Old Hall Inn, LANCASTER, Lancashire

The Old Hall is the oldest dwelling in the Borough of Morecambe and Heysham for it was built in 1598 by Robert Edmondson Senior and his son Robert Edmondson Junior. The old Manor House, Heysham Hall, was once part of the Hornby Castle Estate. The Edmondson family held the Hall until the later part of the 17th Century, the next tenant being Sam Bailey of the 9th Light Dragoons.

Eventually, after many changes of ownership, Reverend C. T. Royds took the Hall in 1888 and carried out the much needed renovations. During the alterations, Priest Hole was discovered with a passage between the inner walls and beneath the floor.

A secret opening was also discovered in the floor of the West wing. It communicated with the left chimney breast of the huge fireplace and also with the interior of a buttress outside the home. This gave a hidden stairway up into attics and it also afforded entrance to an underground passage leading out of the grounds.

This fine Elizabethan House was sold to Mitchell Barker, a brewer of Lancaster, who remodeled the interior and converted the premises into a hotel. All the alterations, purchase and transfer of the licence covered a period of three years and was eventually opened in September 1958.