Samlesbury

Samlesbury is a village and civil parish in the borough of South Ribble in Lancashire, England. Samlesbury Hall, a historic house, is located in the village as is Samlesbury Aerodrome. The village is also home to a large modern brewery owned by Anheuser-Busch InBev. The population of the Civil Parish taken at the 2011 census was 1,206.

The village's name is derived from the Old English sceamol, meaning ledge and burh meaning fortification, hence literally "ledge fortification". It may also be that the name at least partly derives from the Roman name for the River Ribble and its eponymous Celtic deity, Belisama.

In the 13th and 14th centuries there was fortified house near the river, probably a stone tower, held by the Denyas family. It was destroyed by the Scots during The Great Raid of 1322. A family heiress, Alicia Denyas, married Gilbert de Southworth, builder of Samlesbury Hall.

Samlesbury Hall
Samlesbury Hall is a manor house built in 1325 which has been many things since then including a public house and girls' boarding school, but since 1925, when it was saved from being demolished for its timber, it has been administered by a registered charitable trust, the Samlesbury Hall Trust. This Grade I listed medieval manor house attracts over 50,000 visitors each year.

Samlesbury Witches
The Samlesbury witches—Jane Southworth, Jennet Brierley and Ellen Brierley—were accused of child murder and cannibalism and tried at Lancaster Assizes on 19 August 1612, in the same series of trials as the Pendle witches. All three were found not guilty in a trial which one historian has described as "largely a piece of anti-Catholic propaganda".