Wigan Album

Hi Used to leave near here and walked past many a time without actually looking at the building too much, I always thought it was just a farmhouse. I probably didnt look too much at it as it used to have a couple of fierce guard dogs that would bark when ever you went near the fence.
Does anyone know the history of the hall?

If you look closely at the left part of the building, apart from the 2 obvious bricked up arch windows there are 5 more as well (difficult to see in the photo) I wondered if this was done because of the window tax.

Whats the Window Tax?
Also Kirkless Hall is on the other side of the canal to Ince, this is just further down from Top Lock and behind New Springs - so not really Ince.

It were always Ince When I were Little Ian we didn't have boundarys. The window tax is well documented (Google it) it was brought in so that people with big houses and lots of windows would pay more tax .. some folk bricked up their windows to save some dosh

Window Tax !!! this is probably where the term Daylight Robbery came from

You had to pay a sum of money for each window you had, so people bricked some of them up. There was a hearth tax too, so hearths were also bricked up if they weren't used. The hall was built in the 1660s. It was owned a number of people over the years but eventually, in the 1920s, it came into the hands of The Wigan Coal and Iron Company, whose works was further up the canal bank, and the boss,"Big Daf". a Welshman, lived there. He wasn't liked, being a bit of a bully and rotten to the workers. My friend's Grandad worked there, and it was so hot that the children of the workers were often sent by their mothers with drinks for their dads. Big Daf used to see the children with their jugs of water and wouldn't let the men go to to get them.