Time-honoured Lancaster, with its castle and priory, form the central historic point of interest in this part of the hundred; here also were five of the largest forests in Lancashire--Wyersdale, Quernmoor, Bleasdale, Myerscough, and Fulwood. Coming south of Lonsdale, the county is much wider, and is divided longitudinally; the western portion, as far as the river Ribble, forming the hundred of Amounderness, which, like the more northern parts, is inhabited by people engaged in the cultivation of the soil, except in and immediately around the town of Preston, which is now one of the great centres of the cotton trade. The parishes of Kirkham, Garstang, St. Michael's-on-Wyre, Lytham, Bispham and Poulton are all in a district long known as the Fylde, and their respective churches are all of antiquarian interest. Preston is now by far the largest town in the division; the manufacture of cotton was introduced here in 1777, and the trade has since developed to very large proportions. Here were two religious houses, one a convent of Grey Friars, and the other a hospital for lepers. The Ribble, in its course from Mitton to Preston, intersects the county. To the east of Amounderness is the hundred of Blackburn, which, although it is twenty-four miles in length, only contains five parishes; its north-western extremity is more or less agricultural, but the rest of it is densely populated, and has become a great manufacturing district. Blackburn, Burnley, Accrington, and several other towns in the district, are all engaged in the staple trade of the county. Clitheroe Castle, Whalley Abbey, and Ribchester are in this hundred. The south bank of the Ribble forms the western boundary of the hundred of Leyland. The only market-town in the division is Chorley, which until 1793 formed a part of the parish of Croston; like so many other towns of Lancashire, it rose out of obscurity through the introduction of spinning mills towards the end of the last century, and it is now a town of considerable size and importance; in addition to its cotton-mills, coal, stone, and iron are found and worked in the neighbourhood. At Penwortham, on the bank of the Ribble, was a priory dedicated to St. Mary. The ancient parish churches of Croston, Leyland, Eccleston, and Standish are all of historic interest. The hundred of Salford has now an enormous population, and the very names of its principal towns call up a vision of tall factory chimneys, dense smoke, and the noise of machinery; manufactories of every kind abound, and it is not saying too much to add that few industries are unrepresented, coal, stone, iron, cotton and woollens, however, constituting the chief trade. The city of Manchester and the boroughs of Salford, Oldham, Bolton, Rochdale, and Bury are all well-known names in the textile or mechanical world.