Carr House

Carr House
Carr House Porch, with the inscription above the door
Location within the Borough of Chorley
General information
Architectural style	Jacobean
Town or city	Bretherton
Country	England
Coordinates	53°41′13″N 2°48′54″W / 53.6869°N 2.8150°W / 53.6869; -2.8150
Construction started	1613
Client	Thomas Stone
Technical details
Structural system	Brick
Listed Building – Grade II*
Designated	22 October 1952
Reference no.	1163160

Carr House, is situated within the Bank Hall Estate, half-way between the villages of Tarleton and Much Hoole at the extreme north-west of the village of Bretherton, Lancashire, England. The building faces south to the Bretherton road, from which it stands back some distance and has a foreyard inclosed on the west side by farm buildings.

"Carr House" is the ancestral home of the Stone Family who built the house in 1613 by Thomas Stone, who was a haberdasher from London and his brother Andrew, who was a merchant from Amsterdam.

The local church of St. Michael was built in 1628 and was a gift to the people from the local villages of Croston, Much Hoole and Bretherton by Thomas and Andrew, who also built a manor house for the rector of St Michael's. John gave the church its font and his wife donated the silver goblets and plate that are still used in the church today for communion.

Andrew shipped goods to England via Hoole and Richard Stone imported Irish panel boards and timber in 1604 for the Shuttleworth family, who were then building Gawthorpe Hall, with 1,000 pieces, storing them till needed in Hoole's tithe barn.

The house was built in 1613 and the layout of the house comprises two wings to each side of a central porch. The building is built of red bricks which have weathered over the centuries to give a pleasant warm colour, with a blue-brick diaper pattern similar to work of the same period at Rufford Old Hall, Bank Hall and Hoole Church, and with stone quoins of irregular length. Externally the building has not been altered very much since construction as all the old stone mullioned windows remain as they are, therefore the brick work is unaltered. Blue slates cover the roof instead of the usual stone slabs which can be found on most of the old brick houses in Lancashire from this time period. The porch is the main feature of the front, being centrally situated, and rising to the third-story attic space.

There are ten windows on the front facade, four on the ground floor, five on the first, and one in the attic, with hood moulds; all have four panes of leaded glass, except those over the porch, which have five. Between the upper and lower windows are four vertical cuts in the brickwork which are now filled in with plaster/cement; the history behind them is said to have been a partial evasion of the window tax, the argument being that the upper and lower windows are connected, therefore counting as one. An inscription in raised letters on the stone head of the doorway reads: Thomas Stones of London haberdasher and Andrewe Stones of Amsterdam merchant hath builded this howse of their owne charges and giveth the same unto their brother John Stones: Ano domni 1613. Laus.