Townhead, Slaidburn, Lancashire

Townhead: The intact panelling scheme of one of the first-floor rooms The Forest of Bowland is one of England’s remoter places, so it is perhaps understandable that a country house in Slaidburn, at the centre of this upland area, was overlooked by Nikolaus Pevsner when he was compiling the original Buildings of England series.  Townhead is a compact country house of the 1730s.  It is listed Grade II* but has been empty for upwards of fifty years and is included in English Heritage’s Buildings at Risk Register.  Our involvement was requested by the North-West Region of EH in response to growing concerns about the condition of the building.  As is frequently the case, discussions about the building’s long-term future were hampered by a lack of soundly based research.  There were doubts about the date of the house and its development was not well understood. 

The double-height first floor of the stair hall Our work established that the house was built in fulfilment of the codicil of a will left by Henry Wiglesworth in 1729.  It replaced a house sketched by Samuel Buck around 1720, which was radically different and of 17th-century appearance.  One of the stipulations of the codicil was that Wiglesworth’s executors should ‘build a new house at Townhead’ for his son, who was then a minor.  It also specified that Henry Wiglesworth had already bought wood and other materials for the purpose and that elements of the old house should be re-used, doubtless to reduce the expense.  This explains the form of the windows on the rear elevation; unlike those on the front, these show clear signs of having been converted from the mullion-and-transom form favoured in the mid-to-late 17th century to receive sashes, which by the 1730s were normal on houses of quality.  It was also possible to demonstrate that the lower kitchen wing, attached to one side of the main block, was an integral part of the design and not, as had been supposed, a later addition.  Inside, investigation revealed a well-preserved interior including the main stair, and a series of panelled rooms and chimneypieces showing the influence of contemporary craftsmen’s copybooks.

The Wiglesworths lived at Townhead until the mid-19th century, when the family died out and the house was bought by the King-Wilkinsons, local landowners.  Until 1927 they let the house to a succession of tenants, since when it has been largely unoccupied, and consequently little altered for 20th-century living.