Historic farmhouse is set to get new owner

Grade II Hawksclough at Clayton-le-Woods, where priests celebrated Mass in the 1700s, was put on the market for in excess of £275,000 - with the potential to be a million pound house in 2017.

A buyer from Bolton is said have snapped it up. And a stone barn, with an asking price of £200,000, within the farmhouse grounds is also set to be sold to someone from Leyland.

Chorley-based estate agent Peter Gilkes, who has been marketing the property, said: “It’s progressing. We’ve got a buyer for the farmhouse and we’ve got a buyer for the stone barn and someone is interested in the brick-built stable and store.”

The properties are in secluded woodland. The farmhouse contains a number of intriguing and historical features and fittings. It has exposed wooden beams and includes a small priest’s robing room with ecclesiastical carved wooden panels.

The house was occupied in early eighteenth century by the Burgess family - descendants of the 16th century bailiff to Townleys of Burnley - whose home was used for Catholic Mass during penal times until the opening of St Bede’s Church in Clayton-le-Woods in 1824.

Some historians believe William Shakespeare helped to shelter Roman Catholics when he lived for a time at Hoghton Tower. The Hoghton family, who lived at the Hoghton Tower for hundreds of years, were staunch Catholics.