The estate lies a few miles S of the Ribble Valley along the River Calder, not far E of Blackburn.
Approach to Dunkenhalgh Hall is through a gatehouse and an avenue of lime trees. The gatehouse is seemingly 17th c. but has been restored.
'The plan [of the current 19th c. building] probably follows more or less that of the original house, which seems to have been of the usual type of central hall and projecting wings....The building is of two stories, its principal front facing north...' (VCH Lanc 6.422).
Household accounts survive for most of the period 1612--54. Thomas Walmesley (1574--1642), the son of the original purchaser, was resident at the time.
Currently the Dunkenhalgh Hotel.
1285 Possible date of erection.
by 1332 Estate owned by the Rishton family.
1571 Sold to Thomas Walmesley (knighted by James I in 1603), a lawyer who enlarged the estate.
1712 Estate passed to the Petres via the marriage of Catherine Walmesley to Robert, 7th Baron Petre.
1800 Most of the house pulled down and rebuilt in the Gothic style (VCH Lanc 6.422).
REED Lanc 184--212
