SALFORD HUNDRED 



BURY 



POWELL of Brandies- 

 holme. Gules a lion 

 rampant within a bar Jure 

 engrailed or. 



belonged to his grandson, Captain Henry Folliott 

 Powell. 23 



BRANDLESHOLME HALL stands on high ground 

 a mile and a half north of Elton, to the west of the 

 road to Holcombe Brook, and 

 is now a house of little or no 

 interest, modern rebuilding and 

 repairs having deprived it of 

 all its architectural features. It 

 was formerly a good specimen 

 of the half-timber gabled houses 

 of the district, built on a low 

 stone base, and erected prob- 

 ably in the i6th century with 

 a later stone wing with mul- 

 lioned windows at the north 

 end. The greater part of the 

 external timber-work, however, 

 appears to have perished or 



have been otherwise destroyed before the middle of the 

 last century, when the house seems to have been in a 

 more or less dilapidated state, the principal front, which 

 faces the east, being then patched with plaster and 

 modern sash windows introduced.'* 1 In 1852 the 

 south end was taken down and rebuilt in brick and 

 stucco, no attempt being made to reproduce the former 

 style, and the rest of the building being very much 

 dilapidated was repaired in 1908 in a manner more 

 resembling in style the work of 1852 than that of the 

 original building. Externally, therefore, the house, 

 which has long been divided into two, preserves 

 nothing of its ancient appearance, a portion of stone 

 walling on the north, some brickwork at the back 

 (west), and a few stone slabs on the roofs, which 

 have been renewed with blue slates, being all the old 

 work now left. The interior, however, exhibits a 

 good deal of the timber construction, and the hall 

 preserves its wide open fireplace and original oak 

 ceiling beams. In another room is a portion of a 

 ceiling with well-moulded oak beams, and other 

 portions of old timber-work still remain. But the 

 general aspect of the house, inside as well as out, is 

 wholly modernized, and new rooms have been added. 

 On the north-east is a stone barn, and in a corner of 

 the grounds on the south-west side at the end of a 

 terrace approached by eight stone steps are the re- 

 mains of a small stone building, locally said to have 



been a chapel, but more probably a summer-house, 

 with the initials H.G. (Henry Greenhalgh) and the 

 date 1709 on the door-head. 



The Hospitallers owned Haslem Hey, which about 

 1540 was tenanted by Edward Earl of Derby, at a 

 rent of 1 zd. u The Holts of Stubley held it of the 

 earl. 15 



CHAMBER HALL, on the border of Bury, appears 

 to have been at one time the residence of a Green- 

 halgh family, 16 and then of the Kays. 27 The place 

 was leased to Robert Peel, who there established his 

 great cotton-printing works. His son, the celebrated 

 statesman, was born in the house or in an adjacent 

 cottage. 18 It is a question debated locally whether 

 Sir Robert or his younger brother was born in this 

 cottage during some repairs or additions at the hall ; 

 these additions, which were probably the new brick 

 front, may not have been begun till after Sir Robert's 

 birth. 19 The hall was used as a Baptist college from 

 1866 to I874. 30 



It was situated about 400 yds. directly north 

 of Bury market-place, on low ground at the 

 foot of the plateau on which the old town of Bury 

 was built, and not far from the left bank of the 

 Irwell. The railway, going north from Bury, passed 

 close to it on the east, and its surroundings, which 

 had been growing less attractive for the last 

 thirty years, were somewhat squalid. In 1825, 

 however, the house is described as standing * amid 

 fertile fields,' Sl and the position was no doubt origi- 

 nally a pleasant one. Of the lyth-century house only 

 a small portion remained, at the back or north side ; 

 the front part, which was built of brick and dated 

 from the latter part of the i8th century, forming the 

 larger and principal portion of the building. The 

 old house was of three stories, was built of thin rough 

 coursed stones with dressed angle quoins, and retained 

 its old mullioned and transomed windows with label 

 mouldings, one at the east end on the third floor 

 having eight lights. The roof was covered with stone 

 slates, and in the north wall was a stone with an 

 inscription very much worn, dated 1611. The later 

 addition was of the same height but of two stories, 

 breaking the west gable of the old building, and 

 had a very plain brick elevation, with a central door- 

 way and two sash windows on each side on the ground 

 floor, and five similar windows above. 8 * The house 



28 There are rival accounts in the notes 

 in Assbeton's Journ. 5, 6 ; see also 

 Notitia Cestr. ii, 29. Francis Mathew, 

 created Earl of Llandaff in 1797, who is 

 stated to have sold Brandlesholme, was 

 the son of Thomas Mathew (who died in 

 1777) by a daughter of Richard Mathews 

 of Dublin; G.E.C.Complete Peerage, v, 1 26. 



** Pictorial Hist, of Lanes. 1844, p. 

 247, where there is an illustration of the 

 building at that date. The writer says : 

 * The gables seem to have formerly been 

 adorned with tracery, some vestige of 

 which still remains. The chimneys are 

 both very ancient and very ample. Modern 

 repairs detract from the uniformity and 

 beauty of the edifice.' 



24 Kuerden MSS., v, fol. 84. 



25 Lanes. Inq. p.m. (Rec. Soc. Lanes, and 

 Ches.), iii, 336. 



26 Thomas and James Greenhalgh of 

 Chamber occur in the early part of the 

 1 7th century ; Bury Reg. A Bury family 

 also lived there ; ibid. 



*7 James Kay of Chamber Hall in 

 Elton in 1711 sold land in Castlecroft to 

 Robert Nuttall ; Raines MSS. (Chet. 

 Lib.), xxxi, fol. 350. 



38 The history of the Peel family be- 

 longs to Blackburn. A description of the 

 works in 1795 is given in Aikin, Country 

 round Manchester, 268-9. 



Robert Peel was selected by Messrs. 

 Haworth (his uncle) and Yates as their 

 junior partner and manager of the 

 works established at Bury about 1770. 

 He acquired a large fortune. He was 

 made a baronet in 1800, and died in 

 1830; Abram, Blackburn, 220 ; Bar- 

 ton, Bury, 4996 ; Lanes, and Ches. 

 Hist, and Gen. Notes, i, 1 30 ; Local Glean- 

 ings Lanes, and Ches. i, 205 ; Diet. Nat. 

 Biog. 



Sir Robert Peel, the statesman, was his 

 eldest son, and was born in 1788. His 

 public career, which was not directly con- 

 nected with Lancashire, began when he 

 was twenty-one, his father having bought 



135 



for him the representation of Cashel, for 

 which he sat as a Tory. In 1 8 1 7 he was 

 elected for the University of Oxford, and 

 afterwards represented other constituencies. 

 In 1810 he was under-secretary for war 

 and the colonies, and was in office almost 

 continuously for twenty years ; prime 

 minister, 1834-5 ; built up the Conserva- 

 tive party ; prime minister, 1841-6, when 

 he pursued the policy of repealing duties ; 

 continued in his great work of the repeal 

 of the corn laws, 1846. He refused the 

 Garter. He died 29 June 1850, having 

 been thrown from his horse ; Diet. Nat. 

 Biog. 



29 See letter by Viscount Peel in a Bury 

 newspaper, June 1899, quoted by Manch. 

 Guardian, i Feb. 1908. 



80 Barton, Bury, 95. The college is 

 now at Rusholme. 



81 Corry, Hist, of Lanes, ii, 658. 



82 There is an illustration of the old 

 part of Chamber Hall in The Pictorial 

 Hist, of Lanes. 1844, p. 250. 



