Worsley New Hall
Soon after his arrival in Worsley, in 1837, Lord Francis Egerton decided that both the Old Hall and the Brick Hall were inadequate for his needs and he determined to build afresh. He commissioned the architect Sir Edward Blore, and the first sod was cut for the foundations of the Victorian Gothic style mansion on 30th December 1839. The first stone laid on the 6th April 1840, and the building completed in 1846, the year Lord Francis became First Earl of Ellesmere.
Royalty visited the New Hall. Queen Victoria came in 1851 and again in 1857, the Prince and Princess of Wales came in 1869, and again as King Edward VII and Queen Alexandra in 1909. The Crown Prince of Germany and Empress Eugenie were also guests.
In 1914 the hall was offered to the army and was used as a hospital for officers. The Ellesmere family never lived in Worsley again, the Fourth Earl selling the estates, in 1923, to the newly formed Bridgewater Estates Limited, for £3,300,000.
Efforts were made to sell the hall during the 1920’s and 30’s but they came to nothing, and during the Second World War it was again used by the military. The Home Guard held frequent exercises in the grounds, and the Hall provided a temporary home for Dunkirk evacuees until they could be returned to their units. It was then occupied by the 218th Battalion of the Lancashire Fusiliers until 1942. The top floor was badly damaged by fire in September 1943, and it was used to billet American soldiers awaiting the D-Day landings. They were the last occupants as, riddled with dry rot and suffering structural weakness caused by mining subsidence, it was considered beyond saving. It was sold, for £2,500, to a Mr Littler, a scrap merchant from Ashton in Makerfield, who began demolition in 1946. By 1949 the New Hall was gone, having enjoyed a comparatively short life of just over a hundred years.
In 2012 a major research project was begun by The University of Salford.
This was a joint venture carried out by the University and Peel Holdings.
In 2018 work began to create Royal Horticultural Society's major garden project, RHS Bridgewater, which opened on 18 May 2021.