An Introduction
Browsholme Hall, pronounced ‘Brusom’, lies in the Forest of Bowland four miles north-west of Clitheroe. Built in 1507 by Edmund Parker, the Hall overlooks the Hodder Valley and is still lived in by that family and therefore has a genuine claim to be the oldest surviving family home in Lancashire.
Robert and Amanda are delighted to welcome visitors around the impressive stately rooms and give a flavour how the Hall has survived over the fourteen generations who have occupied it. Perhaps by appearance a museum this is a working family home that contains a remarkable antiquarian collection, representing the personal possessions that have accumulated over 500 years.
For more information about our tours please visit this link.
History
Origins of the Parker family can be traced to 1381 when after the Black Death, Peter de Alcancotes accepted the office of ‘le park keeper’ of the Forest of Bowland from John of Gaunt, Duke of Lancaster.
The family motto ‘neither wind nor wave shall move us’ perhaps bears witness to the survival of Browsholme through the Reformation, the turbulence of the Civil Wars, the extravagance of the Regency period then through the Napoleonic, Boer and World Wars. Each period has left its trace … a skull from the Pilgrimage of Grace, a royalist coat worn by Capt. Thomas Whittingham, furniture by Gillow and Hepplewhite, even a fragment of a Zeppelin.
