The following information has been kindly provided by Mike Watkinson who produced this some time ago. I believe now that to go on the land of the old Croston Hall would be trespass and you could be prosecuted. However this piece provides interesting reading. Thanks Mike.

Croston Hall

I remember the squire driving around Croston in his car when I was a small boy. It was an old gangster style car, an Austin, with frogeye headlights and running boards. I'm pretty sure too that the registration was MJW, my initials, and if I remember rightly, I think the number was thirteen - MJW 13 - what I'd give for that number plate now.

Alas, I digress already… The Hall was pulled down in the mid 1960's, soon after the Squire's sister's death in 1964. He, the Squire, having died four years earlier in 1960. When he died, he left the small chapel in the grounds, and two acres of land around it for the use of the Catholic people of Croston, and the rest of the land; he left to the Archdiocese of Liverpool.

When they pulled down the Hall, they left the old stables and the small boating lake behind them untouched.

One day, when visiting my mother, I decided to go for a walk, armed with my cameras and sketchpads, just for the sake of curiosity, to see what was left of the place.

I'd been there before when I was a boy, briefly, when the squire was still alive, and later, just after the squire had died, I managed to get a look inside the Hall too.

The stables are in a serious state of disrepair, but still wondrous - solely because of the neglect. The roofs are missing some slates, and the courtyard is badly overgrown, in fact the outside is virtually hidden by all the undergrowth around it and most of the fittings are falling down, though some are surprisingly intact. One of the doors has a sign painted on it saying 'QM OFFICE'. This was painted on during World War II when soldiers were billeted in the stables. It is still standing and still on its hinges. It's in pretty reasonable condition considering it has been exposed to the elements and it hasn't seen a coat of paint for the last 50 years or so. Some of the interior wooden fittings in the stables are holding up equally well. In one room, even though the roof has collapsed, the panelling to the stalls is still, in the main, intact, complete with it's iron bars dividing the upper half of the stall from it's neighbour.

Outside, if you go around the back and trek through the undergrowth a little, you come to a small railing, of, what looks like, about 1950 vintage, judging by it's style. Only knee high, and at one point there is a small gap in the undergrowth. When you reach it, the scene beyond is breathtaking in its tranquillity, conjuring images of The Secret Garden story from a childhood book. A small boating lake completely surrounded by trees and overgrown hedges and, on the right, high undergrowth where a neat lawn must have once bordered the lake. I remember too, when I was small, sneaking in and seeing a small punt in the corner of the lake. It's probably still there, though now, long since, sunk into the mud at the bottom of the lake. However, this time, as I peered through, there was a heron, fishing from the old, single-plank bridge leading over to the small island in the middle of the lake. That time, I used up all the film I had in two cameras trying to capture the scene. I stayed on for some time afterwards painting and sketching the area from several angles. I'd have loved a photograph too, of the heron sitting on the bridge, but couldn't raise my camera fast enough to capture the scene, before he took fright, and flight. If you go there, approach carefully, camera at the ready. You might just get the shot I missed.

I never did go across the bridge onto the island either, considering it's age and state of disrepair, and the fact that I felt I was the only person to have visited the place in years. I thought that if the bridge did give way, no one would ever find me. Even the local vandals don't seem to have discovered the place. Though there appeared to be some of the bricks from the back walls dismantled and neatly stacked ready to take away, presumably by someone needing old materials for renovations to some other older property.

Much as I wanted to sit in the undergrowth and paint the scene from that position, I contented myself with sitting at the far end of the lake painting and photographing that scene, with the bulrushes in close foreground, looking back over the lake towards the stables, the river, and the road beyond. In that position, there is a large overgrown hedge to your back, and beyond the hedge, rolling pasture. Close to hand, about a hundred yards or so away, is a circular copse of trees, surrounded by a fence, presumably to keep out the cattle. I intend to take a look at the place soon, as it has, presumably, been left undisturbed for many years.

If you enjoy solitude, I can think of no better place.

I went back there the following winter when the undergrowth was not so dense, and found, opposite the entrance to the stable yard, a door set in the back wall. Go through this door and you are into a tangle of scrub and trees, entirely surrounded by a high brick wall. At the other side of the trees, set into the outer wall, is another door, which leads out to the woods, and to the track which skirts the stables and leads towards the Mill Co.. Just ahead, looking like a small cottage, are the ruins of what I thought were the old pigsties, but in fact, were the kennels for the Hall's dogs.

The high wall surrounds the back of the stables and terminates in a grand pillar, level with the island in the middle of the lake. I discovered too, that you don't need to use the old bridge to get to the island, the undergrowth and debris that has collected over the years on this side means that you can stride across to the island without getting your feet wet.

I guessed that the walled garden was a vegetable or herb garden at one time. However, a while later I met a local man one night in the Black Horse Hotel, and he told me that he used to work there as a gardener when he was a teenager, and that it was used for exotic fruits. The high wall provided shelter for peach trees and grapevines. He told me of burying dead sheep under the grapevines to provide them with nourishment, and of the big, fat, juicy, black grapes they used to produce. He told me also of stamping on the ground around the peach trees to produce 'windfalls', so that they could eat them, as it was only the ones picked directly from the trees and, therefore, unbruised, that were considered good enough for the squire's table.

The original lodge, or gate house, to Croston Hall stands near Cock Robin on Highfield Road, and the old carriage drive runs through from there. It is bisected by Grape Lane, which runs through from the war memorial to the Mill Co., and on, following Syd Brook, to join the Mawdesley/Eccleston road at the Robin Hood Inn. There are a second sets of gates to the carriage drive on either side of Grape Lane. On the opposite side to the carriage drive, they continue on as a narrow cobbled road, very much overgrown, with rhododendrons closing in on either side, to a narrow stone bridge over the Yarrow dated 1700. The Hall used to stand immediately in view over the bridge. Now all that remains is a small pile of overgrown rubble to mark its site, and a view of the pasture beyond, once enjoyed by the Hall's occupants from their front room. Once across the bridge, turn left, and the undergrowth surrounding the stables, and the ivy covering its walls, comes into view, perhaps fifty to a hundred yards further on. There is an old track which skirts the stables on the river side, and passes the kennels, and eventually comes out across the road from Croston's corn mill.

Wandering through the ruins, that day, made me wonder, and think of times past, and prompted me to investigate some more.

I read that Cardinal Heenan, who was previously the Catholic Archbishop of Liverpool, wrote in his autobiography, that while at Liverpool, the Squire made an appointment to come and see him. This was approximately two years before the squire's death. At the meeting, the Squire showed Cardinal Heenan a draft of his will, in which he was to leave all he possessed to the Catholic Church, to be used for the benefit of the Catholic people of Croston. As he had no heirs, he had decided on this course some time previously and had lived frugally ever since. Cardinal Heenan's reply was that it was too much for so few people and persuaded the Squire to leave it to the Church anyway, but without the proviso regarding Croston's Catholics. The estate was duly inherited by the Church, sold immediately, with the exception of the two acres of Square's Wood surrounding the chapel. The money was received into the coffers of the Archdiocese, and with small exception, never to be seen again, as far as I know, by the people of Croston. That exception being a small contribution towards the renovation of the chapel. Thank you, your reverence!

Joking apart, think about it. From the sale of the estate, the Archdiocese could not find the money to meet the full cost of renovations to the chapel. Also with that sort of money, relatively small as it is now, think, with its value then, what social benefits could have been achieved. Not just for Croston's Catholics, but for Croston and Crostoner's as a whole.

The church sold the estate, minus the chapel and two acres surrounding it, for something like three-quarters of a million pounds, to Ainscoughs, a milling family from Parbold. The largest landowner in the area. Ainscoughs then proceeded to pull down the Hall to save paying rates on it. Much to the consternation and dismay of many of the villagers… Or so we thought. In truth, I discovered much later, the Hall was unsaleable and virtually irreparable. It had been built on the site of at least two former Halls. The Hall and the Chapel of the Holy Cross were built in the early 1850s to the designs of Augustus Pugin, a fashionable designer of the time, and as with many things fashionable, they are not always practical. The great Gothic structure was enormous, with huge rooms, some galleried and open to the roof. They, and others, with enormous expanses of windows, meant that the building was virtually impossible to heat, and from the beginning suffered from severe damp. Miss Ermy, short for Ermyntrude, or to give her her full title, Miss Ermyntrude Frances Mary de Trafford, the last squires elder sister, spent the First World War years working as a surgery nurse at Moor Park Military Hospital in Preston. She returned home to the Hall for a few days after Christmas 1918 and later wrote in her diary. "I had to go off duty for a bit - got a bad chill and rheumatism - I think sleeping in my damp room at Croston did it - the room hasn't been used much and the walls were black wet and I felt very cold when I went home for a few days after Christmas."

Add to this that the estate was probably very much run down during the squire's father's latter years, as he died in 1936 at the age of 82, and quite probably did not tend to the running of the estate as a younger man would. Even worse, a fire seriously damaged a third of the Hall in 1938. Nothing was done. The squire just continued to live in the undamaged portion of the Hall. No real attempt was made to carry out any serious repairs for the rest of the squire's life, and the Hall became more and more dilapidated, and less and less of it was used, until the squire and his sister occupied only two of the Hall's sixty rooms. With all this in mind, you can imagine the serious state of dereliction that the Hall was in, and it is hardly any wonder that the Hall was demolished. It was virtually the only financially viable option.

The Chapel, built to the same Augustus Pugin's designs, was a different story.

The Chapel had been closed and disused for approximately eighty years, but it had still had basic maintenance, done by Billy Hough, who started working for the family in 1911 and continued until well after retirement age. He was head of the maintenance staff. He took it upon himself to go to the Chapel at regular intervals to inspect it and keep it in reasonable repair, making sure the slates were in place and the gutters clean, to ensure that the building remained dry.

Whenever he went to the building, while squire Sigismund, the last squire's father, and his wife were still alive, the squire's wife, Clemantine, would go with him and place flowers on the alter, but later, squire Geoffrey showed no interest in a building he considered would never be used again. Consequently, Mr. Hough, then, always went alone.

Despite Billy Hough's efforts, when the building was inherited by the parishioners, there was a great deal of restoration work needed to be done, and to cut costs, Father Ellison, the parish priest at the time, organised the parishioners to help as much as they could. My Uncle Harold, Harold Watkinson, was an electrician, and though not a Catholic, he volunteered his services to wire the chapel for electricity. Another parishioner chiselled the walls for Harold to lay his cables. Many other people helped in whatever way they could.

Part of the restoration involved moving the old pews over to the Hall to be stored so that renovation work could begin. My sister Barbara and I used this as an excuse for taking a look inside the Hall. Though he knew what we were up to, we "conned" Father Ellison into letting us help him carry a pew into the Hall. He warned us first to be very quiet, as the squire's sister, Miss Ermy, was still living there, and she was not very well. A tired old face at the window, that day, is my only recollection of her. Though a little research showed that this had not always been the case, just the sad end for one who had once been a very extrovert, lively and accomplished lady. More of Miss Ermy later.

I remember the Hall as a brick built, gothic structure, complete with corner turrets. Very daunting to a child in its vampire design and connotation, but exciting all the same. It faced back to front! As you left Grape lane, you approached the rear of the Hall, while the front, with huge picture windows, looked out onto a vista of pasture and small copses, some of which still stand. At the rear, once across the bridge, the approach became a circular drive, on the right, the main double-doored, rear entrance, and to the left, the single doored, servant's and tradesman's entrance, complete with and 'Adams Family' style bell pull! Inside it was typical Victoriana. A large mahogany table stood just inside the entrance. Stuffed birds in glass cases lined the staircase. There was even a lion-skin rug on the floor of the room we carried the pew into. We carried the pew through the double doors to the rear of the house, or the front, as it really was. As you entered through the main door, there were small rooms separated off to the left. The last occupied rooms. The staircase was in the centre of the building on the right. The front of the house had a large central room with immense picture windows, and I remember a large stone fireplace built into the centre of the rear wall of the room, with crests and shields carved into its sides. I remember this in particular because the only time the Hall appeared on television, was when it was being pulled down and the local news programme covered the story and showed a workman with a pick destroying the shields and crests on the sides of that same fireplace.

The room had large doors at either end that could be opened to make the whole of the front into a large ballroom, though this had probably never happened in living memory, as the last squire seemed to have been something of a recluse. He and his sister never married and lived alone in the large house, and allowed the estate to slowly deteriorate around them.

Having said that, my Aunty Liz, actually my dad's Aunty Liz, used to tell the story of her sister-in-law, Luis, who worked as a servant at the Hall when she was a young girl, during the squire's father's time. She told tales of the squire and his sister, as children, being driven through the village in a coach pulled by two horses, and that the Hall was a much livelier place when the squire's father was in charge. Though maybe this 'living memory' story is stretching the truth a little, as Aunty Liz has been gone for many years now, about 1975 or so when she died well into her nineties.

I had wondered in the past about the squire. It always struck me as strange that he should just, apparently, give up, and allow everything to fall down around himself. I wondered where he had come from, that in such families, the heir is usually trained to take over, yet this squire just did not seem to fit.

In the past, even from childhood, I'd, first of all, climbed and played around the memorial before my mother could catch me and drag me off, and later, passing it many times, I'd had occasion to take a closer look and study the names. One that stands out is Reginald de Trafford, right at the top of the list, and I started to wonder what connection he had with the Hall. Who was he? Was it he who had been intended to take over as squire, and the one who actually did take over, arrived in the position by default, because of Reginald's death? …And, just a guess, based solely on the poor performance of the last squire of Croston, I surprised myself, discovering later, just how close to the truth I was.

Delving further I discovered that the manor of Croston originally consisted of ten ploughlands and six oxgangs of land, whatever that means! Roger de Montbegon, Lord of Hornby gave it to his half-brother John Malherbe. By 1300 the estate had passed to the two daughters and heirs of John de la Mare. From then, and for the following 600 years or so, the estate was split into two lines. One via the Flemmings of Wath, and the Daltons, to Thomas Norris, and the other through the de Leas, and Ashtons, to the de Traffords. Only being united as one manor when John Randolphus de Trafford purchased the other part of the estate from the trustees of the Norris estate in 1874.

The arms of most of the families involved can be seen in the Church of Saint Michael. Tiles in the floor of the south aisle bear the letter T, where the de Traffords had a chapel, though, they being Catholics, the chapel was for the use of their servants and tenants.