BURSCOUGH, a township in the parish of
ORMSKIRK, hundred of WEST-DERBY, county palatine
of LANCASTER, 3 miles (N.B. by N.) from Ormskirk,
containing 1755 inhabitants. A priory of Black canons
was founded in the time of Richard I., by Robert Fitz-
Henry, Lord of Latham, and dedicated to St. Nicholas:
at the dissolution there were a prior, five brethren, and
forty servants, and the revenue was estimated at
£12Q. 1. 50.: previously to that period it was the
burial-place of the noble family of Stanley, and the
cemetery, in which stands the mutilated central arch of
the church, the only relic of the conventual buildings,
has subsequently been used as a place of interment by
a few poor Roman Catholic families in the vicinity.