of Eccleston, Parr, Sutton and Windle, and lay on the intersecting roads that criss-crossed the area and linked Lancashire towns such as Liverpool, Ormskirk, Lathom and the Cheshire region south of the River Mersey. The transport link is attested to by the existence of Chester Lane (the modern B5419 is much foreshortened) that originally wound through the west of the town heading south to the Mersey crossing point of Warrington and beyond to the ancient Chester Road (that now makes up part of the modern A56) that stretched between the historic town of its name and the Manchester townships. The Chapel also sat directly between the port town of Liverpool, and the landlocked Manchester townships that would become important in the development of the greater area of both St Helens and Wigan. As a busy thoroughfare it is suggested by historian and genealogist William Farrer that a village existed in the vicinity for centuries, later sharing the name of the Chapel. It is known from the diaries of a local Puritan by the name of Adam Martindale that by the time the King's Head Inn was constructed in 1629 on "the great road" (taken to refer to all or part of Chester Lane) between Warrington and Ormskirk, a number of houses, farms and manors counted amongst the properties in the local vicinity and general area. Martindale notes that by 1618 that the original chapel had been demolished and rebuilt in the same vicinity. In 1678 a building was converted for use as a meeting place for the Society of Friends by George Shaw of Bickerstaffe. Local historians believe the building had been used for another purpose long before 1678. The Quaker Friends' Meeting House, as it is now known, is a Grade II listed building. The strong link to Roman Catholicism in the area was maintained throughout this period by the eventual Lords of Sutton Manor, the De Holland family, starting in 1321. Thomas Holland, a local Jesuit priest, was arrested and tried for high treason in October 1642 as "taking orders by authority of the see of Rome and returning to England". The first step toward his beatification was allowed by Pope Leo XIII in 1886. Conversely Roger Holland was burnt at the stake for heresy when he continued his professed belief in the Reformed churches some 100 years earlier in 1558 during the persecution of Mary I. It