Towneley Hall | |
---|---|
Location | Burnley, Lancashire |
Coordinates | 53°46′26″N2°13′21″W / 53.7738°N 2.2225°W |
Area | 180 hectares |
Architect | Various including Wyattville |
Listed Building – Grade I | |
Official name | Towneley Hall |
Designated | 10 November 1951 |
Reference no. | 1247299 (Hall) |
Official name | Ice house at Towneley Hall |
Reference no. | 1005089 |
Listed Building – Grade II | |
Official name | Towneley Hall |
Designated | 1 April 1986 |
Reference no. | 1000954 (Park and Garden) |
Towneley Park is owned and managed by Burnley Borough Council and is the largest and most popular park in Burnley, Lancashire, England. [1] The main entrance to the park is within a mile of the town centre and the park extends to the south east, covering an area of some 180 hectares (440 acres). At the southern end of the park is Towneley Hall, a grade I listed building housing Burnley's art gallery and museum. To the north are golf courses and playing fields and to the south 24 acres of broadleaf woodland. On the southern boundary is a working farm called Towneley Farm with pastures and plantations extending eastwards into Cliviger.
The hall was the home of the Towneley family from around 1200. The family once owned extensive estates in and around Lancashire and the West Riding of Yorkshire. [2] The male line of the family died out in 1878 and in 1901 one of the daughters, Lady O'Hagan, sold the house together with 62 acres (250,000 m2) of land to Burnley Corporation for £17,600. The family departed in March 1902. [3]
Between 2005 and 2011, the Heritage Lottery Fund granted £2.1 million to help fund a major programme of restoration of the Park, [4] which is grade II listed. [3]
The hall is a grade I listed building. [5]
The hall not only contains the 15th-century Whalley Abbey vestments, but also has its own chapel – with a finely carved altarpiece made in Antwerp around 1525. [6]
The art gallery contains important Victorian and Pre-Raphaelite works by Burne-Jones, Waterhouse, Alma-Tadema and Zoffany, [7] watercolours by Turner and local artist Noel H. Leaver, a collection of Lancashire furniture, the Whalley Abbey vestments, natural history and local social and military history relating to the Towneley family. The Deer Pond in Towneley Park is a Local Nature Reserve. [8] [9]
According to folklore, the hall was haunted by a boggart. This spirit appeared once every seven years, just prior to the death of one of the residents. The boggart was linked to 'Sir John Towneley', who in life supposedly oppressed the poor of the district. [10] According to writer Daniel Codd, there are later stories of a strange ghostly white apparition that appears by the River Calder. [11]
Charles Townley FRS was a wealthy English country gentleman, antiquary and collector, a member of the Towneley family. He travelled on three Grand Tours to Italy, buying antique sculpture, vases, coins, manuscripts and Old Master drawings and paintings. Many of the most important pieces from his collection, especially the Townley Marbles are now in the British Museum's Department of Greek and Roman Antiquities. The marbles were overshadowed at the time, and still today, by the Elgin Marbles.
Read is a village in Lancashire 5 miles west northwest of Burnley and 2 miles east of Whalley. It is on the A671 which is the main road between Burnley and Clitheroe. The population of the civil parish as taken at the 2011 census was 1,419.
Burnley is a town and the administrative centre of the wider Borough of Burnley in Lancashire, England, with a 2001 population of 73,021. It is 21 miles (34 km) north of Manchester and 20 miles (32 km) east of Preston, at the confluence of the River Calder and River Brun.
Bowland Forest Low is a civil parish in the Ribble Valley district of Lancashire, England, covering some 5,500 acres (22 km2) of the Forest of Bowland. According to the 2001 census, the parish had a population of 168, falling to 160 at the 2011 Census. The parish includes the hamlets of Whitewell and Cow Ark. From northwards clockwise, it borders the civil parishes of Newton, Bashall Eaves, Aighton, Bailey and Chaigley, Bowland-with-Leagram and Bowland Forest High. Before 1974, it formed part of Bowland Rural District in the West Riding of Yorkshire.
The River Calder is a major tributary of the River Ribble in Lancashire, England, and is around 20 miles (32 km) in length.
Whalley Abbey is a former Cistercian abbey in Whalley, Lancashire, England. After the dissolution of the monasteries, the abbey was largely demolished and a country house was built on the site. In the 20th century the house was modified and it is now the Retreat and Conference House of the Diocese of Blackburn of the Church of England. The ruins of the abbey are recorded in the National Heritage List for England as a designated Grade I listed building, and are a Scheduled Ancient Monument.
Cliviger is a civil parish in the Borough of Burnley, in Lancashire, England. It is situated to the southeast of Burnley, and northwest of Todmorden. According to the 2011 census, the parish has a population of 2,238.
Ightenhill is a civil parish in the Borough of Burnley in Lancashire, England, with a population of 1,975.
Hapton is a village and civil parish in the Borough of Burnley in Lancashire, England, 3 miles (4.8 km) west of Burnley, with a railway station on the East Lancashire Line. At the United Kingdom Census 2011, it had a population of 1,979.
The Burnley Way is a 40-mile (64 km) long distance footpath in Lancashire, England. As a circular walk it can be walked from any point, but it is common to start and finish at the Weavers' Triangle Visitor Centre in Burnley. It covers a range of terrain from canal towpaths to open moorland.
Habergham Eaves is a civil parish in the borough of Burnley, in Lancashire, England. The parish consists of a rural area south of Burnley, and suburban areas on the outskirts of the town, including a large industrial estate in the north-west corner of the parish. Habergham is also the name of an area west of Burnley, although it is no longer within the parish. According to the United Kingdom Census 2011, the parish has a population of 1,466.
Leighton Hall is a historic house 0.5 miles (1 km) to the west of Yealand Conyers, Lancashire, England. It is recorded in the National Heritage List for England as a designated Grade II* listed building.
Read Hall and Park is a manor house with ornamental grounds of about 450 acres (180 ha) in Whalley Road, Read, a few miles west of Padiham, Lancashire, England.
The Towneley or Townley family are an English family whose ancestry can be traced back to Anglo-Saxon England. Towneley Hall in Burnley, Lancashire, was the family seat until its sale, together with the surrounding park, to the corporation of Burnley in 1901. Towneley Hall is now a Grade I listed building and a large museum and art gallery within Towneley Park.
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 Sue Ryder neurological care centre. The Hall was sold to Manchester business man Colin Shenton in 2020 who is restoring it to its original purpose as a family home. The parkland and wider estate are known as Cuerden Valley Park. Cuerden Valley Park is now owned and managed by Cuerden Valley Park Trust which was a charity established in 1986, to ensure the longevity and management of the parkland itself. The Trust is made up for 650 acres of land; 1 reservoir, 15 ponds, 3 reed beds; over 5km of the river Lostock and 5 nature reserves.
Hameldon Hill is a Carboniferous sandstone hill with a summit elevation of 409 metres (1,342 ft), situated between the towns of Burnley and Accrington in Lancashire, England. It is listed as a "HuMP" or "Hundred Metre Prominence", its parent being Freeholds Top, a Marilyn near Bacup.
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.
The Church of St Mary of the Assumption is in Yorkshire Street, Burnley, Lancashire, England. It is an active Roman Catholic parish church in the diocese of Salford. The church is recorded in the National Heritage List for England as a designated Grade II listed building. It was built between 1846 and 1849 to replace a smaller chapel on a different site. The church was designed by Weightman and Hadfield in Decorated style, and a chapel was added to it in 1879.
Burnley Greyhound Stadium also known as Towneley Stadium was a former greyhound racing and speedway stadium in Burnley, Lancashire.
Towneley Colliery or Towneley Desmesne was a coal mine on the Burnley Coalfield in Burnley, Lancashire, England. Sunk in the late 1860s, it was linked to the Lancashire and Yorkshire Railway's Burnley to Todmorden line which became known as the Copy Pit route and, by tramway, to the Leeds and Liverpool Canal.