Wardley Hall

Wardley Hall, the official residence of the Roman Catholic Bishops of Salford, which stands in a wooded estate in Worsley, some six miles west of Manchester.

The present Hall, built by Thurstan Tyldesley, during the reign of King Edward VI (1547–1553), stands on the site of a house dating from the year 1300. The earliest mention of Wardley as a separate estate is that of Henry, Lord of Worsley, making a gift to his brother, Jordan of Worsley. Jordan was a distinguished soldier, and, in a document dated the 20th May 1316 it is recorded that Thomas, Son of Roand de Richmond, gave him a pension.

An Assizes Roll of King Edward III (1343–1344) states that in 1331, Thurstan de Holland came to the town of Worskley (Worsley) to the house of Sir Richard de Worskley and took Margaret, daughter of Jordan of Worskley, who was in the guardianship of Richard, and married her to Thurstan son of Henry de Tyldesley, against the will of Richard. Though it was a long time (12 years) before Thurstan de Holland was brought to account for this in law, he was eventually committed to gaol and ordered to pay a fine of 40 shillings to the King.

Six members of the Tyldesley family succeeded to the estate until in the 24th year of the reign of Queen Elizabeth I (1582), it passed to yet another Thurstan, the last of the Tyldesley family to be owners of Wardley. Eventually the property came into the possession of Francis Sherington, a friend and business associate of the Tyldesley family.

A succession of owners

Several successive owners died without issue and by 1601 the Hall and its surrounding estate had come into the possession of Rogers Downes, the first Lord of Wardley. Roger was Reader to Gray’s Inn, Vice-Chamberlain of Chester to the Earl of Derby and his son Lord Strange, and a representative of the ancient Borough of Wigan in the Parliaments of 1601 and 1620.

For three generations Wardley Hall continued in the possession of the Downes family until Penelope, the eventual heiress to the last Roger Downes, took her inheritance on her marriage to Richard Savage, the second son of the Earl of Rivers.

In the year 1760 Francis, the third Duke of Bridgewater, known as the “Canal Maker”, bought Wardley and other estates in Worsley, Barton, Monton, Hindley, Westhoughton and Pemberton. He died in 1803 and in his will left, in trust, part of the estates to his nephew the Marquis of Stafford and the remainder to the Marquis’s second son, Francis Leveson-Gore, who, in accordance with the will took the name of Egerton when he succeeded his father as beneficiary of the Trust in 1833. He was created the first Earl of Ellesmere in 1846 and died in 1857. He was succeeded by his son George Granville Francis, who died only five years later in 1862. The third Earl was his son, Francis Charles Granville, who became owner of the Worsley part of the estates when the Bridgewater Trust closed in 1903 – exactly a hundred years after its creation.