Huntroyde Hall

Huntroyde Hall is a grade II listed, 16th-century house in the civil parish of Simonstone in the Borough of Ribble Valley, Lancashire, England.

The first recorded house was constructed on an H-shaped plan in 1576 for the Starkie family[4] and re-built in the Georgian style in the mid-19th century.

[5] Huntroyde Hall features a Grade II listed Ha-Ha, one of the longest in the North of England.

[a] It is thought to have been of a typical design for the period, approximately 24.5 metres (80 ft) wide and of two storeys with a central hall, and mullioned windows.

[7] In 1631 a gatehouse was constructed aligned to the northern entrance,[b] and a full width walled courtyard about 14.3 metres (47 ft) deep was created.

[d][7] Between 1885 and 1888, the old building underwent further restoration, the front was refaced in ashlar, the sash windows replaced with larger mullions.

[10] In 1465, Edmund Starkie of Barnton near Northwich in Cheshire married Elizabeth de Simonstone the heiress of the land at Huntroyde.

[11] In 1578 Nicholas Starkie (born c.1566), son and heir of Edmund, the builder of Huntroyde married Anne Parr, the heiress of estates at Kempnough in Worsley[12] and Cleworth Hall in Tyldesley[13] that in 1596 was associated with witchcraft.

His eldest son Nicholas, a captain in the Parliamentary army, inherited but was killed in 1643 by the gunpowder explosion at the siege of Hoghton Tower.

The estate was then inherited by the latter's son Le Gendre Starkie (1790–1822), High Sheriff in 1815 and after his early death by his younger brother Le Gendre Nicholas Starkie (1799–1865), Member of Parliament for Pontefract from 1826 to 1832 and a prominent Freemason, being Provincial Grand Master for the Western Division of Lancashire.

[4] Edmund served as Captain in the Boer War and was a local promoter of the Red Cross and St John's Ambulance Brigade and by 1914 had developed parts of the Huntroyde grounds into a major tree plantation.

Huntroyde Hall East Wing
Huntroyde Hall c. 1880
Huntroyde Hall's Original Gatehouse (now detached from house and grounds)