Buildings of Interest

Description

Farmhouse. Timber-framed structure of Cl7 which has been largely rebuilt in brick in the C18 and C19 and rendered in C20.Formerly the house of the Tyldesley family.

___________________________________________________________________________

Garrett Hall was the mansion house of the lords of the manor of Tyldesley. This manor was in existence before the Conquest but the first documentary reference to Garrett Hall itself is in 1505. The Tyldesley family were lords of the manor from very early times. An impressive list of their property at the Hall survives in the form of an inventory of 1613. We hear of the various bedrooms, living rooms, and outbuildings and there is a detailed account of the contents, with values, of each. In the hall for example, there was a long table, five benches, and a birdcage.

When Lambert Tyldesley died without an heir in 1652, ownership of the Hall and manor passed to the Stanley family of Eccleston. The Stanleys, unlike the Tyldesleys, chose not to live at the Hall and leased it instead to tenant farmers, whose prestige was obviously less than that of the Tyldesleys. Indeed, towards the end of the 17th century, Thomas Thropp, the then tenant, was forced to be an overseer of the poor, a job from which the Hall's residents had previously been exempt.

The Stanleys' ownership of the Hall and manor lasted just 80 years. Thomas Stanley joined in the unsuccessful Jacobite rebellion of 1715 and was attainted of treason and outlawed for his pains.

In 1732 he sold Garrett Hall and estate to Thomas Clowes, a merchant of Manchester, who con­tinued the policy of leasing the house to tenant farmers. The Clowes family bought a number of properties in Tyldesley in the 18th century, including Booths Hall and Chaddock Hall.

In 1829 the Hall and estate were acquired by Robert Haldane Bradshaw of Worsley Hall and it was later to become part of the Bridgewater Estates.

The Hall, which is a 16th-century timber-framed structure with late additions, still stands in Garrett Lane.

Source: Leigh History Society