The earliest allusion to the local territorial family occurs in 1221, when Michael de Carleton, as before stated under “Thornton,” paid a fine to Henry III. for having espoused Margaret Wynewick, or Winwick, a royal ward, without first obtaining permission from the king. It has been conjectured that Much Carleton received its peculiar title from this member of the family, and amongst the records of some ancient pleadings is one of 1557 concerning certain lands in _Miche Carlton_, a mode of writing the name which lends considerable support to the theory. Alyce Hull, widow, was the plaintive in the dispute. The Carletons, of Carleton, were connected with the neighbourhood for a very long period as holders of the manor; Alicia, the daughter of William de Carleton married Sir Richard Butler, of Rawcliffe Hall, in 1281, and received the manor of Inskip as her dowry; and in 1346 H. de Carleton possessed four carucates and a half in Carleton.[104] Thomas de Carleton held the manor of Carleton up to the time of his death in 1500, when he was succeeded by his son and heir George Carleton, aged 22,[105] who died in 1516, leaving an only child, William, then eleven years of age.[106] William de Carleton came into possession of the property on attaining his legal majority,[107] and died in 1557, being succeeded by Lawrence Carleton, probably his brother. Lawrence Carleton, who had married Margaret, the daughter of George Singleton, of Staining, held the estate for barely twelve months, as he died in 1558 without issue, leaving his lands and tenements in Carleton, amounting to several extensive messuages and Carleton Hall, to his only surviving sister, Margaret, the wife of Thomas Almond.[108] Thus Lawrence Carleton was the last of the manorial family of that name connected with the township. Of the ancient Hall of Carlton, the seat of the Carletons for over three centuries, nothing can be learnt beyond the fact that it stood opposite the Gezzerts farm, and that almost, if not quite, within the recollection of the present generation some ruins of the once noble mansion were visible on its former site, long since enclosed and used for purposes of agriculture. In 1261 the abbey of Cockersand held some property in Carleton, as appears from an agreement entered into at that date between the abbot of Cockersand and H. de Singleton Parva, by which the latter transferred a messuage in Carleton, by the side of other messuages already belonging to the abbey, to the abbot, in exchange for messuages and an acre of ground in the vicinity of Stanlawe abbey in Cheshire.[109] Stanlawe abbey itself had sundry possessions in Carleton shortly after its foundation in 1175,[110] all of which were conveyed to the abbey of Whalley in 1296, when the two monastic houses were united, and thus it happened that this township was included amongst the localities in which Whalley abbey held lands at the time of its dissolution.