In search of Worsley mysteries …….. two halls….. five old pictures and …. an enigmatic clue

I am not a fan of those stories of mysterious and dark goings on in old halls, which at best leave the ghost of some tragic figure wandering the corridors or at worse stamp the place with a curse which rings down the centuries.

The Hall circa 1896-8

And on our visits to Worsley Old Hall nothing untoward has befallen us, other than the singing man in the lavatory whose mastery of the 1-minute aria from La bohème was astonishing.

The food and the service has been excellent, and Rosa from Milan always asks to go back.

Now, I must confess I only vaguely knew of the Hall’s existence until our Ben and Lindsey took us there a few years ago and since then we often drop in for a leisurely midday meal. *

My Wikipedia tells me that it is "a public house and restaurant in Worsley, Greater Manchester, England. It is recorded in the National Heritage List for England as a designated Grade II listed building," dates from the 16th or 17th centuries and has undergone several additions before becoming a pub in 1930.

The Hall "in the show", circa 1896-98

Added to which “the hall is of particular historical importance because it was here that Francis Egerton, the 3rd Duke of Bridgewater, James Brindley and John Gilbert planned the Bridgewater Canal and supervised its building”.

And it serves up an excellent Cheshire cheese, onion and potato pie, served up with buttered greens, and redcurrant gravy.

But as far as I know there are no restless spirits or dark stories of treachery, unfilled promises and strange sudden deaths.

That said my friend Phil Portus has presented with a mystery, which comes in the form of five old images of Worsley and Wardley Hall, which he tells me .  “A while ago friends who lives in the old house opposite the Moor Allerton prep school found these somewhere in the house and gave me 5 old half plate glass negs to me as I'm a photographer. 

I'd forgotten about them and found them when clearing out stuff.  Here is a quick inverted phone shot on my light table”.

Wardley Hall, circa 1896-98

They are undated, of mixed quality but are a fascinating record of the two halls sometime in the late 19th century.

That said what I thought at first was a shot of Worsley Hall may not be so.

The connfusion arose because of a reference to the Hall on a faded typed card which offers up details of the images, how to process them, and the name J.T. Sandell along with the word Halation which a source describes as “a photographic effect that can add a sense of nostalgia and warmth to a photograph or video. 

It is often associated with the look of film and can be used to give digital images a more analog feel. 

You can achieve this type of "bloom" or halation through diffusion filters for your camera lens”***

I hadn’t expected to track Mr. Sandell’s down assuming he was a local photographer in the Salford or Manchester area.

But not so, he was from South Norwood in London, pioneered a new photographic process, but died in near poverty in 1906.****

The clue, circa 1896-98

According to another source he established his own company in 1896, in Norwood Junction, South Norwood, which folded two years later, “the firm produced dry plates and later films, specialising in multi-coated plates and Cristoid films. Sandell Works Co. went into receivership in June 1898, its interests were taken over by Sandell Films & Plates Ltd (capital £10,000). J.T. Sandell (d. 1907) ended his links with the company in 1902. 

T.K. Grant worked for the company until 1901 as a sales representative.

References: Phot. Dealer Jun/1898, p. 148. Phot. Dealer Mar/1899 p. 69. Article in Phot. Dealer Jun/1902 p. 143 on Sandell. Phot. Dealer Nov/1902 p. 276. BJP 21/6/1901, p. 396.”*****

Between them the two “Sandell” sites include more information, along with a picture of our man and a poster.

So, I suppose that goes some way to explain the Worsley mystery, offering up a date range for our pictures and possible identity for the photographer, all of which means our next visit to the Worsley Old Hall will have the added bonus of knowing we are eating in a place with a bit of photographic history.

And my task will be to match the image s with the Hall thereby confirming or not that Mr. Sundell passed this way.

Another of Wardley Hall, circa 1896-98

Location, Worsley 

Pictures, Worsley Old Hall, and Wardley Hall, circa 1896-8, from the collection of Ron Marsden and Clare Debenham. courtesy of Phil Portus, http://www.philportus.co.uk/

*Worsley Old Hall, https://www.brunningandprice.co.uk/worsleyoldhall/

** Worsley Old Hall, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Worsley_Old_Hall

***Fstoppers, https://fstoppers.com/guest/use-halation-624893#:~:text=Halation%20is%20a%20photographic%20effect,filters%20for%20your%20camera%20lens.

****J.T. Sandell, Historic Camera, http://historiccamera.com/cgi-bin/librarium2/pm.cgi?action=app_display&app=datasheet&app_id=2707

**** Sandell, Early Photography, http://www.earlyphotography.co.uk/site/companies4.html