Skip to main content

Preston's Listed Buildings - LOWER BROCKHOLES FARMHOUSE

Preston's Listed Buildings

LOWER BROCKHOLES FARMHOUSE

Heritage Category: Listed Building (Grade II)

List Entry Number: 1292856

Location: Lower Brockholes, Brockholes Brow, Preston PR2 5AS


Lower Brockholes Farmhouse, Dated 1634 on porch, listed by Historic England
Lower Brockholes Farmhouse, Dated 1634 on porch, listed by Historic England


I am sure that if anybody mentions 'Brockholes' these days, most people will think of the wonderful nature reserve run by the The Lancashire Wildlife Trust. However, before the Preston Bypass (M6 Motorway) cut through the area in the 1950s, it was previously farmland. At the time it was occupied by two farmhouses, namely Higher Brockholes and Lower Brockholes. Both were former Manor Houses dating back to the seventeenth century. There was also a third property names 'Boilton', which gives it name to Boilton Wood that is at the northern edge of the nature reserve and climbs up to Red Scar. Unfortunately, only Lower Brockholes now remains.


Lower Brockholes Farmhouse, Dated 1634 on porch, listed by Historic England
Lower Brockholes Farmhouse, Dated 1634 on porch, listed by Historic England



Lower Brockholes Farmhouse is adjacent to a working sand and gravel quarry and is a little bit obscured from view, by some of the other farm buildings. Most people probably don't notice it. It can be viewed from the Guild Wheel and Brockholes Wood, but it is difficult to get close to. It can also be seen from the quarry access road that also provides access to the nature reserve.


A History of the County of Lancaster: Volume 7, (London, 1912)

LOWER BROCKHOLES, now a farm-house, stands in a low situation close to the bend of the Ribble near Brockholes Bridge, facing east towards Samlesbury. It is a small two-story building of no particular interest architecturally, having been very much modernized and the exterior covered with roughcast. The windows are all modern, but the roof retains its grey stone slates, and the north wing, which has a separate gabled roof at right angles to that of the rest of the house, preserves its old half-timber construction above the ground floor, though much of the timber has been renewed. There is a wide open gabled porch of two stories projecting 9 ft. 6 in. and measuring 8 ft. square inside, over the archway of which is a stone dated 1634 with the initials and arms of Francis Bindloss, the arms with helm, crest and mantling, and a crescent for difference. The interior is structurally uninteresting, but a small oak staircase of good design with turned Jacobean balusters still remains, and in one of the bedrooms is some oak panelling forming a dado, on which is the inscription, 'Quamlibet expectes horam tibi ducere mortem, disce mori mundo Christoque resurgere spera, 1630.'


It is a shame that Higher Brockholes was lost. Whilst extensive quarrying happened on that side of, what is now, the M6 Motorway.  It doesn't appear that any digging work was carried out in its location. From that point of view, it may not have been necessary to demolish it.


------------------------------------------------------------------


Further reading and sources of information

The History of Brockholes - Before and After the Preston Bypass

https://www.mylancs.uk/2024/03/the-history-of-brockholes-before-and.html

.

Lower Brockholes Farmhouse, Dated 1634 on porch, on the Historic England website

https://historicengland.org.uk/listing/the-list/list-entry/1292856

.

Lower Brockholes Farm. Sepia postcard RP-PPC by G. Cross
from the Preston Digital Archive

https://www.flickr.com/photos/rpsmithbarney/5593204263/

.

Brockholes photo search on the Preston Digital Archive

https://www.flickr.com/search/?user_id=22711538%40N07&view_all=1&text=Brockholes

.

Brockholes photographs from the Ralph Cross Collection
on Pennine Horizons Digital Archive

https://penninehorizons.org/search?query=Brockholes

.

British History Online - 'Townships: Grimsargh and Brockholes',
in A History of the County of Lancaster: Volume 7, (London, 1912) pp. 108-113.

https://www.british-history.ac.uk/vch/lancs/vol7/pp108-113

.

~


Comments

Popular posts from this blog

The Hidden Viaduct of the Lancashire and Yorkshire Railway

The Hidden Viaduct of the Lancashire and Yorkshire Railway The Old Railway Line On a personal level, I am familiar with the Lancashire and Yorkshire Railway, or at least the disused sections around Preston and South Ribble.  I used to cross a section near Bamber Bridge on may way to school in the mid nineteen-seventies, and I am sure that there were still a few goods trains pulling loads of oil tankers crossing Brownedge Road (Brownedge Lane) that occasionally stopped us if I'd gone to school on the 113 bus.  Passenger services had long since stopped and when the goods trains had also ceased, the rail company ('British Rail') quite quickly removed the infrastructure.  This was definitely the rails and sleepers, but perhaps not the ballast straight away.  From that point forward, it became the playground of a few of the local children, myself included. Brownedge Level Crossing, Bamber Bridge around 1905 At that point, we often would have adventures in the remains of T...

Fall Of Thirteen Arches of the Ribble Viaduct on the Preston Extension of the East Lancashire Railway.

Fall Of Thirteen Arches,  of the Ribble Viaduct on the Preston Extension of the East Lancashire Railway. Following on from my post about the Hidden Viaduct near Preston, once know as "The Blue Bridge", I put the old picture looking from Miller Park and my photograph of the top of a buried arch on a local social media group.  That solicited a comment from a group member that pointed towards an old news article. Hidden Viaduct near Preston, once know as "The Blue Bridge" This news article revealed that there had been problems with the arches during the construction, and this actually led to thirteen of them collapsing.  It was entitled "Fall of Thirteen Arches of the Ribble Viaduct on the Preston Extension of the East Lancashire Railway".  It came from the Preston Guardian published on Saturday 27th October 1849.  I ran the scanned image of the newspaper extract through an online OCR (optical character recognition) software process and converted the image in...

Crosby Blitz Beach - Remains from the city of Liverpool before World War II

Crosby Blitz Beach How did I get here?   In January 2023, I discovered the remains of an old building on the banks of the River Ribble in Penwortham.  I was intrigued.  It wasn't until December 2023 that I discovered what it was.  A member of the Preston Past and Present Facebook group posted some pictures with the description, "Preston Town Hall 1862-1947 R.I.P. built by George Gilbert Scott."  I found it fascinating, so I went back for another look in early 2024.  You can read about it here: The Remains of Preston's Third Town Hall - https://www.mylancs.uk/2024/02/the-remains-of-prestons-third-town-hall.html More recently, I was watching YouTube videos, and went on a journey through some recommendations (thanks to the YouTube algorithms).  On this particular evening, I started with a video about building developments around Liverpool City Centre.  It was created by a gentleman called Aidan, who goes by the handle of  AidanEyewitn...

The Delph in the River Ribble by Avenham Park

The Delph in the River Ribble by Avenham Park Over the years, I have always been slightly confused when people mention the the necessity of 'divers' when investigating things in the River Ribble by Avenham Park, adjacent to the Old Tram Road bridge.  However, after being momentarily perplexed by it, my train of thought often moved onto something else.  More recently, when researching the history of the Lancaster Canal, I was led to an account of divers (again) fishing something out of the River Ribble in the same location.  This time, I decided to figure out why they would be needed. The answer is that there is a significantly deep 'Delph' in the River Ribble.  Strangely, whilst I thought that word was generally part of everyone's vocabulary, it turn out not to be.  I didn't pop up in online dictionaries when I did a web search.  Relatively locally, I have had conversations with people about 'Eccy Delph' (Eccleston Delph).  It turns out that Delph ...