Template:Wp-Weeton with Preese-History

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The place-name Weeton — first recorded in the Domesday Book as Widetun — derives from the Old English wiðig (willow) and -tūn (settlement). The village presumably derived its name from the presence of indigenous or farmed willows. To this day, there are fine specimens of willow trees in Weeton.

After 1066, the lordship of Weeton passed from the Northumbrian Earl Tostig to the Norman warlord Roger of Poitou. Weeton’s value at this time was assessed at "two carucates" (an area of arable land that could be worked in one day by two ploughteams).

Some time after the Domesday survey, the lordship of Weeton passed to the Butler family, early lords of Amounderness, who in 1328 became the Earls of Ormonde. the fourteenth century, the Butlers owned extensive lands, mills and fisheries in the manors of Weeton, Little Marton, Treales, Wesham, Mowbreck, Greenhalgh, Thistleton, Out Rawcliffe, Bradkirk, Medlar and Esprick.

The manors of Weeton, Preese, Mythop and Swarbrick were acquired by Sir Thomas Stanley of Lathom, later the first Earl of Derby, in 1400. They continued as part of the family estate until 1955. In the nineteenth century, the Earl of Derby commonly used the title ‘Baron of Weeton’. The title is no longer used and although there is evidence it may also have been used by Theobald Walter in the twelfth century, Weeton’s status as a barony was it seems always a matter of dispute.

By 1522, the estate had expanded to include the manors of Treales, Wesham, Out Rawcliffe, Little Marton, Greenhalgh, Plumpton and other lands. On 4 October 1637, William, 6th Earl of Derby, surrendered to James, Lord Strange, the manor of Weeton and various other ones, to enable him to make leases.

In 1670, a charter from Charles II granted Weeton an annual fair for the sale of cattle and small wares to take place on the Tuesday and Wednesday following Trinity Sunday Tolls were to be paid to the Earl of Derby and are recorded in the Bailiff ’s Accounts for the manor from 1682 (they amounted to £4 12s in that year). During the seventeenth century, a weekly fair also took place in the parish. The Trinity fair began to falter in the 1920s as local cattle-farmers sought richer markets for their stock. The fair was eventually reduced to a huddle of bring-and-buy stalls on the triangular "goose green" at the centre of the village, and was eventually replaced by the annual Gala.

The village also had a windmill, Weeton Windmill, which was built in 1812. It fell into disrepair and was demolished in the 1950s.

One of the most notable local families were the Jollys of Mythop who dominated village life for more than three hundred years. Members of the family were largely responsible for the draining of Marton Mere in the eighteenth century. Their most renowned son was Edward Jolly (1664–1738) declared Master of Mythop in 1715 for his exploits in the Battle of Preston (known colloquially as the Preston Fight). The family was also related to Major James Jolly, Oliver Cromwell's Provost-Marshal General for Lancashire, and Thomas Jolly, founder of Congregationalism.