Walled Garden adjoining site of former Bold Hall

Walled Garden adjoining site of former Bold Hall

This rectangular walled garden encloses what was formerly the kitchen garden to Bold Hall, a mansion that has since been demolished. The garden's brick walls were completed around 1844 and underwent alterations in the late 19th century, with further changes made during the 20th century when various structures were erected against the walls at different times.

The walls are constructed of red brick laid to English Garden Wall bond, with ashlar sandstone used for the flat copings at the wall head, the v-jointed surround to the entrance gateway, and the plain lintels to other doorways.

The rectangular enclosure is longer in its north-south dimension. The upper third of the garden is noticeably narrower than the rest, with significantly taller walling at this point.

The south wall features a centrally-placed principal entrance, defined by a shallow depressed archway with v-jointed rusticated quoining and voussoirs. The arch keystone is inscribed with the date 1844. A smaller single doorway is thought to have been inserted at the east end of the south wall. The long east and west side walls each have a single doorway positioned approximately one-third of the way along the garden from the south end. These are plain openings with plank doors beneath plain sandstone lintels.

At the point where the garden narrows in width, the walls incorporate dog-legged insets with ramped copings rising to the taller level of the walling in the northern third. On the west wall at this transition point there is a single doorway and a length of walling extending eastwards to almost the mid-point of the garden. This appears to have formed part of a glasshouse or similar garden structure, now replaced. The enclosure walling is substantially complete and incorporates a small number of triangular-sectioned buttresses at various points.

Historical Context

The walled garden was a 19th-century addition to the Bold Hall estate, created while it remained in the ownership of descendants of John Bold, a Member of Parliament for Wigan in the early 18th century. Bold had commissioned the celebrated Venetian architect Giacomo Leoni to design a new mansion for the estate, completed around 1730, together with other estate buildings. The mansion, which stood to the south-east of the walled garden, was demolished around 1900. However, former estate buildings survive, notably a wing of the stable court and its associated dwelling to the south of the garden.

The garden is shown on the 1849 Ordnance Survey map and is mentioned in the 1848 sale brochure for the Bold Hall estate, which refers to "Capital Gardens, inclosed and divided by lofty newly-built walls clothed with the choicest fruit trees". Although the garden is now considerably changed, the enclosure walling remains substantially the same as depicted on contemporary maps.

The walled garden forms a group with the former Home Farmhouse and the former Stables. It is of special interest as the principal component of an extensive, little-altered and well-documented walled garden of 1844, representing part of the ongoing development of the estate by John Bold. Together with the 18th-century former Home Farmhouse and stables, it represents the most significant surviving built elements in the historic landscape of the Bold Hall estate, one of the largest country house parks in Lancashire.