Church grim
Spirit that protects graveyards from witches and the Devil, usually appearing as a black dog.
Pail closet
Small outhouse containing a seat underneath which was a bucket into which the user would defecate. The buckets were regularly removed and emptied by the local authority.
Resurrectionists
Those who exhumed the bodies of the recently deceased during the 18th and 19th centuries to provide cadavers to anatomists for their research.
Plague stones
Hollowed out stones or boulders containing vinegar to disinfect coins, usually placed at or near parish boundaries, relics of medieval plagues.
Number of the beast
Hideous beast whose number is 666, introduced in the Book of Revelation, which many have seen as a description of the end of the world.
Leigh silk industry
Leigh’s silk industry grew after 1827 in and around the area of the old parish when silk was woven on domestic hand looms and later in weaving sheds using silk yarn supplied from Macclesfield by agents from Manchester.
Wife selling
Way of ending an unsatisfactory marriage by mutual agreement that probably began in the late 17th century, when divorce was a practical impossibility for all but the very wealthiest.
Manchester Liners
Cargo and passenger shipping company founded in 1898, based in Manchester, England.
Crimonmogate
Estate near Crimond, Aberdeenshire, dating back to the 14th century
White poppy
The white poppy was introduced in 1933 by the British Women’s Cooperative Guild as a pacifist alternative to the Royal British Legion’s annual red poppy appeal.