page_title: Kersal
section_title: History
hierarchical_section_title: Kersal / History
caption_attribution_description: The former toll collector's house, Bury New Road, Kersal
context_page_description: Kersal is an area of the City of Salford in Greater Manchester, England, 2.5 miles northwest of Manchester city centre.
  Historically in Lancashire, Kersal has the second oldest building in Salford, Kersal Cell, which was built in 1563. Kersal Dale Country Park has been designated as a Local Nature Reserve and Kersal Moor as a Site of Biological Importance and Local Nature Reserve.
context_section_description: Kersal has been variously known as Kereshale, Kershal, Kereshole, Carshall and Kersall.
  The name incorporates the Old English word halh, meaning "a piece of flat alluvial land by the side of a river". "Kersal" indicates that this was land where cress grew.
  In 1142, Kereshale was given to the Priory of Lenton, an order of Cluniac monks, who established an early cell there named St Leonard's. On the Dissolution of the Monasteries in 1540 Henry VIII sold the priory and its lands to one Baldwin Willoughby. It was sold eight years later to Ralph Kenyon, who was acting on behalf of himself, James Chetham of Crumpsall and Richard Siddall of Withington. The Kenyon third was sold about the year 1660 to the Byroms of Manchester, whose line terminated on the death of Eleanora Atherton in 1870. All the land eventually descended to, or was bought by, the Clowes family (the Lords of the Manor of Broughton) who began to sell off the land for development in the 19th and early 20th centuries. The most famous resident of Kersal Cell was John Byrom (1692–1763). It is said that he wrote the hymn Christians Awake there, but it is more likely that it was written at his home in the Old Shambles in Manchester above what is now the Wellington Inn.
  In the 17th century, the Kersal Moor races were the great event of the year. They usually took place around Whit Week when large numbers of people turned the area into a giant fairground for several days. The moor was also used for nude male races, allowing females to study the form before choosing their mates. Indeed, in the 18th century, Roger Aytoun, known as "Spanking Roger", later a hero of the Siege of Gibraltar, acquired Hough Hall in Moston, through marriage after such a race. Kersal Moor was also host to one of the great political events of the 19th century, when it was the meeting place for the largest of the Chartist Assemblies attended by at least 30,000 people in September, 1838 and again in May, 1839. It was also the site of one of the first golf courses to be built outside Scotland. Kersal Links opened in 1818, and was the oldest golf course between the Thames and the Tweed until it closed in 1960. The Kersal Moor races began prior to 1680 and continued, with various interruptions, until 1847 when the course was switched to the other side of the River Irwell, to Castle Irwell, where it remained until 1963. In 1961 the Members' Stand at the Castle Irwell Racecourse was opened and contained the world's first executive boxes. The architect for the racecourse, Ernest Atherden, showed this to the directors of Manchester United who opened their first executive box in 1965, and hence began the modern corporatisation of sport.
  Kersal remained a rural area until about 1840 when the Clowes family, who owned most of the land in the area, began to sell it off for development, and merchants and manufacturers began to build their mansions in the green fields of Higher Broughton and Kersal. In keeping with their own ideas of social engineering they imposed strict covenants on how the land was used, reserving the higher ground for more well-to-do residents and the lower ground for workers' cottages. The number of public houses was severely restricted and then, only beer houses that didn't sell spirits were allowed. Singleton Road and Moor Lane were the only roads connecting Bury Old Road and Bolton Road and there was a toll bar on the corner of Bury Old Road. When Bury New Road was built in 1831 a gate or bar was erected and travellers had to pay a toll to the turnpike trust to pass through. A toll house was erected on Bury New Road with a bay window projecting out so that the toll collector had a clear view of the road. By 1848 the local authority had taken over the road, the tolls were abolished and the toll collector's house became a newsagent's. This was the only shop in an area where the landowner's restrictive covenants prevented commercial development. The exterior of the house remains largely unchanged to this day, although it was renovated in 2007 with a two-storey extension being added to the 
caption: Former Kersal Bar Toll House
exif: {"Image ImageDescription": "Old Toll House - Kersal", "Image Make": "Sony Ericsson", "Image Model": "Z610i", "Image Orientation": "Horizontal (normal)", "Image XResolution": "72", "Image YResolution": "72", "Image ResolutionUnit": "Pixels/Inch", "Image Software": "Adobe Photoshop CS3 Windows", "Image DateTime": "2008:12:24 22:11:14", "Image YCbCrPositioning": "Co-sited", "Image ExifOffset": "256", "Thumbnail Compression": "JPEG (old-style)", "Thumbnail XResolution": "72", "Thumbnail YResolution": "72", "Thumbnail ResolutionUnit": "Pixels/Inch", "Thumbnail JPEGInterchangeFormat": "770", "Thumbnail JPEGInterchangeFormatLength": "7574", "EXIF ExposureTime": "1/125", "EXIF FNumber": "14/5", "EXIF ISOSpeedRatings": "100", "EXIF ExifVersion": "0220", "EXIF DateTimeOriginal": "2007:11:11 11:35:56", "EXIF DateTimeDigitized": "2007:11:11 11:35:56", "EXIF ComponentsConfiguration": "YCbCr", "EXIF ExposureBiasValue": "0", "EXIF MeteringMode": "CenterWeightedAverage", "EXIF LightSource": "Fluorescent", "EXIF Flash": "Flash did not fire, compulsory flash mode", "EXIF FlashPixVersion": "0100", "EXIF ColorSpace": "sRGB", "EXIF ExifImageWidth": "1600", "EXIF ExifImageLength": "1200", "Interoperability InteroperabilityIndex": "R98", "Interoperability InteroperabilityVersion": "[48, 49, 48, 48]", "EXIF InteroperabilityOffset": "644", "EXIF CustomRendered": "Normal", "EXIF ExposureMode": "Auto Exposure", "EXIF WhiteBalance": "Manual", "EXIF DigitalZoomRatio": "0", "EXIF SceneCaptureType": "Night", "EXIF SubjectDistanceRange": "0", "EXIF ImageUniqueID": "99c9c884e490ee8f2ae281ebcabb58a7"}