Birchley Hall

Birchley Hall
Birchley Hall
General information
Architectural style	Elizabethan
Town or city	Billinge
Country	England
Completed	1594
Client	Thurston Anderton
Technical details
Structural system	Sandstone
Floor count	3

Last updated June 12, 2022

Birchley Hall is a grade II* listed Elizabethan house built in about 1594, in Billinge, Merseyside, England.^[1]

Birchley Hall was bought by Christopher Anderton of Lostock, Bolton in about 1581. The present building was built by one son, James and extended by another son, Thurston in 1594. There is an inscription stone carved with 'TA 1594' on the front of the house, TA being attributed to Thurston. Thurston died in 1598 or 1599 and another brother, Christopher, lived at the Hall with his wife Anne Scarisbrick till 1613, when James died, and he inherited Lostock Hall. Another brother, Roger, lived at Birchley Hall till his death in 1640.

The Birchley Hall press

During the Reformation Birchley Hall was in the county of Lancashire, which was a stronghold for Roman Catholics during their persecution during the reigns of Henry VIII, who destroyed and plundered many monasteries (much of their riches were given to Oxford University colleges), and Queen Elizabeth I. Catholics, especially priests, were driven underground and Catholic literature was vigorously suppressed.

A secret Catholic printing press was set up at Birchley Hall, possibly in about 1604, by Thurstan, whose wife Norris of Speke was a Catholic, or recusant as they were known then. Roger Anderton more certainly ran a printing press from about 1613. About 19 titles are attributed to the Birchley Hall Press by the English Short Title Catalogue of the British Library.

Many of the books are in the name of John Brerely, which is thought to be a pseudonym of Lawrence Anderton, a cousin of James and his brothers. He was the youngest son of Lawrence Anderton of Chorley, was educated at Blackburn Grammar School, and entered Christ's College, Cambridge University in 1593. He is thought to have originally taken orders in the Anglican Church but went to Rome in 1604 and subsequently joined the Society of Jesus. He published a volume of poems in 1601 in London and The Protestant Apologie in 1604, which may be his first book after becoming a Catholic priest.

The Birchley Hall chapel

One wing of the Hall contains a chapel which was used for secret religious services. According to "Secret Hiding Places" published in 1933, there was a trap door in the vestry floor concealed inside a confessional box. This led to the floor below and into the Hall and would have been used for priest to escape discovery. In 1920 a fall of plaster disclosed a secret door to a short tunnel in the wall leading to a look-out in the roof, from which the approach to the house could be watched. It was in poor condition at the time. Hiding places were also discovered (date unknown). In one of these chalices and vestments were found, which were subsequently kept at the local catholic church. A chalice, however, was stolen from the church in the 1970s. There are also reports of books being found under the floor during a restoration in the 1920s, including an early edition of Ptolemy's Geography . It is not known what happened to these.

Birchley Hall was bought by Vincent Wood from his cousin Joseph Middlehurst in 1945. His son Bernard partially restored the chapel up to the 1970s, when the Hall was sold to the charity Sue Ryder Care, which converted it into a home for the elderly. The chapel was fully restored for interdenominational use, and as of 2012 the Foundation still runs the Hall as a care centre for the elderly.^[1]

The new Birchley Hall Press

The word 'press' is used as a descriptive term for the printing operation in the early times, as it is not likely to have been used as a formal title — especially as it would have given away the location of the illegal printing press.

The Birchley Hall Press was resurrected by Bernard Wood, and formally named as such, in 1951 in the same building as the original press, with the publication of This is the Faith (author Francis J Ripley). The actual printing, however, was done by Wood Westworth & Co Ltd a printing company in St Helens, Merseyside, owned by Vincent Wood (and founded by the family in about 1860). A few further titles were published up to at least 1960, including A Flame for Africa (1953) and Liverpool's Hidden Story (1957).

The Birchley Hall Press was resurrected a second time in 2007 by Harry Wood, son of Bernard Wood. It was based in Farnborough, Hampshire, UK and published two online magazines, The British Journal of Healthcare Computing and Information Management (now owned by the Healthcare Information and Management Systems Society) and Medical Technology Business Europe (www.mtbeurope.info), and the website Tropical Trees for Life (www.treesforlife.info) a green project to propagate some of the large amounts of important information on tree planting and management in the tropics that is locked in paper, to give it a greater chance of reaching those who could benefit from it.

Related Research Articles

John Bull was an English composer, organist, virginalist and organ builder. He was a renowned keyboard performer of the virginalist school and most of his compositions were written for this medium.

A priest hole is a hiding place for a priest built into many of the principal Catholic houses of England, Wales and Ireland during the period when Catholics were persecuted by law. When Queen Elizabeth I came to the throne in 1558, there were several Catholic plots designed to remove her and severe measures were taken against Catholic priests. Many great houses had a priest hole built so that the presence of a priest could be concealed when searches were made of the building. They were concealed in walls, under floors, behind wainscoting and other locations and were often successful in concealing their occupant.

The Church of St Clare is on the corner of Arundel Avenue and York Avenue in the Sefton Park area of Liverpool, Merseyside, England. It is recorded in the National Heritage List for England as a designated Grade I listed building, and is an active Roman Catholic parish church in the Archdiocese of Liverpool and the Pastoral Area of Liverpool South. It is the only Grade I listed Roman Catholic church in the Archdiocese of Liverpool. Sharples and Pollard consider it to be "one of the most imaginative churches of its date in the country".

Lostock Hall is a suburban village within the South Ribble borough of Lancashire, England. It is located on the south side of the River Ribble, some 3 miles (4.8 km) south of Preston and 2.5 miles (4 km) north of Leyland. It is bordered on its southeastern side by the interchange for the M6, M61 and M65 motorways. At the time of the United Kingdom Census 2001, the central Lostock Hall area had a population of 3,948, falling to 3,762 at the 2011 Census.

Blackrod is a town and civil parish in the Metropolitan Borough of Bolton, Greater Manchester, England, 3.9 miles (6.3 km) northeast of Wigan and 6.6 miles (10.6 km) west of Bolton. At the United Kingdom Census 2011, it had a population of 5,001.

Anderton is a civil parish in the Borough of Chorley in Lancashire, England. It is now a suburb of Adlington, 5 miles (8 km) northwest of Bolton. Within its boundaries are the Rivington Reservoirs. Grimeford village is in the parish. In 2001, the parish had a population of 1,206, increasing to 1,316 at the 2011 census.

Nicholas Owen, S.J., was an English Jesuit lay brother who was the principal builder of priest holes during the reigns of Queen Elizabeth I and James I of England. Owen built many priest holes in the buildings of English Catholics from 1588 until his final arrest in 1606, when he was tortured to death by prison authorities in the Tower of London. Owen is honoured as a martyr by the Catholic Church and was canonized by Pope Paul VI in 1970.

In Eastern and Western Christian liturgical practice, the elevation is a ritual raising of the consecrated Sacred Body and Blood of Christ during the celebration of the Eucharist. The term is applied especially to that by which, in the Catholic Roman Rite of Mass, the Sacred Body of Christ (Host) and the chalice containing the Most Precious Blood of Christ are each lifted up and shown to the congregation immediately after each is consecrated. The term may also refer to a musical work played on the organ or sung at that time.

James Anderton (1557–1618) was an English Catholic aristocrat.

The Samlesbury witches were three women from the Lancashire village of Samlesbury – Jane Southworth, Jennet Bierley, and Ellen Bierley – accused by a 14-year-old girl, Grace Sowerbutts, of practising witchcraft. Their trial at Lancaster Assizes in England on 19 August 1612 was one in a series of witch trials held there over two days, among the most famous in English history. The trials were unusual for England at that time in two respects: Thomas Potts, the clerk to the court, published the proceedings in his The Wonderfull Discoverie of Witches in the Countie of Lancaster; and the number of the accused found guilty and hanged was unusually high, ten at Lancaster and another at York. All three of the Samlesbury women were acquitted.

Laurence Anderton, alias Scroop (1577–1643), was a learned English Jesuit.

Bury Road, Lawshall is a linear settlement in the civil parish of Lawshall in the Babergh district in the county of Suffolk, England. The northern part of the settlement is in the civil parish of Bradfield Combust with Stanningfield in West Suffolk. Bury Road is located between Hawstead and Lambs Lane / The Glebe and is two miles off the A134 between Bury St Edmunds and Sudbury.

The Church of Our Lady Immaculate and St Joseph, otherwise known as Coldham Cottage is the oldest continuing Roman Catholic church in Suffolk. It is in Bury Road, Lawshall and is part of the Diocese of East Anglia. It is in the Catholic parish of Bury St Edmunds. In 1998 it was designated as a Grade II Listed Building.

Burnley, in Lancashire, England, has a long history of religious worship, dating from at least before 1122 in the case of the Church of England. The chapel at Towneley Hall was the centre for Roman Catholic worship in Burnley until modern times. Well before the Industrial Revolution, the town saw the emergence of many non-conformist churches and chapels. In 1891 the town was the location of the meeting which saw the creation of the Baptist Union of Great Britain and Ireland. In the late 19th century a Jewish synagogue was established, and in recent times evangelical and free churches have appeared, as well as a large purpose-built mosque.

Christoffer Hjort (1561–1616) was a Norwegian clergyman and crypto-Catholic. He served as a vicar in Aker and was the priest at the chapel of Akershus Castle, until he was expelled from the country for Catholicism in 1613.

Billinge Chapel End is a civil parish in St Helens, Merseyside, England. It contains 13 buildings that are recorded in the National Heritage List for England as designated listed buildings. Of these, two are listed at Grade II*, the middle of the three grades, and the others are at Grade II, the lowest grade. The parish contains the village of Billinge and surrounding countryside. The listed buildings consist of houses, farmhouses, farm buildings, and two churches with associated structures.

St Mary's Church is an active Roman Catholic church along Birchley Road, Billinge, St Helens, Merseyside, England. Belonging to the archdiocese of Liverpool, the church was built in 1828, and extended later in that century. It is recorded in the National Heritage List for England as a designated Grade II listed building. In July 2020 its parish area was increased following the closure of St. Patrick's, Clinkham Wood and the merger of the two parishes under the one Parish Priest.

Cuthbert Haydock (1684-1763), one of a long line of priests from the prominent Catholic recusant Haydock family, helped to keep his faith alive during the long penal period in England by serving mass in secret for those who remained faithful to the Catholic Church.

References

1 2 "Name: BIRCHLEY HALL List entry Number: 1343273". Historic England. Retrieved 30 December 2017.

Bibliography

Hawkes, Arthur J (1926). The Birchley Hall Secret Press. London: Reprinted by the Oxford University Press from the transactions of the Bibliographical Society.

Squiers, Granville (1933). Secret Hiding Places: The origins, histories and descriptions of English secret hiding-places, used by priests, cavaliers, Jacobites and smugglers. London: Stanley Paul & Co Ltd.

External links

https://web.archive.org/web/20070930035413/http://www.sueryder.com/birchleyhall/ - Sue Ryder Care page about its Birchley Hall facility

Coordinates: 53°29′31″N2°42′58″W / 53.492°N 2.716°W / 53.492; -2.716

This page is based on this Wikipedia article
Text is available under the CC BY-SA 4.0 license; additional terms may apply.
Images, videos and audio are available under their respective licenses.

[HE-1] 1 2 "Name: BIRCHLEY HALL List entry Number: 1343273". Historic England. Retrieved 30 December 2017.

[1]