Buckshaw Hall is a grade II* listed 17th-century country house in

Buckshaw Village Buckshaw Village (often shortened to Buckshaw) is a 21st-century village and industrial area between the towns of Chorley and Leyland in Lancashire, England, developed on the site of the former Royal Ordnance Factory (ROF) Chorley. It had a ...

Euxton Euxton ( ) is a village and civil parish in the Borough of Chorley, Lancashire, England. The population at the 2011 census was 9,993, but is now estimated to be around 14,000 due to housing developments in the village, including at Buckshaw. ...

, some north-west of

Chorley Chorley is a town and the administrative centre of the wider Borough of Chorley in Lancashire, England, north of Wigan, south west of Blackburn, north west of Bolton, south of Preston and north west of Manchester. The town's wealth ca ...

, England.

History

The Buckshaw Estate was originally owned by the Anderton family of Euxton Hall, who in 1652 sold it to Major Edward Robinson Melmoth, who built the present hall in 1654. In the 19th century the estate was sold to John Walmsley and then passed to the Towneley Parkers of

Cuerden Hall Cuerden Hall is a country mansion in the village of Cuerden near Preston, Lancashire, England. It is a Grade II* listed building. The Hall was formerly a family home between 1717 and 1906, and used by the Army until the 1960s. In 1985 it became a ...

and the Crosse family of

Shaw Hill Shaw Hill is an 18th-century country house in Whittle-le-Woods, Lancashire, England, standing in 192 acres of parkland some 3 miles north of Chorley. The estate is now the Shaw Hill Hotel, Golf Club and Country Club. The house is a three-storey ...

. Extensive restoration of the southern wing was carried out by Colonel Thomas Richard Crosse in 1885, after which it was sold to Richard Stock, who in 1936 sold the estate and surrounding farmland to the

Ministry of Supply The Ministry of Supply (MoS) was a department of the UK government formed on 1 August 1939 by the Ministry of Supply Act 1939 ( 2 & 3 Geo. 6. c. 38) to co-ordinate the supply of equipment to all three British armed forces, headed by the Ministe ...

to establish a new munitions factory. The munitions complex was known as ROF Chorley and the hall was used for office accommodation. In 2005 the factory was closed and the site transferred back to private ownership. Much of the land is being developed for housing as Buckshaw Village. In 1954 the Ministry of Works planned to demolish the building but this was not done. By 2002 Buckshaw Hall was dilapidated and Chorley Civic Society, campaigned for developers to restore it. It was vandalised in 2012. Having been sold in 2018, the hall is now privately owned. Restorative work including reconstruction of the collapsed east elevation was carried out by Donald Insall Associates.

Architecture

It is a

timber-framed Timber framing () and "post-and-beam" construction are traditional methods of building with heavy Beam (structure), timbers, creating structures using squared-off and carefully fitted and Woodworking joints, joined timbers with joints secure ...

manor house A manor house was historically the main residence of the lord of the manor. The house formed the administrative centre of a manor in the European feudal system; within its great hall were usually held the lord's manorial courts, communal mea ...

on a high

sandstone Sandstone is a Clastic rock#Sedimentary clastic rocks, clastic sedimentary rock composed mainly of grain size, sand-sized (0.0625 to 2 mm) silicate mineral, silicate grains, Cementation (geology), cemented together by another mineral. Sand ...

plinth A pedestal or plinth is a support at the bottom of a statue, vase, column, or certain altars. Smaller pedestals, especially if round in shape, may be called socles. In civil engineering, it is also called ''basement''. The minimum height o ...

with

infill In urban planning, infill, or in-fill, is the rededication of land in an Urban area, urban environment, usually Urban open space, open-space, to new construction. Infill also applies, within an urban polity, to construction on any Greenfield land, ...

ing partly in

wattle and daub Wattle and daub is a composite material, composite building method in which a woven lattice of wooden strips called "wattle (construction), wattle" is "daubed" with a sticky material usually made of some combination of wet soil, clay, sand, and ...

and partly in brick, and with a

slate Slate is a fine-grained, foliated, homogeneous, metamorphic rock derived from an original shale-type sedimentary rock composed of clay or volcanic ash through low-grade, regional metamorphism. It is the finest-grained foliated metamorphic ro ...

roof. It has an H-shaped plan, consisting of a hall with two cross-wings, and is in two storeys. Behind the hall is a projecting stair turret. The upper floors of the wings are

jettied Jettying (jetty, jutty, from Old French ''getee, jette'') is a building technique used in medieval timber framing, timber-frame buildings in which an upper floor projects beyond the dimensions of the floor below. This has the advantage of incr ...

, and the

gable A gable is the generally triangular portion of a wall between the edges of intersecting roof pitches. The shape of the gable and how it is detailed depends on the structural system used, which reflects climate, material availability, and aesth ...

s have wavy

bargeboard A bargeboard or rake fascia is a board fastened to each projecting gable of a roof to give it strength and protection, and to conceal the otherwise exposed end grain of the horizontal timbers or purlins of the roof. The word ''bargeboard'' is pr ...

s and apex

finial A finial () or hip-knob is an element marking the top or end of some object, often formed to be a decorative feature. In architecture, it is a small decorative device, employed to emphasize the Apex (geometry), apex of a dome, spire, tower, roo ...

s. Inside are

inglenook An inglenook or chimney corner is a recess that adjoins a fireplace. The word comes from "ingle", an old Scots word for a domestic fire (derived from the Gaelic ''aingeal''), and "nook". The inglenook originated as a partially enclosed hear ...

bressumer A bressummer, breastsummer, summer beam (somier, sommier, sommer, somer, cross-somer, summer, summier, summer-tree, or dorman, dormant tree) is a load-bearing beam in a timber-framed building. The word ''summer'' derived from sumpter or French ...

s, and timber-framed partitions.

References

{{Borough of Chorley buildings Houses completed in 1654 Country houses in Lancashire Grade II* listed buildings in Lancashire Grade II* listed houses Buildings and structures in the Borough of Chorley 1654 establishments in England