Lancashire Legends, Traditions, Pageants, Sports, &c./Part 1/Wardley Hall Skull
WARDLEY HALL SKULL.
In the township of Worsley, about seven miles west of Manchester, and to the east of Kempnall Hall, is the ancient pile of Wardley Hall, erected in the reign of Edward VI. It is situated in the midst of a small woody glade, and was originally surrounded by a moat, except on the east side, which was protected by natural defences. This black-and-white half-timbered edifice is of a quadrangular form, consisting of ornamented wood and plaster frames, interlined with bricks (plastered and whitewashed, the wood-work being painted black), and entered by a covered archway, opening into a courtyard in the centre, like so many of the manor houses of the same age in Lancashire. About 1830 it was in a ruinous condition, one part being occupied as a farmhouse, and the other formed into a cluster of nine cottages. The hall has since been thoroughly renovated, and has been occupied for many years, under the Earl of Ellesmere, by a gentleman farmer and colliery-owner. In the room called the hall is a coat-of-arms, in a frame, belonging to the Downes family: a stag couchant within the shield; crest, a stag's head. The room has an ornamented wainscot, and a fluted roof of oak. The stairs have an air of noble antiquity about them, which has been somewhat diminished by the daubings of a modern painter. The chimneys are clustered. The Tildesleys became lords of Wardley by marriage with the Worsleys in the reign of Henry IV., and settled here before they occupied Morley. On the eve of the civil wars, Wardley was quitted by the Tildesleys, and became the residence of Roger Downes, Esq., whose son John, married Penelope, daughter of Sir Cecil Trafford, knight, who, endeavouring to convert Mr Downes [a Catholic] to Protestantism, became himself a Catholic. The issue of that marriage was Roger Downes, son and heir, and an only daughter, named Penelope, after her mother. She married Richard, Earl Rivers, a rake, a warrior, and a statesman. There is a human skull kept at the Hall, which tradition says once belonged to Roger Downes, the last male representative of his family, and who was one of the most abandoned courtiers of Charles II.
Roby, in his "Traditions," has represented him as rushing forth "hot from the stews"—drawing his sword as he staggered along—and swearing that he would kill the first man he met. His victim was a poor tailor, whom he ran through with his weapon, and killed him on the spot. He was apprehended for the crime; but his interest at court soon procured him a free pardon, and he immediately began to pursue his usual reckless course. At length "Heaven avenged the innocent blood he had shed;" for "in the lusty vigour," continues Roby, "of a drunken debauch, passing over London Bridge, he encountered another brawl, wherein, having run at the watchman with his rapier, one blow of the bill which they carried severed his head from his trunk. The latter was cast over the parapet into the Thames, and the head was carefully packed up in a box and sent to his sisters at Wardley. It was Maria who ventured to open the package and read the sad fate of her brother from a paper which was enclosed. The skull was removed, secretly at first, but invariably it returned to the Hall, and no human power could drive it thence. It hath been riven to pieces, burnt, and otherwise destroyed; but on the subsequent day it was seen filling its wonted place. This wilful piece of mortality will not allow the little aperture in which it rests to be walled up—it remains there—whitened and bleached by the weather, looking forth from those rayless sockets upon the scenes which, when living, they had once beheld." This curious legend exists under various forms, and has been noticed by several writers, but all agree in the main facts. One account varies the place of his death, stating, in short, that Roger Downes, in the licentious spirit of the age, having abandoned himself to vicious courses, was killed by a watchman in a fray at Epsom Wells, in June 1676, and dying without issue, the family quitted Wardley. It is of this Roger Downes that Lucas speaks, when he says that, according to tradition, "while in London, in a drunken frolic, he vowed to his companions that he would kill the first man he met; then, sallying forth, he ran his sword through a poor tailor. Soon after this, being in a riot, a watchman made a stroke at him with his bill, which severed his head from his body. The head was enclosed in a box and sent to his sister, who lived at Wardley Hall. "The skull," adds the narrator, "has been kept at Wardley ever since, and many superstitious notions are entertained concerning it, not worth repeating." After the Downeses ceased to reside there, Wardley Hall was occupied for a time by Lord Barrymore. Towards the end of the eighteenth century, Thomas Barritt, the Manchester antiquary, visited the Hall, where he says there is "a human skull, which, time out of mind, hath had a superstitious veneration paid to it, by [the occupiers of the hall] not permitting it to be removed from its situation, which is on the topmost step of a staircase. There is a tradition that, if removed, or ill-used, some uncommon noise and disturbance always follows, to the terror of the whole house; yet I cannot persuade myself this is always the case. But some few years ago, I and three of my acquaintances went to view this surprising piece of household furniture, and found it as above mentioned, and bleached white with the weather, that beats in upon it from a four-square window in the hall, which the tenants never permit to be glazed or filled up, thus to oblige the skull, which, they say, is unruly and disturbed at the hole not being always open. However, one of us, who was last in company with the skull, removed it from its place into a dark part of the room, and there left it, and returned home; but the night but one following, such a storm arose about the house, of wind and lightning, as tore down some trees, and unthatched outhousing. We hearing of this, my father went over in a few days after to see his mother, who lived near the Hall, and was witness to the wreck the storm had made. Yet all this might have happened had the skull never been removed; but withal it keeps alive the credibility of the tradition (or the credulity of its believers). But what I can learn of the above affair from old people in the neighbourhood is, that a young man of the Downes family, being in London, one night in his frolics vowed to his companions that he would kill the first man he met; and accordingly he ran his sword through a man immediately, a tailor by trade. However, justice overtook him in his career of wickedness; for in some while after, he being in a riot upon London Bridge, a watchman made a stroke at him with his bill, and severed his head from his body, which head was enclosed in a box, and sent to his sister, who then lived at Wardley, where it hath continued ever since." Barritt adds—"There is likewise a skull near Wigan of this surprising sort, of which I have heard stories too ridiculous to relate." In the "Traditions," the substance of this legend is given with graphic effect under the appellation of the "Skull House." It is there remarked of Wardley that,—"A human skull is still shown here, which is usually kept in a little locked recess in the staircase wall, and which the occupiers of the Hall would never permit to be removed. This grim caput mortuum being, it is said, much averse to any change of place or position, never failed to punish the individual severely which should dare to lay hands upon it with any such purpose. If removed, drowned in the neighbouring pond (which is in fact a part of the old moat which formerly surrounded the house), or buried, it was sure to return; so that, in the end, each succeeding tenant was fain to endure its presence rather than be subject to the terrors and annoyances consequent upon its removal. Even the square aperture in the wall was not permitted to be glazed without the skull or its long-defunct owner creating some disturbance. It was almost bleached white by exposure to the weather, and many curious persons have made a pilgrimage there, even of late years." Mr Roby then relates the freak of Barritt and his companions, and gives the story of the skull from Barritt's MS. The editor of the present volume visited the Hall some years ago, and found that a locked door concealed at once the square aperture and its fearful tenant. Of this "place of a skull," two keys were provided; one being kept by the tenant of the Hall, who farms some of the adjacent land, and the other being in the possession of the late (and first) Countess of Ellesmere, the lady of the lamented "Lord Francis Egerton." The Countess occasionally accompanied visitors from the neighbouring Worsley Hall, and herself unlocked the door and revealed to her friends the grinning skull of Wardley Hall. The writer paid another visit to this quaint old Hall in October 1861, and again held the old skull in his hands. The bone of the lower jaw had become detached; but there is no sign of violence about the skull itself. If the tradition as to the violent death of its owner be correct, that result has been effected without any fracture of the bone. The keystone of an arched entrance into the courtyard has on its outer face, "R. H. D. 1625," and beneath this, "1818." On its inner face, "1846." These dates doubtless indicate the times of rebuilding or repairing a portion of the old place.