Birchley Hall is a grade II* listed Elizabethan house built in about 1594, in Billinge, Merseyside, England.

Many of the books are in the name of John Brerely, which is thought to be a pseudonym of Lawrence Anderton, a cousin of James and his brothers.

He was the youngest son of Lawrence Anderton of Chorley, was educated at Blackburn Grammar School, and entered Christ's College, Cambridge University in 1593.

According to "Secret Hiding Places" published in 1933, there was a trap door in the vestry floor concealed inside a confessional box.

In 1920 a fall of plaster disclosed a secret door to a short tunnel in the wall leading to a look-out in the roof, from which the approach to the house could be watched.

His son Bernard partially restored the chapel up to the 1970s, when the Hall was sold to the charity Sue Ryder Care, which converted it into a home for the elderly.

It was based in Farnborough, Hampshire, UK and published two online magazines, The British Journal of Healthcare Computing and Information Management (now owned by the Healthcare Information and Management Systems Society) and Medical Technology Business Europe (www.mtbeurope.info), and the website Tropical Trees for Life (www.treesforlife.info) a green project to propagate some of the large amounts of important information on tree planting and management in the tropics that is locked in paper, to give it a greater chance of reaching those who could benefit from it.