Thornleigh House

BOLTON

SD71SW SHARPLES PARK 797-1/2/207 (South side) 26/04/74 Thornleigh House (Formerly Listed as: SHARPLES PARK Salesian College, with garden terrace, steps and balustrade)

II

House, now in use by Salesian Community. 1868 with extensions and internal remodelling c1890. Original building by Henry Stead, architect, for Arthur Lemuel Briggs, a local cotton magnate. Brick with stone dressings and slate roof. EXTERIOR: 2 storey, long entrance front with principal rooms oriented along it, accessed from entrance hall and rear corridor. Entrance towards left, in porch with bulbous shafts to arched door with low-relief stone cupids etc. in spandrels. Balustraded parapet of porch continues over single storey extension housing dining room inglenook to the left, with leaded lights each side of the (now truncated) stack. Advanced 2-window range immediately to right of doorway with angle pilasters and paired 3-light mullioned and transomed windows with leaded lights to ground floor, and 2-pane sash windows above in stone architraves. Balustraded parapet. 2-window range set back to the right, with 2-pane sash windows in stone architrave on each floor, and advanced bay beyond (housing present library), with squared bay window to ground floor, and 4 windows above in stone architraves with segmental and triangular pedimented heads. balustraded parapet with central segmentally pedimented panel carrying coat of arms in low relief. Garden front comprises 2 gables divided by a narrow single-window range. Advanced right-hand gable has full-height bow window. Stilted arched brick heads to windows; corbelled brickwork in gable apex, dentilled brick string courses. To the rear of this range, the service wing is in a similar style, which is quite different from that of the entrance front, suggesting a different (and probably earlier) phase of building. INTERIOR: original layout survives almost unaltered, and many of the rooms contain elements of a rich late C19 decorative scheme, including the entrance hall with wall panelling and gilded frieze, ornate low relief timber piers to arcade, and inglenook fireplace with pent roof and copper fire hood. Inglenook fireplaces of a similar character also survive in

the library and the dining room. HISTORY: built as a private residence, the house was acquired by the Higher Education Committee of the Borough of Bolton in 1907 for use as a hostel for women trainee teachers, and was bought by the Salesians in 1923. (Bolton Journal, 26 December 1884, Pictorial Bolton Series, XXVII: Bolton; D.O'Connor: Golden Jubilee of Thornleigh College 1925-1975: Bolton: 1975-).

Listing NGR: SD7079611794