Blackhurst (ruin)

Blackhurst (ruin) is in Wheelton

A ruined mansion with “lost garden” and a few remaining low walls and floor-plan.

The Blackhurst mansion was built in the later half of the 19th Century and seems to have been quite a grand place. However, the house was gone within less than a hundred years and now remains as a ruin.

Particular features to note are the winding path and small bridge, (now reduced in height due to soil build up) that leads to a small grotto or in this case a sunken garden with what looks like styled rock visible in the surrounding walls.

There is also what Clayton describes as an old water supply in his book “Lost farms of Brinscall Moors”, and it certainly looks that way - I’m not sure if it’s a covered natural spring as I doubt that would supply enough water on-demand.

In some areas, rubble covers partially collapsed voids which look to be rooms or corridors of a lower floor. There’s not much under there from what I’ve seen.

Clayton and others suggest the nearby stone building built into the hillside at the site of Top ‘o ‘th Wood farm where a stables for the Blackhurst mansion but I think it was listed at one time as a “cattle byre”. I imagine it was part of Top ‘o ‘the Wood at one time because that property existed before Blackhurst. There are other examples at ruined moorland farms that are of very similar construction and could date back as far as the middle ages; but these are often referred to as root cellars and are without the stone stalls. However, the construction of the barrel vaulted ceilings and particularly the orientation of long, narrow stone is noticeable. Also, the various niches in walls.

It is a double-vaulted stone building with stone stalls inside and currently a designated bat roost so best to keep quiet as the sign suggests.