Wardley Hall

A stolen skull.

Legends, nearly three hundred years old, will be recalled by the news that Wardley House, Worsley, near Manchester, has been broken into, and the famous skull has been stolen from its niche in the wall at the head of the staircase. Superstitious locals in particular will now have no difficulty in tracing the gales of the last two days to their source.

This skull was the head of a Benedictine monk, Edward Barlow, known as Father Ambrose, who for many years continued the forbidden services of his church in the secret chapel at Wardley House, whose owner, Francis Downes, was a kinsman of his. In 1641 he was discovered and tried, being condemned to death at Lancaster. After the execution his head was impaled on a spike on the tower of the Collegiate Church at Manchester, and is believed to have been secretly removed by Francis Downes, who took it to his home, and preserved it there as a holy relic.

There is a story that once a servant threw the skull into the moat, taking it for the head of an animal. thereupon the most furious tempest arose, and was not stilled until the skull was recovered and restored to its former place. And there was a storm on another occasion when the then occupant of the house tried to bury the head; and eighteenth century writers declare that if the skull was as much as moved from its resting-place strange sounds were heard in the house at night, cattle pined in their stalls, and no luck attended the ventures of the dwellers at the house.

By a curious chance the house where this monk ministered three hundred years ago is to return once again to its former use, for it has been bought by the Roman Catholics of the district as a residence for the Bishop of Salford.

From the Yorkshire Post and Leeds Intelligencer, 27th November 1930.