Its site was once occupied by the "summer camp" of Roman legionaries, and when the Romans passed away from the island, it is highly probable that the English occupants of the country used it as a place of abode. The first authentic notice of its occupation by any person whose name has come down to us, dates from 1182, when Robert, the fifth Baron Greslet, kept court here. Thomas, the eighth baron, granted the citizens of Manchester their first charter in 1301, signing and sealing the charter here. He was the last male in the direct line of descent, and on his death the property passed to John De la Warre, who was a descendant of the Greslets or Gresleys in the female line. One of his descendants, Thomas, as has been already mentioned, became rector of Manchester, who before his death applied to King Henry V. for a charter to enable him to collegiate the church. He bestowed on it lands to increase the endowment, and gave his baronial hall to the newly founded college of priests to be used as their residence. All this may be read in the grant made in the first year of Henry VI. Certain alterations were made in the buildings, to fit them for the new use to which they were to be put, and from 1422 to 1549 they were occupied by warden after warden, who, assisted by the Fellows, performed the services in the adjoining church, looked after the sick and poor, and ministered generally to the inhabitants of the parish of Manchester. For some reason the College was not suppressed in the reign of Henry VIII., when the revenues of monasteries, small and great, were seized by the king; but in the first year of Edward VI. it was disendowed, and in the third year of the reign it was granted to Edward Stanley, third Earl of Derby. He used it as a town house. Henry Stanley, the next earl, in the reign of Elizabeth obtained a charter from the Queen, re-endowing the College, and it once more became the abode of the wardens, now priests of the reformed Church. During the civil wars the warden was expelled (1646), and the buildings seized by the Parliament. They were let to a certain Joseph Werden, who sublet the refectory to the Presbyterians, to be used by them as a meeting-house. The Independents made use of a barn in the enclosure for a similar purpose. [Illustration: THE NORTH GALLERY OF THE CLOISTER.] Lieut.-Col. the Rev. John Wigan applied for the reversion of this property, "part of y'e estate of the late Earl of Derby, and part of y'e jointure of y'e Countess Dowager already sequestrated."