Old Hall is located in west Warrington close to England’s first modern canal, the Sankey (St Helens) Canal, which opened in 1757, four years before the Bridgewater Canal on the opposite side of town. Sankey Valley Park also runs alongside the district.
The housing estate began in the early 1980s new town boom in Warrington when former farmland and parts of the access roads to Burtonwood Air Base were redeveloped.
The district includes a housing estate, Westbrook Old Hall Primary School, a Spar shop and a pub (The Maltings), which is located in the former Bewsey Farmhouse. The barn at the farm was converted into Bewsey Barns Community Centre. All these facilities are based on Old Hall Road. Close by is Twenty Acre Wood, which is nowadays cut in two by Cromwell Avenue.
The Maltings (previously known as Bewsey Farm) in the former Bewsey Farm house 16 Jun 2007
The Old Hall district is named after the historic Bewsey Old Hall, the home of the Boteler family, Lords of the Manor of Warrington from William the Conqueror until Elizabethan times and located alongside Sankey Valley Park.
The original building was constructed by William Fitz Almeric le Boteler and was built on the site of a monastic grange. The current building dates to around 1600 and was probably built by Sir Thomas Ireland, who was knighted by King James I in 1617. The building is said to be haunted (which old house in the country isn’t?) by, amongst others, Lady Isabella, wife of the twelfth baron.
Read more about the hall in the Bewsey section of Downtown.
Gulliver’s World is a theme park located in the north of the district near Westbrook alongside Sankey Valley Park. Opened in 1989, the theme park has a number of small rides and is mainly a children’s/family theme park, and also features a large wooden roller coaster, The Antelope. At the time of writing, the park was split into nine sections; Adventure World, The Lost World (formerly Dinosaur World), Entrance Plaza, Circus World, Western World, Alice’s Wonderland (due to Warrington being close to Daresbury, the birthplace of Lewis Carroll), Count’s Castle, Smugglers Wharf, and the newest area to date, Water World.
Gulliver’s World has sister parks at Matlock Bath (Gulliver’s Kingdom) and at Milton Keynes (Gulliver’s Land). For the latest events see the Gulliver’s World website.
Next to Gulliver’s is RAF Burtonwood Heritage Centre. RAF Burtonwood opened in 1940 and serviced planes during the Second World War and later assisted with the Berlin Airlift (also known as the Berlin Blockade) in 1958. The airbase was also used by the Americans and closed in 1993. The heritage centre was set up to keep the memory alive and is a popular visitor attraction. See their website.
Close to Gulliver’s World and the Heritage Centre is Ladies’ Walk Wood, which can all be accessed from Shackleton Close. The wood is close to the site of the former Bewsey New Hall. Big Wood and Bog Wood are north and north east respectively of the hall location. The rest of the land was farmland belonging to Bewsey Farm. The former Cheshire Lines Railway runs alongside the district with trains today operated by from East Midlands Railway, Northern and TransPennine Express.
Penketh and Old Hall Angling Society was established in 1983. Its local pool is called Brownlees Pool. In April 2009 when I visited Old Hall they had a pool called Whitegate Pond, which they no longer use. See their website.
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