On this day … 23 January 1689

On 23 January 1689, Thomas Bellingham wrote in his diary:

‘Ye 23th. A misty, moyst day. Mr. Chaddock had newes of ye arrivall of his vessell at Liverpoole from Burdeaux.’

‘Mr Chaddock’ was Daniel Chaddock, the town’s wine merchant at the time, who features frequently in the Preston diaries of Bellingham and his friend Lawrence Rawstorne. In the latter’s entry for 30 May 1687 he describes visiting ‘Mr Chaddocke sellers to tast & buy wine’. Presumably the cellars were at Chaddock’s house in Fishergate.

And on February 7 1690, Bellingham ‘came to Mr. Chaddocks ship, att ye nebb of Neas’. The ‘nebb’ was Neb of the Naze or Naze Mount, on the Ribble near Freckleton, and the ship was presumably bringing another cargo of wine.

In fact, Bordeaux wine was probably being imported into Preston from as early as the thirteenth century, for the major family in the town at that time, who took the name Preston, were carrying on a regular trade with the Irish port of Drogheda, one of the principal suppliers of Bordeaux to English towns.

The Preston family’s Irish trade proved so successful that early in the fourteenth century the main branch of the family crossed the Irish Sea to settle in Drogheda.

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Thomas Bellingham’s Irish estate was at Gernonstown, near Drogheda. The house was destroyed around the time of the Battle of the Boyne, while Bellingham was serving with William III. Later, he rebuilt it and renamed it Castle Bellingham.