Wardley Hall, Lancashire

Roger Downes, who succeeded as heir to the patrimonial estates on the death of his father, John Downes, in 1648, was the last of the family seated at Wardley. His history is not a pleasant one to contemplate. Living in an age when the people could take delight in the dissoluteness of the sovereign, he abandoned himself to the vicious courses of the time, and became one of the most profligate of the profligate court of Charles the Second. The patrimony which had descended to him was wasted in riotous extravagance, and, to use the figurative language that Johnson applied to Rochester, he "blazed out his youth and his health in lavish vooluptuousness," and brought his career to a violent and untimely end at the early age of 28. He was the roger Downes of whom 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; when, sallying forth, he ran his sword through a poor tailor. Soon after this, being in a riot, which severed his head from his body, and the skull was enclosed in a box and sent to his sister at Wardley Hall.

From the Manchester Times, September 9th 1892.

"The skull," adds the narrator, "has been kept at Wardley ever since, and many superstitious notions are entertained respecting it."  The late Mr. Roby, in his entertaining Traditions of Lancashire, wrought the incidents into a pathetic story, under the title of the "Skull House." Tradition, which always delights in the marvellous, took up the story, and many and incredible are the legends which the ghastly relic of mortality had given rise to. Certain it is that from time immemorial a human skull has had an abiding place at Wardley, carefully secured in an aperture in the wall beside the staircase. According to popular belief the grim fixture is as strongly averse to removal as the miraculous skull of "Dickey of Tunstead," which caused so much trouble to the engineers when constructing the railway near Chapel-en-le-Frith.

Its rayless sockets, we are told, love to look upon the scenes of its former enjoyments, and it never fails to punish with severity those who venture to disturb or lay irreverent hands upon it. How the story originated it is impossible to say, but, though a skull whitened by long exposure, is still exhibited, it is very certain that it never graced the shoulders of young Roger Downes. Thomas Barrett, the antiquary, in his MS. pedigrees, gives the following explanation:- "Thos. Stockport," he says, "told me the skull belonged to a Romish priest who was executed at Lancaster for seditious practices in the time of William III. He was most likely the priest at Wardley to which place his head being sent, might be preserved as a relique of his martydom," and he adds, "The late Rev. Mr. Kenyon, of Peel, and librarian of the College in this town (Manchester), told me about the year 1779 the family vault of Downes in Wigan Church had about that time been opened, and a coffin discovered, on which was an inscription to the memory of the above young Downes. Curiosity led to the opening of it, and the skeleton, head and all, was there; but whatsoever was the cause of his death, the upper part of the skull had been sawed off, a little above the eyes, by a surgeon, perhaps by order of his friends, to be satisfied of the nature of his disease; his shroud was in tolerable preservation. Mr Kenyon showed me some of the ribbon that tied the suit at the arms, wrists, and ankles, ; it was of a brown colour. What it was at first could not be ascertained." The name of Roger Downes is perpetuated on a massive marble slab affixed to the wall of Wigan Church, in which his remains are interred.

From an article in the Manchester Courier and Lancashire General Advertiser, Saturday 14th January 1882.