In 1142, Kereshale was given to the Priory of Lenton, an order of Cluniac monks, who established an early cell there named St Leonard's. On the Dissolution of the Monasteries in 1540 Henry VIII sold the priory and its lands to one Baldwin Willoughby. It was sold eight years later to Ralph Kenyon, who was acting on behalf of himself, James Chetham of Crumpsall and Richard Siddall of Withington. The Kenyon third was sold about the year 1660 to the Byroms of Manchester, whose line terminated on the death of Eleanora Atherton in 1870. All the land eventually descended to, or was bought by, the Clowes family (the Lords of the Manor of Broughton) who began to sell off the land for development in the 19th and early 20th centuries. The most famous resident of Kersal Cell was John Byrom (1692–1763). It is said that he wrote the hymn "Christians Awake" there, but it is more likely that it was written at his home in the Old Shambles in Manchester above what is now the Wellington Inn.