Patron
Lord Lilford
Latest News
February 2023 - General Update
The public area of the Hall and Grounds are opened for Snowdrops on Wednesdays and Sundays. See Events page for further details.
December 2022 - General Update
The Public area of the Hall was formerly opened on the 6 th December, 2022 with Invited Guests. The first pre-booked Public Open Day took place on Sunday 11th December, 2022.
January 2022 - General Update
Lionel Taylor resigned as Secretary of FoBH on the 31st December 2021 but remains as a Trustee, Archivist and Chair of the Archives and Interpretation Sub-Committee.
The Potting Sheds project (1st phase) has been delayed whilst HTNW look for funding to enable all the buildings to be restored.
November 2021 - General Update
Janet Edwards was appointed Vice–Chair of FoBH to fill this position after Geoff Coxhead retired as a Trustee and Vice Chairman at the 2021 AGM.
Some Units in the Hall have now been sold and once again Bank Hall is now occupied.
July 2021 - General Update
Janet Edwards stepped down as Chair at our AGM (See AGM Report). Subsequent to the AGM John Howard has now been elected Chair by a majority vote of our Trustees.
June 2021 - General Update
To view our AGM Report for the year ended 31st March 2021, please click here.
May 2021 - General Update
After the disruption caused by the Pandemic last year’s AGM could not take place and so the Trustees had to deal with the statutory requirement by email. This year we are holding a formal meeting on Monday 21st June but due to the current restrictions, although eased, we are only permitting our Trustees, Members and Volunteers to attend. Numbers may be restricted. This year an AGM report will be posted on our website after the event.
May 2021 - Restoration Update
The fencing around the Hall is now being restructured and visitors will be able to see the restored Hall from every side. Internally, the final work is being undertaken with an expected completion by the end of July.
January 2021 - General Update
With the resurgence of Corona Virus cases and the subsequent stricter guidelines, we are not anticipating opening for Snowdrop Sundays – See our Events page for further information.
Due to restrictions our Volunteers are not able to work on the paths in the grounds at the present time but regular visits are being made for security reasons. We would remind the public that they should not access the site without permission. Only our Trustees and Volunteer staff have permission to access the grounds.
The external Restoration of the Hall is now complete and landscaping in the residents area is underway. Internal work is still ongoing but 5 apartments are now being marketed.
March 2020 - Corona Virus Closes Site
As with many other sites, the Corona Virus Pandemic has meant that the Bank Hall Grounds have
been closed temporarily in line with Government Guidelines. We wish all our supporters good health
and to see you visiting once again when we are able to re-open. This has inevitably stalled work on
the site in a number of respects but work in the background is continuing.
January 2020 - Snowdrop Sundays (Cancelled)
It is with great sadness that we have had to cancel the Snowdrop Sunday open days. Various utilities are being brought to the Hall and the contractors have had considerable delays in organising this as it required co-ordination with the utility companies and also a legal process which hasn't yet been completed. With the work starting on the 27th January, there is considerable disruption and restrictions on the Estate roads. Consequently we felt that for safety reasons it was not going to be feasible for us to operste the Snowdrop Open days. Although the work may be completed before the end of February, it would be difficult to only partially cancel them so we took the decision to cancel all of them. This represents a huge loss of income to us but the safety of our visitors is more important.
December 2019 - Visitor Entrance
We are currently working with Heritage Trust for the North West to resolve the future public entrance to the grounds and Hall. After investigating various options we are now back working on the entrance being through the Potting Sheds. To facilitate this we have to obtain funding as without this we are not able to proceed. This being the case we are now also looking at proceeding with the Potting Sheds restoration but it will have to be in several phases. Any financial help to help us with this will be appreciated.
December 2019 - Restoration Update
The latest information we have concerning the completion of the Restoration work is that it is now expected to be finished by the 30th April 2020 although Heritage Trust for the North West and Ourselves should have access to the public central in March.
June 2019 - Restoration Update
June 2019 - On the 25th June, new Clock Fingers were installed on both the north and south faces of the clock on the Tower. The Friends Group have paid for this work with funding raised from “The Moment in Time” project in 2012-2014. The picture is courtesy of Keighleys of Longton who made and installed the fingers. No mechanism to run the clock has yet been built so the fingers will be static for some time. Keighleys also removed and passed to us the section of the mechanism behind the clock face and this will help with further research concerning a new suitable mechanism.
April 2019 - Restoration Update
On Easter Sunday whilst our Visitors were enjoying the Easter Bunny Hunt and the other attractions in the walled garden the contractors were removing the old scaffolding on the Tower. It had been there supporting the Tower for about 20 years.
March 2019 - Restoration Update
Our Snowdrop Sundays this year were successful except that due to the unusual weather pattern, the snowdrops had mostly died off by the end of February. However, we had a nice show of Daffodils for the 4th Sunday on the 3rd March.
We have been advised that the Restoration work on the Hall is now scheduled to be completed by the end of July, 2019 and the remaining work by the end of September 2019.
February 2019 - Restoration Update
Early in February whilst the Contractors were working outside the Hall on the East side in relation to drainage work, they came across the former North East wing of the Hall which was demolished around the time of the start of the World War 2. Over 1 day, they uncovered the entire footings of the wing along with evidence of a cobbled area between the wing and the remaining South East wing. This was recorded by ourselves. An interesting feature of the footings was a Coal Chute in one corner of the room which was adjacent to the kitchen.
January 2019 - Restoration Update
The scaffolding has been removed from the East end of the Hall on the South side. This reveals the restored Gables on that side of the building – See Picture. The external restoration of the building is now scheduled to be completed by the end of April, 2019 with overall completion at the end of September 2019.
![NE Wing Coal ChuteD - 04-02-19[LET].jpg](https://static.wixstatic.com/media/e6e5ac_124d715b43cd4dd3a8bb9a15be03a29f~mv2_d_4128_3096_s_4_2.jpg/v1/fill/w_71,h_53,al_c,q_80,usm_0.66_1.00_0.01,blur_2,enc_auto/NE%20Wing%20Coal%20ChuteD%20-%2004-02-19%5BLET%5D.jpg)
October 2018 - Restoration Update
October, 2018 - A milestone in the restoration process was reached on Tuesday 23rd October when the clock face on the North side of the Tower was put back in place. The face is in four large pieces of stone all of which were recovered from debris in the Hall. They have been restored but did not require repair. A crane lifted into place after which they were secured into position. The clock face along with a section of the Tower which has now been rebuilt collapsed approximately 40 years ago.
June 2018 - Restoration Update
Work commenced this month on repairing the fabric of the Tower. This is effectively removing damaged bricks and “stitching” the brickwork back together were cracks have developed. At the higher level this has been very hot work for the men carrying out this work but it is necessary for this to be done before work lower down the tower can be commenced.
May 2018 - Restoration Update
Work is now well underway in both the East & West sides of the building. The Stonemason has assembled all the stone removed from the building and most of this can be repaired. When it can’t be repaired, it will be renewed. The picture shows an example of his work now on a gable on the South East side. In Mid-May work started on Phase 1 of the Tower which was the further scaffolding of this area within the existing scaffolding. After this, unsafe brick and stone etc will be removed before walls are rebuilt and repaired. Work was due to commence on the main entrance from the A59 and for this we removed our Banner Board. This has been delayed but we are hoping it will get underway shortly. We may have to put up our banner for the 1st July event in a different location for a couple of weeks.
March 2018 - Restoration Update
The Contractors at the Hall have now started reconstruction work predominantly on the East side of the Hall with floors being inserted and in some parts, the new roof structure is now in place. A Stonemason is now on site to deal with the repair and reconstruction of the decorative stone. The work schedule is about 3 months behind due to the winter weather and also structural issues concerning the Tower.Those issues revolve around the best method of restoring the Tower.
Nov 2017 - Co-op Funding
We are pleased to advise that we have been awarded £1,242.35 from the Co-op Local Good Causes Scheme. This money is to go towards our Tower Fund. A big thank you to the Co-op and all those Co-op Members who have supported our Application for funding.
July 2017 - Restoration Work Commences
We are pleased to announce that on the 10th July preliminary work commenced to enable the restoration of the Hall to take place. Unfortunately we could not announce this sooner until the formal Press Release had been made. Work has now moved into the first phase of work on the Hall itself with the internal clearance and stabilisation work on the East side. Please see the formal press release by following this link: Press Release.
June 2016 - New Book Launched
The Friends of Bank Hall have just published a new book titled 'Bank Hall, Bretherton.
The book follows on from the very popular 'red' Bank Hall book, first published in 1997, which has sold many hundreds of copies. The new book has much more research material, photographs and illustrations. It has a section with highlights of the campaign to save the Hall from 1995 to 2014. At 48 pages, size 210 x 200mm with full colour covers it is is a much more comprehensive publication than the previous book and is priced at £4.50 or £6.20 by post.
