Ashurst’s Beacon stands atop Ashurst Hill in the parish of Dalton, West Lancashire. What is now a monument was originally constructed to be a watch tower, with men standing ready to light a warning beacon if an invasion from Napoleon’s France was imminent. Constructed in 1798, it is commonly thought to have been commissioned by William Henry Ashurst and for that reason it is more correctly called Ashurst’s Beacon (rather than Ashurst Beacon) on most local maps.
The present structure stands on a large stone built plinth, with steps up to the entrance. A square building, it once had a window on each of its three sides, with a door on the fourth, all subsequently blocked. It is topped by a four sided pyramid.
The current building is not the first to have stood on the hill. Records show that another structure of very similar design was constructed in 1701 and it is this that is probably depicted on the Yates map of 1786. It is also more than likely that there was an even earlier warning beacon on Ashurst Hill. This was made in anticipation of invasion by the Spanish Armada in 1588, and there was a similar one at Rivington Pike near Horwich. The Historic England website states enigmatically that the one at Ashurst was part of a series of beacons stretching from Everton Brow to Lancaster. The website does not give the locations of the others, but nearby Billinge Hill was a likely site in this chain.
The present watch tower was built in direct response to the threat of invasion by Napoleon Bonaparte’s forces, when Britain was at war with France, in the period of 1793-1815. Sir William Henry Ashurst was born at nearby Ashurst Hall, and was an outspoken British patriot, warning of the perils that could befall the country if people chose a revolution and republic, as they had in France. An important figure on the national stage, he was admitted in 1750 to Inner Temple (one of the four Inns of Court that a barrister has to belong to) and four years later was ‘called to the bar’ (meaning he became a fully qualified lawyer). In 1770 he was made Serjeant (a special rank for senior lawyers), and that same year became a judge on the King’s Bench.
William was at great pains to warn the public of the dangers of the French Revolution. There were those in England that thought a similar event should occur here, and he attacked their ideas as “absurd, nonsensical and pernicious. “ He called the sympathisers to the revolutionary cause “seditious reformers with dark and gloomy hearts who wished to inflict on Britain the miseries of republican France”.
In a charge to the Grand Jury of Middlesex in 1792 he was moved to state: “There is no nation in the world that can boast a more perfect system of government than that under which we live…I trust your minds will be impressed with these ideas, and that you will be assiduous in supporting our present form of government“. This response happened soon after the September Massacres in France, when revolutionary crowds broke in to French prisons and gave instant ‘trials’ to captives within, many of whom were then executed. The prisoners were those who were seen as suspected anti-revolutionaries, including Royalist sympathisers to the French crown, nobles, political prisoners and Catholic priests. William’s speech was printed by the Society for Preserving Liberty and Property against Republicans and Levellers and gained widespread distribution and readership. That he should donate money to create the watch tower on Ashurst Hill near to his ancestral home some six years later, is a plausible connection.
Fortunately, French soldiers never invaded. The superiority of the British Navy meant that Napoleon’s forces would be severely outgunned in the English Channel, despite having amassed a large land army in French ports. The defenders of Ashurst’s Beacon never had to light their warning fire, and William Ashurst died in Oxfordshire in 1807, two years after Britain’s naval defeat of France at the Battle of Trafalgar.
Ashurst’s Beacon has remained an important place in the landscape and has been a focus of meetings and celebrations over the ensuing years. Bonfires were lit at both Queen Victoria’s Golden Jubilee in 1887 and King George’s Silver Jubilee in 1935. A total eclipse of the Sun was viewed by two thousand people from the site in 1927, gathering at 5.30 am for the spectacle.
One of the most significant moves to protect the monument was the purchase of 60 acres of Ashurst Hill by Thomas Meadows, the editor of the Wigan Observer, in the 1920s. As a member of the Council for the Protection of Rural England (CPRE) he paid to have the monument repaired twice in the following decade.
In 1937 Vyvyan Adams MP gave an address organised by the League of Nations Union (South West Lancashire Branches) at which “The presence and support of all interested in Peace Building will be esteemed“. The accompanying notice that advertised the event stated that a collection would be taken on the day to “defray expenses”. Two years later and the beauty of the hill was under threat by the Lancashire Electric Power Company who wished to build an overhead power line to Dalton Parish. CPRE swung in to action, and the plans were changed.
At his death aged 85 in 1956, Thomas Meadows left the land and the monument to his wife Sophia Florence. She gave 17 acres and the beacon to Wigan Corporation on the understanding that the hill would not be built on for either slum clearances or encroached by the new town of Skelmersdale. She passed away ten years later, and a formal ceremony subsequently took place the same year in which a plaque dedicated to both her and her husband was fixed above the doorway. It was unveiled by their daughter and son, in the presence of the Mayor of Wigan, the Town Clerk, Borough Treasurer and representatives of Dalton Parish Council and Wigan Rural District Council. The following year Ashurst’s Beacon was given Grade II listed status, perhaps because just four years earlier there had been the threat of coal mining on the hill.
In 1988 as part of the 400th Anniversary celebrations of the Spanish Armada, some 5000 people congregated on the site. Jugglers, fire eaters, sideshows and barbecues were all enjoyed by the those that attended. Ashurst Hill and Ashurst’s Beacon are now part of Up Holland Beacon Country Park, which has had Green Flag status since 2007 in recognition for its high quality sustainable environment and community engagement. There is a visitors centre, toilets, café and free car park in the country park (see Access details below).
Site visited by A. Bowden, J. Board and H. Gourlay 2026
Access
Park at Beacon Country Park in Up Holland. There is no charge for parking at the time of writing- 2026. There is also a visitors centre with cafe and toilets by the car park.
There is a path from the car park over the former golf course to Ashurst’s Beacon. OS Map Co-ordinates 501 079.
Nearby
References
Past Forward Issue No. 83 Dec 2019- March 2020, Dr Stephen Craig Smith. This excellent range of magazines gives details of the history of Wigan and Leigh. They can be downloaded as free pdf files here
Historic England website: Ashurst’s Beacon historicengland.org.uk/listing/the-list/list-entry/1361833?section=official-list-entry
Historic England website: Ashurst’s Beacon, Ashurst Hill, Dalton, Lancashire historicengland.org.uk/education/schools-resources/educational-images/ashursts-beacon-ashurst-hill-dalton-lancashire-ioe01-00739-10
Visual Arts Data Service: Ashurst Beacon vads.ac.uk/digital/collection/PMSA/id/396/
westlancs.gov.uk/leisure-recreation/parks-and-countryside/parks-and-countryside-sites/beacon-country-park-up-holland.aspx