November last year saw the announcement that the eastern leg of HS2 (phase b) to Sheffield, Leeds and York was to be abandoned. The western leg however to Manchester and Wigan seems to be unaffected. The route to Wigan will initially follow an old rail line coming out from Culcheth into the Wigan Metro area. It then will pass north of Lowton between Golborne and Pennington Flash to join up with the West Coast Main Line at Bamfurlong. It covers three potential areas for medieval activity i.e. Lightshaw Hall, Byrom Hall and Bamfurlong Hall. From an archaeological point of view, these areas will be covered by professional excavations, as has been the case so far with spectacular finds along the HS2 route. A closer look at the plans however reveal that the grounds of Bamfurlong Hall lie outside the affected area. In the summer we were invited by Ian Miller to workshops on the project which were attended by one of our members (thanks Marlene). She reported that the project is planned, it seems, to be completed in the next three and a half years.
Ian has also discovered that funding will be available for local archaeologists to investigate areas like Bamfurlong Hall and has kindly put our name forward.
Bamfurlong Hall lies to the east of Abram on the road to Ashton (between the Leigh branch of the L & L Canal and the railway). It's a moated site, but the Hall itself was demolished in 1953. In appearance, the building looks to be Tudor in date but, being moated, it most likely originated in the Medieval period. In fact, an oak timber section carved JA 1577 is still in the possession of the family of the previous owner, but this probably relates to later alterations. The JA according to the GM HER (4932) refers to John Ashton, whose family was in possession for a long time before the property passed to a junior branch of the Gerard family. In recent years, houses have been constructed in the grounds, but the old Hall site including the moat has not been built on. Although being largely filled in, the profile of the moat itself can still be detected on LiDAR.
As it happens, I was contacted in 2020 by a previous resident who intends writing a booklet on the history of the site. She was wondering if we could investigate it before any development took place. She has also been in touch with the current owner who seemed to be open to us getting involved. Although not under immanent threat, this site would make a great future project for the Society.
Programme for 2022
As usual this is a work in progress at this stage, but we already have in March Mark Adams former Merseyside County Archaeologist. He will be reporting on excavations at Mark Rake near Bromborough on the Wirral, where they detected Neolithic, Bronze Age and Early Medieval activity. It would also be an opportunity for Mark to give us his take on the claim that this was the site of the famous battle of Brunanburh. In May, we will be having Ollie Cook from Salford Archaeology, who recently carried out excavations at Farrington Hall, just north of Leyland. This is a moated site and will therefore be useful to us if the Bamfurlong project goes ahead.
Next Meeting
Wednesday 2nd February - in our new venue, the Real Crafty on Upper Dicconson Street (7.30pm as usual). As this will be our first AGM in two years, we will be as planned restarting our subs (all those who have paid in the last 18 months will not have to pay again). In fact we're taking the opportunity to change our system - previously it didn't matter when you paid, you got the full 12 months. This however has proved difficult to monitor so we are changing to a fixed payment date i.e. at the AGM (as before, we give three month grace before membership is assumed to have lapsed).
Besides the usual Society business, we will be voting on a change to our constitution which will allow for Associate Membership (details sent separately). After the usual AGM niceties there will be a presentation of last year's fieldwork. This was mainly resistivity surveying work at both Aspull and Burscough, although we were also involved with the excavations at Burscough with some interesting results. Hope to see you at the meeting B.A.
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