Extwistle Hall
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Extwistle Hall was built in the 16th century and is located near to Briercliffe in Lancashire.
It is now a farmhouse standing on a high ridge of land between the valleys of the Don and Swinden Water in a bleak and commanding situation, and is a lofty three-story building with end gables and mullioned windows, said to have been erected by John Parker in the latter half of the 16th century.
The principal front faces north, and the fall of the ground southwards allowing of a basement makes the house one of four stories on that side, where the chief feature is the massive chimney of the hall, which projects 5 ft. and has a width of 15 ft. The house, which is built of local gritstone with stoneslated roofs, consists of a rectangular block 34 ft. by 27 ft. 6 in. externally, and a north-west wing 19 ft. by 14 ft. 6 in., with a lower two-story building with plain gabled roofs on the east end. A former wing on the west side, however, fell down some time during the first half of the 19th century, destroying what is said to have been one of the best apartments and others known as the ladies' rooms.
In front of the house is a small flagged courtyard 43 ft. long by 33 ft. in width, partly inclosed on the west side by the north-west wing, and on the east by the lower buildings. The north side has a high fence wall with moulded coping and balled gate-piers fronting the road. The great hall, which is about 24 ft. by 21 ft., occupies the eastern end of the first floor of the main block and is approached from the forecourt by a wide flight of stone steps forming a very picturesque feature.
The entrance in the north-west corner through a four-centred doorway with label and square panel over is now built up, but the north wall still retains unimpaired its lofty ten-light mullioned window with double transoms and hood mould. The floor of the hall is 7 ft. above the general level of the courtyard, to which there is a descent of five steps from the main gateway. The south wall of the hall is occupied almost entirely by the fireplace, the Tudor arched opening of which, however, is now built up, and the room is in a more or less dilapidated state. Portions of an ornamental plaster ceiling and of a carved oak beam are still to be seen, and above the fireplace is a fragment of ornamental plaster work with the words 'nescio cujus' remaining. The staircase, which is of stone, is in the west side of the house, and above the hall is a large room open to the roof and lit by two low mullioned windows of five lights each below the eaves on the north side. The north-west wing, which may be a 17th-century addition, is less severe in appearance than the main block, but is of equal height and of four stories, two of its floors ranging with the height of the great hall. The walls are finished with a plain parapet and balled gables which together with its many mullioned and transomed windows afford some relief to the otherwise rather bare west gable end of the main block. At the back is a small three-light window with round-headed lights under a square head, the only one of this type in the building.
By an explosion of gunpowder in the house in March 1717 much damage was done, and shortly afterwards the family finally quitted the hall, which has since been occupied intermittently by tenant farmers, who chiefly use, however, the basement or ground floor rooms and those in the lower east wing. The appearance of the building in its lonely and commanding position and its present state of semidesolation and abandonment is very striking.
From: 'Townships: Briercliffe with Extwistle', A History of the County of Lancaster: Volume 6 (1911), pp. 468-473. URL: http://www.british-history.ac.uk/report.aspx?compid=53154.
The Parker family lived at the hall for about 200 years, and it was a curious but tragic accident that severed their association with Extwistle. On Thursday, March 17th, 1718, Captain Robert Parker went out shooting on a day that turned out to be wet and stormy. Consequently at the end of the day's sport he returned to the house thoroughly drenched with rain. He removed his greatcoat and laid it in front of the fire to dry. Unfortunately, he had omitted to remove his powder flask that still contained a large quantity of gunpowder and the result was that an explosion took place. Captain Parker, along with two of his daughters ,Mary Townley and Betty Atkinson, and a child, were seriously injured, and there was considerable damage to the dining room in which the accident happened, and two other rooms were set on fire. Unfortunately, Captain Parker succumbed to his injuries and died a month later. After this tragedy the family moved to another residence, Cuerden Hall, and the old house at Extwistle appears to have been abandoned to dilapidation, although part of it was occupied as a farmhouse. A more unlikely tale records that the same Captain Parker, when returning from a Jacobite meeting late one evening, saw a goblin funeral procession pass through the gate at the top of Netherwood Fields.
The ghostly cavalcade passed of on in deep silence, a train of little men bearing the coffin, on top of which, as it passed, he saw his own name inscribed. In 1902, in a lecture to the Burnley Literary and Scientific Club, Mr. Tattersall Wilkinson, the sage of Roggerham, said: "In bygone days it was a generally accepted superstition that the devil could be raised by reciting the Lord's Prayer backwards, and woe betide the raisers who did not manage to give him a task he could not do. It is said that some country people raised his satanic majesty at Lee Green, near Extwistle. In this instance he accomplished every task put before him. Terror and dismay filled the minds of the unlucky bumpkins as the time was fast drawing nigh when he would claim his recompense. At this awful moment they bethought themselves to fetch a priest from Towneley, who arrived just in the nick of time when the devil vanished in a flash of lightning at the sight of his mortal enemy, who duly laid the foe of man with bell and book at the foot of Lee Green Scar, where he rests till this day. Sadly this once fine hall is now in decay, if nothing is done, and done quickly it will be lost forever.
Leslie Chapple 'Romantic Old Houses and Their Tales'
