by John Bolton

The survey of The Moiety of the Manner of Silverdale in Warton, made on August 10th, 1563 records that a Robert Taylor lived at a tenement called Stamhawe at what is now Silverdale Green. The tenement probably encompassed about half of what was then the Green. Mrs Thomas wrote Stamhawe must have been at the Green, and probably encompassed about half of what was then the Green. It was very soon to be divided into four smaller holdings. In John Lucas’s History of the parish of Warton, compiled between 1710 and 1740, he records:-

the following Inscription which is found on a Monument in the East Wall of the Chancel of St. Botolph’s, Aldgate, in London; “Here lieth buried the Corps of Robert Taylor of Silverdale, in the Parish of Warton, in the County of Lancaster, Gentleman: the Father of John Taylor Citizen and Draper of London, and of the Parish Beere-Brewer: he departed this life about the age of 80 years, the 15th day of February An: Dom: 1577

John Lucas continues: –

Robert Taylor who was one of the Sheriffs of London and Middlesex was grandson to this Robert Taylor.

Was the monument in St Botolph’s to the Robert Taylor of Stamhawe? And was, perhaps,the division of the Stamshawe property soon after 1563 occasioned by his leaving Silverdale to spend the last years of his life with his successful son, and his even more illustrious grandson in London? If this was so, it is perhaps the closest Silverdale has been to having a “Dick Whittington”.