Hurst Grange Park is one of South Ribble's 3 major parks. The largest park in Penwortham, it is located between Hill Road and Cop Lane. The former estate of Hurst Grange Mansion is now an attractive landscape of specimen trees, ponds and wildflower meadows.
The site has retained a prestigious Green Flag Award every year since 2005.
Car and cycle parking
Free car and cycle parking is available.
Park facilities
- children's playground
- woodlands, wildflower meadows and ponds
- new café (coming soon)
- new public toilets (coming soon)
- new visitor centre (coming soon)
History of Hurst Grange Park
Hurst Grange was created as the estate of a Lancashire judge, William Adam Hulton, who built a large house including coach house and stables buildings and laid out the landscaped parkland in 1848. At this time Penwortham was attracting many wealthy residents preferring to live in rural settings away from the smoke, noise and bustle of the rapidly industrialising town of Preston and led to construction of many genteel high-quality residences which continue to contribute to the area's character today.
Following William Adam Hulton's death in 1887 with no male heirs to inherit the house, Hurst Grange was bought by John Forshaw, a solicitor from Preston. The exact date of purchase is unknown, but he and his family were resident by the census of 1891. John Forshaw added the gate lodge on Hill Road in around 1890-95 and occupied Hurst Grange until his death in 1921. It is not known how long his wife, Hester, continued to live there following the death of her husband, but her death was recorded in 1929 at Belsize Gardens, Middlesex, possible the home of one of her children.
It appears that the Grange was then unoccupied for a number of years with the estate's Coachman, William Ravenscroft, resident in the gate lodge and acting as caretaker. In 1936 the Preston Rural District Council began the process of purchasing an area of land as an area of public green space that now forms part of the park. The following year an assessment of the Grange is recorded as finding it in poor repair and by May 1938 the building had been demolished.
Further details of the history of the park can be found in 'A History of Hurst Grange Park' by E. Basquill available from the Friends of Hurst Grange Park.
Hurst Grange Park address
Hill Road, Penwortham, Preston, PR1 9XH.