BLACKBURN HUNDRED 



BLACKBURN 



1766.''" Mr. Lomax thus became possessed of the 

 entire manor, which had been subdivided between 

 the heirs-general of Richard Fiton in the time of 

 Edward I. James Lomax, youngest son and eventu- 

 ally heir of the above-named Richard Grimshaw 

 Lomax, died in 1886, leaving daughters Helen and 

 Mary, and the manor is now held by the former 

 (Mrs. Trappes-Lomax) jointly with the latter's 

 daughter (Mrs. David Howell). Mrs. Trappes- 

 Lomax married in 1866 Thomas Byrnand Trappes, 

 and in 1 891, the year of her husband's death, 

 assumed by royal licence the additional name of 

 Lomax.'"' 



Courts were held till about 1886, but had long 

 ceased to serve any useful purpose. 



MJRTHOLME^^ lies in a low situation on the 

 south bank of the Calder about i J miles north-east 

 of Great Harwood, close to the railway viaduct where 

 the line curves sharply eastward towards Padiham, 

 and is approached by a rough by-road half a mile in 

 length leading from the high road from Accrington 

 to Whalley. The present building, which is used as 

 a farm-house, is only a fragment of the original structure, 

 the whole of the great hall and west wing having disap- 

 peared. What remains is the 1 6th-century east wing 

 and gate-house, together with an outer gateway of early 

 17th-century date. Of the original house no traces 

 remain, and what is left of the great hall belongs 

 probably to a 14th-century building which took its 

 place. The house appears, from depressions round 

 the site, to have been protected by a large moat, the 

 river forming a natural defence on the north side. 

 The plan of the 14th-century building probably 

 followed the usual type of the manor-houses of the 

 period with centre hall and end wings. Part of the 

 east end of the great hall remains under a lean-to 

 roof on the west side of the building, the pointed 

 doors at the end of the screens being still in position, 

 as well as two doorways in the end wall to the 

 kitchen and offices. What remains shows the hall to 

 have been 21 ft. in width, so that it may be assumed 

 that its length was about 30 ft. ; the appearance and 

 size of the hall and the house in general, however, 

 can only be surmised. 



Sir Thomas Hesketh, who died in 1588, 'greatly 

 repaired the house at Martholme,' and the present 

 building together witi the gate-house is his work, 

 though some of the outside walling and a window at 

 the back which appears to be of older date than the 

 others may belong, like the west wall in which the 

 doorways from the screens occur, to the older house. 

 The building, however, has been much modernized, 

 the walls being now entirely covered with rough-cast 

 and the roofs with blue slates,^' and has consequently 

 lost much of its picturesqueness. The old muUioned 

 windows, however, remain as well as the stone 

 terminals to the gables. The house faces south and 

 consists of two blocks, a smaller and a larger, side by 

 side, with gables north and south, the eastern block 

 projecting some l 2 ft. at each end beyond the other, 

 which is narrower and has an attic in the gable. 

 The windows in the west gable are of three round- 

 headed lights without hood mould, and there is a 



two-light transomed window over the door, but those 

 in the east gable are of four lights with hood moulds. 

 Over the first floor window of the west gable is a 

 stone panel dated 1577 with the arms and initials of 

 Thomas Hesketh. The interior is modernized and 

 of little interest. The middle room in the east block 

 has an ingle-nook 10 ft. 4 in. wide and 5 ft. 8 in. 

 deep, and the two pointed doorways already 

 mentioned show in the lower rooms to the left of the 

 entrance. The passage to the screens is paved with 

 cobbles and has a wall built on the west side, in the 

 position of the screen, which, continued northward, 

 forms the outer wall of a later north-west wing. 

 The old north doorway in the screens is therefore 

 now entirely within the house ; the south door, 

 however, forms a distinctive feature of the principal 

 front, and above it is a two-light built-up mullioned 

 and transomed window with hood mould in what is 

 now a screen wall. 



The gate-house stands about 75 ft. in front of the 

 present house, with which it is connected by modern 

 fence walls forming a kind of forecourt paved with 

 cobbles, 26 ft. in width. It is a large building of 

 two stories 43 ft. 9 in. long by 20 ft. wide, with 

 central arched entrance 8 ft. 3 in. wide, built in 

 irregular courses of stonework, the walls being 

 2 ft. 2 in. thick and the roofs, which have overhanging 

 eaves and a gable at each end, are covered with stone 

 slates. On each side of the entrance is a large room 

 on the ground floor, the original inner timber walls 

 of which have been filled in or built over with 

 brickwork. The interior is now in a state of 

 dilapidation and practically open to the roof, the 

 decayed joists of the upper floor being still in 

 position. In the middle of the entrance passage is 

 the heavy oak frame on which hung the gate, with 

 styles II in. by 6 in. thick, the head-piece of which 

 has a depressed arch with spandrels carved with 

 shields and foliage. One of the shields has the 

 Hesketh garb and the other a cross fleury, and in the 

 centre over the arched head are the initials t"r. 

 The opening in the south side has a stone three- 

 centred arch with hollow moulding much weather- 

 worn, but that on the north side facing the house is 

 plain chamfered. There are two windows of three 

 lights on the ground floor facing south, one on each 

 side of the archway, and on the upper floor over the 

 opening one large four-light transomed window now 

 built up, and a smaller window of three lights on each 

 side without transoms. The lower windows have 

 been altered and that on the west is blocked up. 

 On the north side is a large three-light transomed 

 window over the archway, and a three-light window 

 on the ground floor on the west side. All these 

 windows are square-headed with round-headed lights. 

 Over the archway on the south front is a sunk panel 

 on which is carved a blank shield with helm, Hesketh 

 crest, and mantling, together with the date 1561 

 and the initials of Thomas Hesketh. At the east end 

 of the building the square chimney with wide 

 moulded plinth remains, and the west gable has a 

 ball termination. At the north-east angle a small 

 addition has been built to the gate-house at a later date. 



'^a Pal. of Lane. Feet of F. bdle. 376, 

 m. 18 — one-third of the manor of Great 

 Harwood, thirty messuages, 500 acres 

 of land, meadow and pasture by Alex. 

 Nowell, esq., and Charlotte his wife to 



Robert Moss ; Aug. 6 Geo. III. In 1788 

 Jas. Lomax paid land tax of i6i. ^d. in 

 the lower division of Harwood. 



^^b Information of JMr. Trappes-Lomax. 



^^ See an account of the house by 



.341 



J. A. Waite in Tram. Hist. Soc. (new 

 ser.), xiv, 91-5 ; a view of the outer 

 gateway is given. 



'' The old stone slates remain in the 

 west side. 



