About
Damhouse is a listed manor house standing in seventeen acres of woodland at Astley, on the edge of Tyldesley, and it survives against considerable odds. The manorial site here goes back to the medieval period, with a Tyldesley recorded holding it in the early thirteenth century, and the oldest fabric of the present building belongs to the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, when it was the seat of the Mort family — whose name the charity that now owns it still carries.
What happened to the house afterwards is the more unusual part of the story. Like a good many minor gentry houses in the industrial belt, it ceased to be a private residence and was absorbed into institutional use, serving as part of a hospital and, for a long period, as an isolation hospital treating infectious disease. Generations of local people knew the building not as a manor house but as somewhere you went, or were sent, when you were seriously ill. By the late twentieth century it was empty and decaying.
It was rescued by the Morts Astley Heritage Trust, a local charity that took full possession in 1999 and completed a restoration by the end of 2000, opening the grounds and woodland to the public the following spring. The house today functions as a heritage building, a tea room, and a set of offices and meeting rooms — a working combination that keeps the roof on.
Visitors should understand the access model before travelling. The grounds and woodland are open, the tea room operates through the week, and the ground floor carries displays of photographs and memorabilia recording the house's descent from manor to hospital and its rescue. The historic top floor, with its short passage long gallery and its ancient roof timbers, opens only on Heritage Open Days or by pre-booked guided tour.
It is not a museum in the conventional sense, and it does not claim to be. It is a rescued building that tells its own story, with tea. Set expectations accordingly and it is a rewarding hour: a building that has been a manor, a hospital and very nearly a ruin, kept going by a charity and a tea urn.
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Plan Your Visit
⏱️ Recommended Visit Duration
💡 Visitor Tips
- Understand the access model before travelling: the tea room, ground-floor displays and woodland are open regularly, but the historic top floor is not.
- To see the long gallery and roof timbers, either book a guided tour in advance or come during the September Heritage Open Days weekend.
- Damhouse is a working venue for meetings and functions as well as a heritage building, so ring or email ahead if you want to be sure of what will be open.
- The grounds are open access and free, and make a decent short walk in their own right if the house is busy.
- Parking is free and immediately beside the house, which makes this an easy visit by car.
- Astley Green Colliery Museum is about twenty minutes' walk away and pairs naturally with Damhouse for a half day in Astley.
- The woodland paths are unsurfaced and get muddy; sensible footwear is worth having even if you only intend to look at the house.
- No telephone number or email is published on the Trust's website, so contact is via the website's own enquiry route.
Highlights
The Long Gallery and Roof Timbers
The most architecturally significant part of the building is its historic top floor, where a short passage long gallery survives with a great deal of early roof timber still in place. Long galleries were the display spaces of gentry houses, used for walking, exercise and the exhibition of family standing, and to find one surviving in a building that spent much of the twentieth century as a hospital is a considerable piece of luck.
It is accessible only on Heritage Open Days or by pre-booked guided tour, which makes it the part of the visit worth planning around.
The timbers are best seen in daylight rather than on a winter afternoon.
From Manor House to Isolation Hospital
The ground-floor displays of photographs and memorabilia trace the building's descent from gentry residence to institutional use, and its long service as part of a hospital treating infectious disease. This is the strand of the story that local visitors respond to most strongly, because within living memory the building was an isolation hospital and many families in Astley and Tyldesley have a connection to it.
It is also a valuable record of how tuberculosis and infectious disease were managed before antibiotics, when isolation and fresh air were the principal treatments available.
Former patients and staff still visit, and their recollections have shaped the displays.
The Mort Family and the Manor of Astley
The house takes its charitable trust's name from the Mort family, who held Astley through the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries and were responsible for much of the surviving fabric. Before them the manorial descent runs back to the early thirteenth century and a Tyldesley recorded as holding the estate in 1212.
The displays set out this succession and place Damhouse within the pattern of minor Lancashire gentry families whose houses were built for local standing rather than for grandeur, and which were consequently the most vulnerable to later institutional conversion.
The Morts were clothiers and coal owners as well as landholders.
The Rescue and Restoration
By the late twentieth century Damhouse was empty and decaying, on the standard path from disuse to demolition that removed a great many similar buildings across industrial Lancashire. The Morts Astley Heritage Trust, a local charity, took full possession in 1999, completed a restoration within about eighteen months and opened the building at the end of 2000, with the grounds and woodland following the next spring.
The displays covering this rescue are worth attention as a case study in what a determined local trust can achieve without a national institution behind it.
The whole restoration took under two years, which is remarkably quick.
Collections
Damhouse is a rescued building rather than a collecting institution, and its principal exhibit is the house itself: early fabric of the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, a surviving short passage long gallery with ancient roof timbers on the top floor, and the alterations made during its long institutional use.
Around this the Morts Astley Heritage Trust has assembled displays of photographs, documents and memorabilia recording the manorial history of Astley, the Mort family, the building's conversion to hospital and isolation hospital use, the experiences of those treated and employed there, and the restoration campaign of 1999 and 2000.
The seventeen acres of surrounding woodland and garden form part of the site.
Interpretation is concentrated on the ground floor, with the historically significant upper floor accessible only by guided tour or on Heritage Open Days.
The Story of Damhouse
Ground-floor displays of photographs and memorabilia covering the manorial history of Astley, the Mort family, the house's years as part of a hospital and isolation hospital, and its restoration by the Trust.
The Historic House
The surviving early fabric of the building, including the top-floor long gallery and roof timbers, shown on guided tours and during Heritage Open Days.
Themes
Time Periods
Current Exhibitions
No current exhibitions. Please check the museum website for updates.