Growth Spurt

I managed an hour out with my mate Nikon Monday Morn (21st Jan 2019), sadly the fog had begun to lift and was not as heavy by the time I took my daughter to school.
The shots were taken at an old favourite site of mine and only 15-20 mins down the road from me-
Lydiate Abbey ( Church of Saint Catherine, Lydiate) and Lydiate Hall Ruins:
The ruined church of St Catherine is known locally as Lydiate Abbey. It was never a real abbey, but was the private chapel built by the Ireland family of Lydiate Hall sometime around 1470s. It was built for husband and wife Laurence and Katherine Ireland.
Made from sandstone, it features four large perpendicular style windows on its south side. These once had fine tracery (some of which can still be seen at the top of the windows today) and excavations have revealed they once contained stained glass. A curiosity is that the building has no windows at all on its north side. Most churches do, so various ideas have been put forwards to explain this such as a lack of money, a shortage of skilled masons or even insufficient available glass. However, none of these explanations seem very satisfactory when you view just how grand the rest of the church must have been. It is interesting to note that the north side of a church is traditionally referred to as the ‘devil’s side’- and always tends to have less grand windows and doors than the south side.
When Henry VIII abolished the monasteries the law also impacted on private chapels, and most were decommissioned. They then either fell into ruin or on occasion were able to become parish churches. Interestingly neither of these things happened to St Catherines and it continued to be used after 1550. Why this was is not clear but perhaps it served the Catholic people in the area of Lydiate, even while Catholicism was being actively repressed by the crown. Records show that Jesuit priests were secretly buried in the grounds in the years afterwards.
Lydiate Hall - The original Lydiate Hall was built by Laurence Ireland sometime in the 15oos. He had exchanged his land at Garston (near Liverpool) for estates at Lydiate and Maghull. The original hall he built was a single range, possibly made of stone. By the late 1500s three timber wings had been added to form a quadrangle around a central courtyard. In 1673 the Ireland family line reached its end and ownership was passed to Sir Charles Anderton of Lostock Hall near Bolton. He initially leased the building to tenants, but his son Sir Francis did come to occupy the hall in his retirement.
In 1760 the hall passed to the Blundell family and once again it was leased out to tenants. Under the Blundell’s ownership the hall was extensively remodeled. The original stone east wing was destroyed, as were parts of the later timber frame sections . A brick rebuild of the north side of the hall occurred around this time and some of what we see today probably dates from then.
As the hall entered the late 1800s it began to suffer from serious decay, despite some effort at improvement and repairs towards the end of the century . By the 1940s it was described as ‘fallen into complete ruin’. In 1957 the Blundell family passed ownership to the Lever Estate and plans were put in place to save what remained. The ruins were stabilised and made safe and are now classed as a Grade II listed.
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