Picture of 1800s bleaching family and workers helps tell story of hall where Bolton martyr was persecuted

This article originally appeared on Culture24.

This is the owner of an ancient hall in Greater Manchester, Colonel Ainsworth, pictured with his family and workers during the 1800s

The lives of local workers changed dramatically with the arrival of the Ainsworth family in the 1800s. Under the Ainsworths, the hall became the centre of a hugely successful bleaching business.

In the early 1300s, influential aristocratic family the Radcliffes became the first owners of the hall, set in Greater Manchester. They slept and ate their meals in the Great Hall, which they rebuilt in stone when they took possession of the state and administered their extensive landholdings and dispensed local justice from the hall, which was also a seat of government.

When the Barton family owned the manor in the 1500s, the main industries were farming and weaving. By the time Richard Shuttleworth became Lord of the Manor, in 1582, the estate had its own mill.

No history of Smithills would be complete without mention of Bolton’s first and only martyr, George Marsh. Marsh, a local preacher, was a victim of the persecution of Protestants during the reign of Queen Mary.

In the spring of 1554, Lord Derby, the Lord Lieutenant of Lancashire, ordered Marsh to be apprehended on charges of heresy if he appeared in Bolton.

At Smithills Hall he presented himself before Robert Barton, the owner of the estate and local Justice of the Peace.

He was held and questioned about his ‘heretical’ religious beliefs in one of the upper rooms at Smithills. The legend has it that as Marsh was being led from the hall he stamped his foot on a flagstone, leaving a mark that has remained there ever since as a declaration of his steadfast faith.

The Shuttleworth brothers, who owned and managed the hall during the late 1500s, Richard and Thomas Shuttleworth. Richard and Thomas’s accounts go a bit like this:

July 1586
Henry Dakin’s wife for clipping sheep. 2d
James Turner for working four days at hay. 4d
Several women of Bolton for getting in of turves [turf or peat]. 1s 6d

August 1586
The plumbers of Wigan for eight and forty pounds of lead. 5s
The workmanship of the same in mending the great lead roof 2s. 6d

February 1587
A glazier for mending the windows. 3s 6d
Humphrey March for putting in the shoulder of a cow which was out of joint. 4d

And for September 1586
For a license for marriage of Thomas Shuttleworth and Ann Lever. 11s 3d
Spent by Thomas Lever when he went to Chester (for the license). 2s 3d
For half a dozen great raisins. 1s 8d
Half a dozen of prunes. 1s 10d
Henry Hill, Mr. Standish’s cook, for his pains for two days (for the wedding dinner). 2s 6d

• A permanent exhibition, The Smithills Hall Story, is in the Medieval Kitchen at the hall now. Open Wednesday-Friday 10am-3pm and Sunday 12pm-4pm.

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Three great halls to discover history in:

Heaton Hall, Manchester
Now Grade I-listed in recognition of its importance as one of the finest neo-classical houses in the country, this hall stands on a site where a house was first built during the late 17th century.

St Andrew's and Blackfriars', Norwich
The only English friary to survive intact from the medieval period, these halls were built more than 600 years ago and were part of the medieval precinct of the Dominican or Black Friars.

St George's Hall, Liverpool
Widely regarded as one of the finest neo-classical buildings in the world and a Grade I-listed building, this hall stands 169ft long and 74ft wide with a tunnel vaulted ceiling - the largest of its kind in Europe.

Source: http://www.culture24.org.uk/history-and-heritage/transport-and-industry/art532497-picture-of-1800s-bleaching-family-and-workers-helps-tell-story-of-hall-where-bolton-martyr-was-persecuted