HISTORY: Gannow House was built around 1797 for the canal engineer Samuel Fletcher
EVEN folk born and bred in the West End of Burnley can be forgiven for not knowing where Gannow House is – as it’s tucked away like a little secret.
You’ll spot it through the gap on the left of Gannow Lane just after the first row of houses and before the former Grey Mare Inn.
It’s a substantial building built of local stone with a number of outhouses once used as stables, a coach house and a cottage.
In 1851 the cottage at Gannow House was the home of Burnley’s first MP Richard Shaw.
Gannow House was built around 1797 for the canal engineer Samuel Fletcher.
Its close proximity to Gannow tunnel suggests that Samuel was connected with the construction of that and other works on the canal around that area.
Today a Grade II listed building, I believe that in the mid 1850s the property belonged to local colliery owners Hargreaves Collieries.
I say this because the house was advertised in 1856 to be let when any prospective tenant was asked to contact Elijah Helm or Mr Waddington of North Parade, Burnley. It was Elijah Helm who cut the first sod of Bank Hall Colliery in the 1860s and the Waddington family were well known in the local coal mining industry.
By the early 1870s it was home to James Temple, a cotton manufacturer.
He employed 240 hands at his Rosegrove Mill, which worked under the title of Temple and Sutcliffe.
The names were derived after James married Mary Ann Sutcliffe at St John’s the Divine at Cliviger in 1854. The mill was on the right hand side of Gannow Lane after the canal bridge going towards Rosegrove. Gannow House was again advertised to be let in 1874 and I think on this occasion it was taken by Mr Wilkinson who opened a portrait gallery there.
Others rented it until, by the 1970s, the house had become a common lodging house, owned by the Critchleys who operated a scrap metal yard there.
With the coming of the M65, the council declared that it was not a good image to be seen from the new motorway and ordered it to be closed down. When it did, my father bought some of the furniture at an auction and I went with him to help collect it one day.
I remember having to force open one of the doors to a tiny bedroom and was astonished to find the floor covered in Woodbine cigarette packets – to the height of the bed.
After that the house became a ruin and was in danger of being demolished until local joiner David Baxter purchased it in 1979 and spent a year renovating it.