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| Photo #1: Back modern view of the Peel Hall estate |
This is the first in a
short series I have wanted to do for quite some time. I'd like to research and present the
history and heritage of my local area: Astley and the surrounding area. The first historical location I am going to investigate
is Peel Hall farm in Astley, a Grade II listed building quite close to me, both
literally (I can see it as I type) and mentally, as I grew up no more than a
hundred metres away.
Peel Hall is located
in Astley, beside the Bridgewater Canal, a
short journey down an un-adopted road (beware it is very bumpy) from Astley
Green. As the photo illustrates the building is now a bit of a mess, with the
carcasses of caravans and farming machinery littering the surrounding area (Photo #1). The
photo, however, only shows the back of the building complex, the front of it faces
the Bridgewater canal, constructed in 1795.
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| Photo #2 Peel Hall front (Tonge, J & S, 1989) |
This photo (#2) was taken around 1900 and shows a splendid south-facing facade with columns. The structure
originated in the 16th and 17th centuries
though was largely rebuilt in the 18th
and 19th century. It is a H-shaped
two-storey hall with a colonial style loggia created in the 19th century with a
facade of two-storey high cast iron fluted Ionic
columns, a feature repeated at the rear (www.britishlistedbuildings.co.uk/en-213524-peel-hall-).
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| Photo #3 Overgrown modern back of Peel Hall from the Bridgewater canal |
Sadly this magnificent view is no longer available to the interested, with the
front of the structure, facing the canal, now heavily overgrown with trees and
foliage (Photo #3). So what is the story of Peel Hall? Why did this wonderful structure
come to be built here in Astley and why has it now fallen into ruin, passing
out of memory?
Peel's Medieval Origin
The history of Peel Hall goes back further the present Hall,
with the original structure on the site being
built in the late 12th or early 13th century at the latest. The first
reference to Peel regards the estate of Peel Hall, which was granted to Cockersand Abbey (North
Lancashire) between 1190 and 1221 by Hugh de Tyldesley, the lord of Astley
Manor (formerly on the Damhouse site). Cockersand Abbey was formed by a band of Christian
monks, and the document sets out an area
which "began at the water known as
the fleet, following the brook northwards to Limpet Hurst and following the
Brunehevese southwards back to the Fleet" (Cockersand Chartum 712). The original estate likely
encompassed the fields immediately north of Peel following the brook, eastwards
perhaps to the village and southwards to Black Moss brook (www.british-history.ac.uk/vch/lancs/vol3/pp445-499#h3-0003).
The Gillibrands
By 1286, the Gillibrand (Gilibrond)
family emerge in documentation, beginning
their four hundred year association with the estate. John Gilibrond is
recorded as renting the estate from the Abbey for two shilling yearly. At
some point over the intervening three hundred years the Gilibronds gained
ownership of the estate from the monks, though there is no textual reference
for this transaction.
The next recorded reference to Peel is at the death of
Thomas Gillibrand in 1648. His will supposedly took four men three days to
account and his possesions were listed to the value of £595. It is around this
time that it is believed that the modern structure was first built, with
elements surviving to this day, with modification. The estate is said to have
had a sizeable amount of arable land and a water corn mill near the Ellenbrook
(likely the former name for Astley brook). There was apparently a sizeable
tithe barn for the storage of oats and barley (Lunn 1968).
The theme of grandeur is continued when the interior of the
hall is described. The walls were well furnished and the bedrooms had feather
beds, a luxury for the time. There was a significant amount of silver dining
ware, with one piece said to have been 30 ounces in weight. There was also a
gatehouse for the servants to 'guard the approach' from the Village Green (Lunn
1968).
The end of the
Gillibrands
By 1693 it seems that the Gillibrand family had fallen on
harder times. A series of documents from 1693 to 1756 detail a succession of
mortgages taken on the estate, with Thomas Gillibrand (son of the former
Thomas) and his wife Mary receiving £250 for mortgaging the estate in 1693.
Another mortgage was taken out in 1697 for £216, with another in 1698 for the
princely sum of £1,143. The Gillibrand debt was trasnferred to a debtor named bertie
Entwisle whose will in 1732 suggests that the Entwisles had taken ownership of
Peel Hall. It was left to his son, who took out a mortgage on the estate to
£2000. By 1763, Thomas Mort acquired the estate and it became a part of the
larger estate of Astley Manor (Damhouse).
The Encroachment of
Modernity
1795 saw the first large scale building project to sever the
lands of the Peel Hall estate. Despite local opposition, the Manchester to
Worsley canal was extended to Leigh (and eventually through to Liverpool) and
the route cut straight through the Peel Hall estate, coming close to the
house's south facade. The 1821 sale of the Hall, from Samuel Arrowsmith to John
Kenworthy for £2,500 provides a useful map of the estate during this time. The
hall still retained its medieval moat, as well as an access road to the Village
Green and a bridge over the canal to the estates southerly fields. Soon after
the sale, the medieval moat was reportedly filled in.
After the sale in 1821 there was a series of changes of
tenantship at Peel, with Samuel Park recorded as the tenant in 1850, George
Kenworthy (John's son) in 1853, Matthew Hilton in 1881 and Thomas Oliver Cross
in the early 1900's. In 1908, the first coal mine shaft was sunk in Astley
Green and the owner of Peel Hall, Thomas Oliver Cross leased one of his fields
for 99 years to the colliery company to build houses for the miners (of which
my childhood home is one), as well as offering a through road from Astley to
Leigh. This through road was eventually superseded by the construction of the
East Lancashire Road (A580) in 1934, which provided a direct car route from
Manchester to Liverpool and further severed the lands of the Peel Hall estate.
Where now?
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| Photo #4: Peel Hall and the rose garden in 1900 (Lunn 1968) |
The estate has been on a slow decline since the heydays of
the Gillibrands, though in recent times, the private ownership of Peel Hall has
led to a marked decline in the upkeep of the hall. The hall is one of two of
the oldest standing structures in Astley and as such deserves celebration. The
present ownership are sadly keen to cut off Peel Hall from the outside world,
restricting access to the estate and generally letting the estate fall into
ruin. In 2014, Chaddock Hall in Astley - another Grade II listed building - was
destroyed by fire in a suspected arson attack. The lands around Chaddock Hall,
also Medieval in origin, were ripped up to make way for an industrial park and
residential estate. Though I wish it not, I fear the same fate may eventually
meet Peel Hall.
Further Reading
Lunn, J. 1968. Astley:
History of a Lancashire Township, Co-Operative Wholesale Society
Limited,
Manchester.
Tonge, J & S. 1989. Pictorial
Astley, John Roberts & Sons, Salford.
