Went to visit Gawthorpe Hall (nr Burnley in a small town called Padiham) on Saturday. Compact but so impressive – read some of the details from Wikipedia.

Padiham has seen much better days. Must have been a great Lancashire town once but now seems grubby and ill kept. Half of the shops on the high street are empty and some of the other half look like they need closing down by environmental health. The only places that seem to thrive are hairdressers and take away food.

Gawthorpe Hall

Although the house is more compact than power houses such as Chatsworth House or Tatton Park, it is described by the National Trust as an Elizabethan gem in the heart of industrial Lancashire. Nicholas Cooper describes it as an early example of a plan in which the main stair is immediately accessible from the main entrance, a feature that later became standard. The house is in a state of complete repair and its history stretches back to 1600, when rebuilding around the pele tower, already a Shuttleworth property, was begun by Lawrence Shuttleworth.[2] Gawthorpe Hall was owned by the Kay-Shuttleworth family until 1970.

In 1604, Richard Stone from Carr House in the Bank Hall estate Bretherton, imported Irish panel boards and timber for the Shuttleworth family, who were building Gawthorpe Hall at the time, storing the 1,000 pieces in Hoole's tithe barn until they were needed as the building was constructed.
Gawthorpe began as a pele tower, a strong square structure built in the fourteenth century as a defence against the invading Scots. The Elizabethan lodge was dovetailed around the pele. The house was redesigned in 1850 by Sir Charles Barry, who honed his skills at Gawthorpe before going on to design the Houses of Parliament. The hall also figures in the history of English literature because Charlotte Bronte (1816–1855) was a family friend of the Shuttleworths and spent some time at Gawthorpe.

The mottoes of the Kay-Shuttleworth family, Iusticia et Prudentia (Justice and Practical Judgement – Shuttleworth) and Kynd Kynn Knawne Kepe (Keep your own kin-kind – Kay) may be seen displayed in various areas of the house, including above the front door and around the tower at the top of the building. The initials KS for Kay-Shuttleworth also occur frequently throughout the hall, and may be seen on the front door, on one of the ceilings, and in other places within the house.

The hall is full of antique artefacts on display in the many rooms preserved and cared for by the curators who attend each room to provide tourists with a commentary of what they are seeing. A tea room within the grounds offers refreshments. Local football team Burnley train on two football pitches built on the grounds near the entrance.

Pity the house was closed at 9am when we arrived. The moral of this story is check the opening times.