Browsholme Hall

Browsholme Hall is a house of early 17th-century date with substantial later alterations and additions. The main block is built in an H-plan of three storeys in sandstone ashlar with a slate roof. The cross-wings are rusticated, and the building has been significantly modified from its original form.

The central recessed facade comprises six bays. Ground-floor windows have reconstructed architraves and mullions and transoms that were reinstated in the 19th century, with a continuous drip course now partly missing. First-floor windows are sashed with glazing bars, with tripartite windows to bays 1, 2 and 6 and a continuous drip course. Second-floor windows have individual hoods and original square mullions with grooved faces. The fourth bay, positioned between the columns of the portico, contains a cross window. The portico rises three storeys with two sets of paired columns representing an inaccurate version of the classical orders. The doorway has a moulded surround with a semi-circular head. The parapet is plain and dates from the mid-18th century, having replaced gabled attic dormers shown in Buck's drawing of circa 1720.

The east cross-wing features a drip course over the ground and first-floor windows, which are tripartite with central sashes with glazing bars. The second floor has a five-light mullioned window with hood. The attic window is now blocked and contains a clock. The gable has a coping with bellcote. The west cross-wing was rebuilt in 1805 to designs by Jeffry Wyatt and comprises two storeys with large tripartite sashed windows on each floor, featuring glazing bars, plain stone surrounds, square mullions and hoods. Set back to the west is a single-storey dining room added in 1807, with a similar window and a shaped gable bearing a coat of arms and the date 1807.

Adjoining the rear of the east cross-wing is a wing containing the kitchen, shown incomplete in Buck's drawing of circa 1720, with sashed windows with glazing bars and architraves, some with false keystones. This wing has projecting quoins and a stone gutter cornice. Two adjoining bars of the main house are similarly treated, one bearing a door with the inscription "EPI 1711". Several minor wings project from the rear, including one from the 17th century that was partly converted into a chapel in the late 19th century with the addition of gothic windows and a porch turret bearing the plaque "IPB 1897", although this conversion was never completed.

The interior contains significant features from various periods. The dining room in the western part of the main block retains diagonal panelling of circa 1620, taken from Park Head near Whalley. The overmantel of 1584 once belonged to the Towneleys of Hapton Tower. The drawing room of 1805, designed by Wyatt, displays Elizabethan detailing, an early example of the Gothic Revival style. The dining room ceiling of 1807 is also by Wyatt. The ante room at the rear of the west wing contains an overmantel said to have come from the old library.

The early 18th-century east wing contains a kitchen fireplace with three segmental arches, the right-hand one narrower, with fluted keystones. The stair serving this wing comprises four flights with open string, turned newels and alternately fluted balusters, and has a ramped handrail. The main stair has an open well, square newels, open string and one turned baluster to each tread, and is lit by a window containing stained glass of various dates from before 1500 to the 19th century, some pieces said to have come from Whalley Abbey. The first floor contains the Oak Drawing Room with elaborately carved panelling of circa 1700. The Yellow Room, Velvet Room and Oak Bedroom have panelling made or embellished by Richard Alston, estate carpenter, at the end of the 19th century.