the Poitevin. It was unmentioned in the Domesday Book of 1086; the first recorded use of the name Crompton for the township was discovered in legal documents relating to Cockersand Abbey near Lancaster, dating from the early 13th century. The document outlines that Gilbert de Notton, a Norman who had acquired the land from Roger de Montbegon, granted his estate to Cockersand Abbey. The Knights Hospitaller and Whalley Abbey held small estates in the township. In 1234, about of land at Whitfield in Crompton were given to the Hospitallers, a religious order that provided care for poor, sick or injured pilgrims to the Holy Land. A medieval cross has been discovered in the ruins of a house at Whitfield. During the High Middle Ages, Crompton was a collection of scattered woods, farmsteads, moorland, swamp and a single corn mill, occupied by a small and close community of families. The area was thinly populated and consisted of several dispersed hamlets, including Whitfield, High Crompton, Cowlishaw, Birshaw and Bovebeale (above Beal). These hamlets were situated above the water-logged valley bottoms and below the exposed high moors. Owing to complicated local arrangements of land tenure, inheritance and absentee landlords, the local lordship was weak and Crompton failed to emerge as a manor with its own lord and court. This slowly facilitated comparative freedoms and independence for the early people of Crompton, which encouraged the influx of families from the neighbouring parish of Rochdale, including the Buckleys, Cleggs, Greaves and Milnes. During the Late Middle Ages, the Buckley and Crompton families were recorded as the largest landowners in Crompton, owning land and farmsteads at Whitfield and Crompton Fold respectively. The Crompton family has a well-documented history and can be traced back to the time of Magna Carta, appearing in the Assize Roll for 1245. Crompton is indigenous to the township, and first appears as a family name in the 13th century, when the locality's principal landowner, Hugh de la Legh, changed his family name to "de Crompton" (of Crompton), to reflect the estate he possessed. The family owned a large historic house by the name of Crompton Hall, on the site of Crompton Fold. Crompton Hall first appears in historical records as early as 1442, owned by Thomas de Crompton and his family. The original "medieval" Crompton Hall was demolished around 1848. A second Crompton Hall, set in its own prominent forested grounds, was