HALE DUCK DECOY GAMEKEEPERS

The Friends of Pickerings Pasture have attempted to compile a list of known or reported gamekeepers, who worked at Hale Duck Decoy in the past, as part of a Lottery Heritage Initiative grant. The gamekeepers all worked for the various owners of Hale Hall, who also owned the Decoy. They had other duties on the estate, as well as at the Decoy and, at times, we have the names of several gamekeepers who had duties on the estate, over an overlapping period of time, which would suggest a shared responsibility based on there being a head gamekeeper, with underkeepers under his orders. We assume that all the Hale Estate gamekeepers would have done some work on the Decoy.

The following gamekeepers worked for the Ireland Blackburne family.

1784 William Laycock ( HC register)

1789 Thomas Harrison (HC register)

1809 Thomas Gill (HC register)

1813 Thomas Harrison (HC register)

1819 John Smith (HC register)

1821 Hugh Walker (HC register)

1825 William Clayton (HC register)

1841 Richard Pee (Census aged 36)

1851 Peter Jones (Census aged 32)

1860 William Beaven

1861 George Ford (Census aged 26)

1861 James Unsworth (Became gamekeeper aged 30)

1871 James Unsworth (Photo with his dog Jack)

1871 George Ford (Census aged 36)

1871 John Murray (Census aged 29)

1881 George Ford (Census aged 46 and Head Gamekeeper)

1881 Jonathan Mole (Gamekeeper in Hale and Halebank 1881-1908)

1891 Joseph Dixon (Census aged 58)

1891 Jonathan Mole (Census aged 49)

1891 Herbert Mole (Census aged 14 and Gamekeepers Boy)

1896 George Mole (Gamekeeper till 1914)

1901 Harry Mole (Aged 15, continued till 1919)

1917 Mr Leach (Widnes Weekly News)

We have no records at this time of the earliest gamekeepers. There may well have been records, kept at Hale Hall, that were destroyed in a great fire there. Most of the information gathered by the FoPP is from Census Records and the Hale Chapel Register, with the help of Laurie Morgan. We also held a Memories Event, where we invited the public to share information that they had with us.

The following gamekeepers are believed to have worked for the Fleetwood- Hesketh family

1939    Mr Moore

1950's Harry Mole (Returned as Gamekeeper)

1960's Bob Wyllie (Widnes Weekly News article Nov 24^th 1961)

1960's Joseph Leather (Temporary Gamekeeper)

Later in the 1960's the Decoy was left derelict for some years.

1970's Alfred Stonehouse (Stand-in Gamekeeper)

1970's Tom Leaks

Peter Fleetwood-Hesketh gave a group of local people permission to warden the Decoy

1975 Robert Cockbain, George Threlfall and Malcolm Lord

Meetings took place to develop the Decoy as a Nature Reserve. It was leased to Cheshire County Council and sub leased to Cheshire Conservation Trust and Lancashire Naturalists (Wildlife Trust). It was in the 1980s that the Gamekeepers Cottage, as we see it today, was built, using reclaimed materials. In 1990 flooding caused considerable damage on the site and in 2000 the lease was taken over by Halton Borough Council. A Lottery Fund Grant of £45,000 helped to restore the Decoy to the condition you find it in today. In 2007, Robert Cockbain is still acting as a voluntary warden of the Decoy.

If you have new or more accurate information that you could share with us, the FoPP would be very pleased to add it to our Decoy archive material.