Since 2006 the action group and Urban Splash have planned to restore the house as apartments retaining the gardens, entrance hall and clock tower for public access and the Heritage Trust for the North West (HTNW) plans to renovate the potting sheds and walled gardens.

In 1167 the Banastres fled when Owain Gwynedd, Prince of North Wales, destroyed the castle and the family escaped to Cheshire and Lancashire.

[5] In 1719 Henrietta Maria Legh donated land on which to build St Mary's Church, Tarleton.

He owned a collection of classical style statuettes and casts of figures by the sculptor Antonio Canova.

[13] However, in 2017 the hall and gardens and adjoining orchard were signed over to the Heritage Trust for the North West on a 999-year lease so that restoration work could begin.

In 1899 Sir Harcourt Everard Clare, clerk to Lancashire County Council, moved to the hall with his family and hosted garden parties in the grounds.

King George V whilst visiting Lancashire in 1913 stopped at the lodge to greet the Clares and their staff.

[15] Cotton mill owner, Lieutenant Colonel Sir Norman Seddon-Brown and his family lived at the hall from the late 1920s until 1938, when they moved to Escowbeck.

Webster carried out the alterations sympathetically, in a style corresponding to the 17th-century building, but the difference is marked by the colour of the brickwork and sharpness of the detail.

[21] The tower, which contains an original oak balustraded, cantilevered staircase, is the chief architectural feature of the building on the south side.

Other features from the 1832 renovation include Legh Keck's initials "G.A.L.K" and "1833" inscribed above the Italian bay windows.

The clocks on the tower feature a fleur-de-lis at each corner of their faces, thought to be from the Bannastre family coat of arms.

[25] The house once had a pair of 12-foot (3.7 m) concrete statues (thought to be of a gothic floral design, with the Legh Keck symbols on the base) near the front porch that were destroyed and a sundial, which has been lost.

A pair of lion statues from Atherton Hall that stood by the front porch were moved to the Lilford Estate offices in Tarleton.

A ground floor room in the north wing was panelled with oak from nearby Carr House.

The drawing room had a 16-foot (4.9 m) high ceiling with lavish plaster work (a small portion of which survives today) and a parquet floor.

In the early 1980s, the Lilford Trust applied for planning permission to turn the house and grounds into a country club and golf course without success.

A large mural painted on the wall of the drawing room was destroyed when the west wing roof collapsed in the 1980s.

[31] In 2001 listed building consent was granted for structural work to the tower,[32] Three of the decorative corner pinnacles remain but the west elevation has a crack held together by scaffolding installed in 2002 during emergency repairs funded by the action group and English Heritage.

In 2006 an attic water tank crashed through the floors in the oldest part of the building causing damage to the roof, a front gable and the rooms below.

[13] Three magnolia trees are growing out of the foundations of the east wing and cover the exterior, which has lost two gables.

The east wing contains a ground floor room with no windows, a concrete ceiling and a steel door which remains unopened since the estate offices closed in 1972.

[35] Urban Splash was engaged to develop a business plan with the aid of a Heritage Lottery Fund grant in 2006.

[43] Planning permission to convert the potting shed and greenhouse into a visitor entrance, funded separately, was granted in December 2011.

[45] The project was taken on by the developer Next Big Thing, who began work on the clearing of the property in July 2017, with the view of a completion date of 18 months time.

Bank Lodge, situated at a disused access road, is owned by the estate, and can be seen on the 1928 Ordnance Survey Map.

Carr House, built by the Stone family in 1613 was the home of Jeremiah Horrocks, the first person to predict and observe the Transit of Venus, in 1639.

Bank Hall is surrounded by 18 acres (7.3 ha) of gardens, parkland and an arboretum created by George Anthony Legh Keck.

[57] The potting sheds and hall featured in the introduction to BBC Restoration Home (TV series) in 2011.