Relic legendFamous
The Skull of Ambrose Barlow
A saint on the stair.
Private, don't visit
- What's there
- Moated hall, skull in a niche
- Legend from
- Salford
- Tone
- Spooky
Never move the skull.
Ambrose Barlow, a Catholic priest, often said Mass at Wardley Hall. He was executed at Lancaster in 1641, and his head was shown on a spike in Manchester. The Downes family got the skull, and it is kept in a niche at the top of the stairs. Harland and Wilkinson tell how attempts to remove it brought terrible storms.