and
Parlick fells in northeastern Lancashire While a lineage for the barony can be traced back speculatively through the
Earls of Northumbria to
Oswiu and his marriage alliance in 638 AD with the
Urien kings of
Rheged, the roots of the modern lordship are Norman. Although
Roger de Poitou is recorded as
tenant-in-chief of the manors of Bowland in
Domesday, what we now understand as the
Forest and Liberty of Bowland was created by
William Rufus sometime after 1087. It formed part of a larger parcel of lands granted to his
vassal, either to reward Roger for his role in the defeat of
Dolfin of Carlisle and the army of Scots king
Malcolm III in 1091-2 or as a result of the confiscation of lands from
Robert de Mowbray,
Earl of Northumbria in 1095. These lands came to form the
Barony, later the
Honor of
Lancaster in the 1090s. By the late twelfth century, the disparate holdings within the Honor of Lancaster had cohered to form what became
Lancashire, first explicitly recognised as a
county in 1194. In turn, the Forest and Liberty of Bowland, along with the grant of the adjacent
fee of
Blackburnshire and holdings in
Hornby and
Amounderness, came to form the basis of what became known as the
Honor of Clitheroe. Ownership of the Forest followed the same descent as the Honor, ultimately passing with the rest of the
de Lacy lands to the
Earldom of Lancaster. After 1351, it was administered as part of the
Duchy of Lancaster; from 1399, as a possession of the Crown up until the Restoration. During this period, the lords of Bowland were styled “Lord Kings”. The Forest ceased to be a part of the Honor in 1835. Territorially, the Lordship of Bowland covered an area of almost on the historic borders of Lancashire and Yorkshire. It comprised a
Royal Forest and a
Liberty of ten manors spanning eight townships and four parishes. The manors within the Liberty were
Slaidburn (
Newton-in-Bowland,
West Bradford,
Grindleton),
Knowlmere,
Waddington,
Easington,
Bashall,
Mitton,
Withgill (Crook),
Leagram,
Hammerton and
Dunnow (Battersby). In 1661, the manors contained within the former
Honor of Clitheroe, including the Forest and Liberty of Bowland, were granted by the Crown to
General George Monck as part of the creation of the
Dukedom of Albemarle. Monck had been a key figure in the restoration of
Charles II. The Lordship of Bowland then descended through the
Montagu,
Buccleuch and
Towneley families before passing by private treaty to William Jolly, who then became the 46th Lord of Bowland. The
caput or seat of the barony is
Clitheroe Castle. In 2023 the lordship of Bowland was sold, for an undisclosed sum, to Brady Brim-DeForest of Balvaird Castle the
Lord of Balvaird, an American. He assumed the customary title of
Lord of the Fells in 2023. ==References==