On this day … 31 October 1809

An indenture of that date provided details of the hospital at Goosnargh funded by the proceeds of the will of William Bushell, who died in 1735, and after whom the hospital was named. In his will he stipulated that should his daughter Elizabeth die childless under the age of twenty-one, he would leave:

‘… all his real estate whatsoever, except certain lands in Heysham, to William Atherton and five others, their heirs and assigns, upon trust, to dispose of the clear yearly rents and profits of the said premises, in maintaining, supporting, and providing for decayed gentlemen and gentlewomen, or persons of the better rank of both or either sex, inhabitants of the towns or townships of Preston, Euxton, Goosnargh, Whittingham, Fulwood, and Elston, in the county of Lancaster, being Protestants, in a house or hospital to be provided in Goosnargh, where he then resided …’

He further stipulated that:

‘… no person being a papist, or anyone who should have received any relief out of the rates of the poor of the said respective towns or townships, should be capable of receiving any benefit from this his intended charity.’

Elizabeth died in 1745, childless and having not reached the age of twenty-one. Dr Bushell’s old house in Goosnargh was then converted into a hospital.

William Bushell owned property all round Preston that included Avenham House, in the garden of which Bushell Place was later built.

He also owned properties in Friargate, where, somewhat surprisingly given his stipulation against papists, he leased property at the bottom of the street which included a building described in Preston’s 1732 Poor Tax Survey as the ‘Papists Chapel’. This was the town’s first Catholic Chapel since the Reformation.

A report by the Charity Commissioners in 1824, valued the Bushell estate, excluding the Goosnargh hospital and adjoining land, at and annual rental of £855 8s. 6d. The most valuable properties would have been those in Preston, for some of which the Earl of Derby paid an annual rent of £112 on a ninety-nine-year lease granted in 1790.

According to Charles Hardwick in his History of Preston, the commissioners, with an eye to the growing prosperity of the town, stated that:

‘…these leases appear to have been granted upon equitable terms, but owing to the gradual improvement in value, by the extension of the town, and the erection of buildings, etc. upon some of the sites, this property may be estimated, on the falling in of the leases in 1889, at from £700 to £800 per annum. Should the town continue to extend at the present ratio till the conclusion of the century, even this calculation will be far beneath the actual increased value.’

Hardwick writing in the 1850s, noted that the annual rents had risen to between £1,500 and £1,600, and the hospital was then housing thirty inmates. He added the following:

‘The hospital at Goosnargh bears not the slightest resemblance to an ordinary charitable foundation. The buildings and grounds are suggestive of a gentleman’s mansion rather than a “hospital” or asylum of any kind. The inmates are treated with courtesy and respectful consideration, calculated to render the “decayed gentlemen and gentlewomen” as happy in the decline of life as circumstances will permit. The Rev. Canon Raines justly characterises this establishment as “one of the finest foundations in the county”.’