ALTHOUGH IT’S better known for its industrial landscape and urban Vz sprawl, Lancashire contains some of the finest country houses in the United Kingdom.
In Stately Lancashire – a sequel to Stately Homes Alone: Independent Country Houses in the North West, published last year – Lancashire author and Choice contributor Barry McLoughlin explores another 11 great houses in the Red Rose county.
Stretching from Lancaster in the north to Manchester in the south, and Liverpool in the west to Burnley in the east, they span Tudor gems such as Rufford Old Hall and Speke Hall, the just-restored ‘Jacobean Gothic’ jewel Bank Hall at Bretherton and undiscovered Heskin Hall.
They range from much-visited National Trust properties to lesser-known mansions, the romantic ruin of Wycoller Hall and a huge stately home that virtually vanished overnight, Worden Hall at Leyland. Other houses featured include Haigh Hall, Wigan, and Gawthorpe Hall, Burnley.
The Wars of the Roses, the Reformation, the ‘witch trials’, the Civil War and the Jacobite Rebellion… Lancashire’s historic houses have witnessed a catalogue of major historic events.
The book covers not just the post-1974 ‘administrative county’ of Lancashire but the much larger, and much older, ‘County Palatine’, which also includes Liverpool and Manchester and southern parts of Cumbria.
Illustrated in full colour,
