Local History
For a comprehension story of the history of Worsley click into this link
Judiths History of Worsley.pdf
In the first known document dated 1195, relating to Worsley. Hugh Poutrell gave to Richard, son of Elias de Workesley, for his homage and service, the manors of Worsley and Hulton. During the following two centuries some thirty different spellings of Worsley occurred including Workel, Whurkedeye and Werkesleia with most common, Workedsleigh. By 1450 the present spelling came into use.
There is no certainty about the meaning of the place name but ‘cleared place which is cultivated or settled’ has been suggested and from early spellings it is considered that there could have been a British settlement at least as early as the Roman period, 55 AD to 410 AD.
A Roman road from Manchester to Wigan passed through Worsley crossing Worsley Road between Drywood Avenue and Drywood Hall (now an Independent school) and crossing Walkden Road near to St Marks Church, carrying on through the Marriott Worsley Park Golf Course towards Mosley Common.
Two hoards of Roman coins have been found in the Boothstown area, The first find was in 1947 when 2 earthenware pots containing 540 coins dated from 250 – 275 AD were uncovered in a quarry between Border Brook Lane and the East Lancashire Road. The second consisting of 800 bronze coins was uncovered when the foundations were being laid for Falconwood Chase, off Leigh Road. Could two coin finds in such close proximity suggest a roman settlement in the Boothstown area?
A second Roman road deviated off the Manchester to Wigan Roman road at Chorlton Fold, Monton and passed through Walkden and Little Hulton on the line of the current A6 on its way to Blackrod.
Following the Norman Conquest the whole of Worsley lay in the Manor of Barton and it is probable that a member of the family holding Barton acquired the Worsley lands and acquired the name de Worsley as his personal name. At that time Worsley included parts of Swinton and Pendlebury and a large swathe of Chat Moss.
By 1385 the male line of the de Worsley family had ended and the estate passed into Massey family’s possession. In 1480 the estate was passed on to the Brereton family of Malpas in Cheshire. In 1580 Sir Richard Brereton married Lady Dorothy Egerton and on her death Worsley was inherited by her half brother Sir Thomas Egerton who later became the Lord Chancellor of England, thus began the link to the Egerton Family.
The current Worsley Old Hall was built around the end of the 16th century in the vicinity of a house built in 1376, which consisted of ’a hall, chamber, chapel and kitchen’. The Old Hall has been extended over the centuries as can be seen from the differing styles. The area stands on a massive outcrop of coal where the seams could be mined from ‘bellpits’. Coal production became the main income of the estate but delivery to Manchester was costly as the only means was pack animals on toll roads.
The Delph c.1762
When the estate came into Francis Egerton, the 3rd Duke of Bridgewater’s possession in 1748, his late father, Scroop Egerton, had already been explored the opportunity to construct a waterway from Worsley to the River Mersey at Hollins Ferry to carry coal on the Mersey/Irwell Navigation into Manchester. The estate manager, John Gilbert, together with the Duke modified the plans and with the engineer, James Brindley, built the Bridgewater Canal via Monton to meet the Mersey Irwell Navigation at Barton which was closer to Manchester. However, there was very little profit after transferring the coal onto the River Irwell. So the canal passed over the River Irwell on the Barton Aqueduct into Manchester and latterly to Ellesmere Port in the Mersey estuary.
With the canal in place, John Gilbert exploited the coal reserves lying north of the village by constructing underground canals which had the dual purpose of draining the coal workings and transporting the mined coal to the Delph at Worsley for onward shipping by the canal to Manchester.
Worsley village expanded as a result of the canal and became an industrial estate with supporting trades for the canal and the mines. Prior to that the only industry in the village was the corn mill, which was located between the Delph and Mill Brow.
After the 3rd Duke’s death, the estate was placed into a trust for the benefit of his great nephew who had to adopt the Dukes’s surname to inherit most of the Duke’s estates. The inheritors were absentee landlords until the 1840’s when the 1st Earl of Ellesmere took over the family’s fortunes and moved to Worsley with his family.
Worsley New Hall. 1845 - 1949
He had a New Hall built south of the Old Hall, which unfortunately was demolished in 1949 after a fire. The Earl and his wife Harriet commissioned St Marks Church and greatly raised the living standards of the local population.
The Earl of Ellesmere’s family disposed of the Worsley estates in 1923 due to death duties, to a company aptly named Bridgewater Estates which was acquired by Peel Holdings in 1983.
In the mid 19th century the focal point for coal production moved towards collieries in Walkden, Little Hulton and Farnworth areas and railways began to carry the coal from those pits to the canal. Worsley became an industrial backwater. In 1904 the area, which is now known as Worsley Green, was cleared of its industrial buildings and replaced by houses built in the quasi-Tudor style.
Worsley Green c. 2019
Today, Worsley is a vibrant village and has now evolved into a dormitory of Manchester within the City of Salford.
Worsley New Hall
& the RHS Garden Bridgewater
There have been 3 significant manorial halls on the Worsley Park estate. The first being the existing Worsley Old Hall, which is now a restaurant and public house, the second known as Brick Hall and the third being Worsley New Hall.
Worsley Old Hall is believed to have been built in the 15th century on the sites of a previous building. Worsley Old Hall has been extended over the centuries. In the 1750’s it was used by Francis Egerton, the 3rd Duke of Bridgewater, to plan the building of his canal that was to transport coal from his Worsley mines to Manchester.
The Brick Hall, a Georgian style house, was built by the 3rd Duke in 1768, about 150 metres south of Worsley Old Hall. It became the home of John Gilbert who was the Duke’s estate manager and friend who was responsible for the development of the underground canal system under and north of Worsley. Brick Hall was demolished in the 1840’s when another Francis Egerton, the 1st Earl of Ellesmere inherited the Worsley estate under the terms of his great uncle’s
will. In 1846 Worsley New Hall, a grand Gothic style house designed by Edward Blore, was built for the 1st Earl, 50 metres south of the Brick Hall, on top of the south-facing escarpment that overlooks the North Cheshire Plain and commands of view of no fewer than seven counties. Worsley New Hall had formal gardens that were terraced down to an ornamental boating lake. The gardens contained fountains one of which was reputed to have a plume that rivalled the Emperor fountain at Chatsworth House in Derbyshire.
Worsley New Hall was visited by Queen Victoria on two occasions and was used as one of the Ellesmere’s houses up until the First World War when it was used as an officer’s hospital. The 4th Earl of Ellesmere’s family sold the Worsley estates including the two Halls in 1923 due to death duties on the passing of the 3rd Earl of Ellesmere. It was bought by a group of Manchester businessmen who created the Bridgewater Estates Company. The New Hall was used in the Second World War to billet servicemen who had been evacuated from Dunkirk. In 1944 American forces were also billeted there prior to the D-Day offensive.
In 1943 Worsley New Hall suffered a fire during its occupation by the armed forces and subsequently became derelict. It was sold in 1946 to a scrap dealer who dismantled it over the next three years.
In 1983 Bridgewater Estates Company was bought by Peel Holdings who had plans to build a hotel on the site of the New Hall. This plan has been superseded in 2015 when it was announced that the site was to be developed as the 5th National Royal Horticultural Society garden to be called RHS Bridgewater. The Garden opened in 2020.
Answers to the ‘How well do you know Worsley and its history?’ quiz.
1. Salford; 2. 1974 (Local Government Reorganisation); 3. Francis Egerton, 3rd Duke of Bridgewater; 4. The 18th century (July 1761); 5. Coal mining; 6. A cheaper way of transporting coal; 7. Worsley Delph; 8. John Gilbert designed the canal and aqueduct. James Brindley was brought in as a consultant when work was well advanced; 9. Iron oxide (rust) leaching from the old underground mines; 10. About 52 miles; 11. Starvationers; 12. Worsley Woods; 13. Queen Victoria; 14. St Mark’s Church; 15. Because the Alphabet Bridge has 26 planks; 16. Worsley Court House; 17. The Packet House; 18. Railways; 19. Noisy and industrial with workshops, brickworks and timber yard until about 1903; 20. RHS Bridgewater, Leigh Road,