Astley Hall

It is my privilege to act as a volunteer room steward in the Long Gallery at Astley Hall which is not only a wonderful survivor of an Elizabethan Manor House but also houses a wonderful collection of paintings gathered by the families that lived there. The art website www.artuk.org depicts most of the collection of paintings held at the Hall including many which are in storage or undergoing conservation. Delving a little into Art History we can discover more about some of the paintings that hang in the public rooms of the Hall. One the west wall of the Great Hall is the painting of King CharlesI  with his wife, Henrietta Maria and their children Prince Charles (later Charles II) and Princess Mary.   Princess Mary was married to William, Prince of Orange, at the age of 9 in1641 when he was 14.  Her only child, born in 1650, became William III of England. Some doubt has been cast on the parentage of Charles II, rumours amongst the couriers at the time ...

Legend has it that, during the reign of Edward II, Adam de Charnock  gave his serf Ulf, and Cockersands Chapter House all his family, to the Abbot of Cockersands Abbey.  However, as serfs were tied to the land on which they laboured it is likely that it was the land that was given and the serfs, inevitably, went with the land.  Adam de Charnock was the great grandfather of Henry de Charnock, the first Charnock named by William Flower,  the Norroy King of Arms in his 'Visitation' in 1567.  Henry married Joanne, the daughter and heiress of Richard Molyneux of Crosby.  Eight generations later Robert Charnock with his wife Cecily, daughter of Sir Henry Farrington of Worden, were living at Old Hall, Charnock Richard when, it is generally thought, that the house suffered a severe fire causing the move to Astley.   The Charnock had coal mines around the area, including some at Braford in Manchester, adding to the wealth of the family in ...