The Allens appear to have held Rossall on lease from the abbot of Deulacres about a century after the dispute between that monastery and Edward I. had been decided, for in 1397, during the reign of Richard II., the name of “Allen of Ross-hall” was entered in the list of donors to the fraternities of the Preston Guild of that year. George Allen, of Brookhouse, Staffordshire, who held Rossall at the date of the Reformation, by virtue of a long lease granted to his ancestors by an abbot of Deulacres, is the earliest of this family to whom these tenants of the grange can be traced genealogically. The widow and daughters of the grandson of George Allen were ejected from Rossall in 1583, before the expiration of their lease, and despoiled of valuable documents and property by Edmund Fleetwood, whose father had purchased the reversion from Henry VIII., at the time of the dissolution of monasteries. On that occasion a neighbour, Anion, seized and appropriated £500 belonging to the Allens on pretence of remitting it to Dr. William Allen, at Rheims. Mrs. Allen made an attempt to recover possession of the grange, and a trial for that purpose took place at Manchester, but her case broke down through inability to produce the original deeds and papers, all of which had been either stolen or destroyed when the Hall was plundered during the ejection.[101] The estate, or grange, of Rossall, remained in the hands of the Fleetwoods until the death of Edward Fleetwood, when it passed to Roger Hesketh, of North Meols, who married Margaret, the only child and heiress of that gentleman in 1733.[102] The Heskeths, of Rossall, were descended from the Heskeths of Rufford, through Hugh Hesketh, an offspring of Sir Thomas Hesketh, of Rufford. Hugh Hesketh married the eldest daughter and co-heiress of Barneby Kytichene, or Kitchen, and thus acquired a moiety of the manor of North Meols. At the decease of Hugh Hesketh, in 1625, the lands of North Meols descended to his son, Thomas Hesketh, then 56 years of age, whose son and heir, Robert Hesketh, was already married to the daughter of—Formby, of Formby. The only child of Robert Hesketh was the Roger Hesketh, mentioned above, who also held Tulketh Hall and estate. The Heskeths continued to reside at Rossall until the lifetime of the late Sir Peter Hesketh Fleetwood, bart.; and under their proprietorship, at an early period, or in the latest years of their predecessors, the ancient Hall was pulled or washed down and another mansion erected more removed from the shore.