Errwood Hall

Errwood Hall was built in the 1830s by Samuel Grimshawe, a wealthy Manchester businessman, and was occupied by the Grimshawe family for the next hundred years. The hall was the centre of a thriving estate of over 2000 acre, consisting of several farms, a school, the Cat and Fiddle Inn, a private coal mine and the hamlet of Goyt's Bridge. The family planted many specimen trees including an abundance of azaleas and rhododendrons. Samuel’s grandchildren were the last members of the family to live in the hall, which was later demolished in connection with the construction of the Fernilee Reservoir in 1934. Stones from the demolished hall were used to construct the water treatment works below…

Of the hall, only the foundations to ground floor level, and a few sections of wall, now survive. These have been consolidated and are in the care of the Peak Park Authority. On a hilltop a few hundred metres to the west of the hall ruins is the family graveyard, restored by North West Water in the 1980s. To the north of the hall is a small shrine or chapel, erected by the Grimshawe family to the memory of Miss Dolores de Ybarguen, a Spanish aristocrat who was the teacher at the estate school and governess to the Grimshaw family and who died on a visit to Lourdes. The shrine is still regularly used for private acts of devotion, intercession and remembrance. The rhododendrons planted by the…