. Ye Olde Man & Scythe Inn in Bolton derives its name from the reaper, its sign depicts a man using a scythe.
The Horwich Town crest incorporates the arms of the family within its design.[4] The crest was first recorded on a seal from 1424.[5]
Throughout the county there were a number of branches of the family, including those from Rivington Hall, Rivington near Chorley and from Windle Hall, Windle, St Helens, the Pilkington glass manufacturers.
- ^ Dig at Stand Old Hall 2009, Prestwich Heritage, archived from the original on 6 September 2012, retrieved 30 September 2010
- ^ Pilkington 1912, pp. 4
- ^ Pilkington Township Map, genuki.org.uk, retrieved 27 June 2010
- ^ "Ye Olde Man & Scythe". Mysterious Britain. Archived from the original on 12 December 2010. Retrieved 6 November 2010.
- ^ Farrer, William; Brownbill, J., eds. (1911), "Pilkington", A History of the County of Lancaster: Volume 5, British History Online, pp. 88–92, retrieved 22 September 2010