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Ancient settlement

The University is located on an area known as Bailrigg, a hamlet within what used to be the village of Scotforth, which lies two miles south of Lancaster. The name Bailrigg has two possible meanings, it signifies either a living space or something that is adjacent to a ridge or boundary. ‘Bal’ and ‘Balla’ means an abode and ‘Bail’ signifies a certain limit in a forest. The suffix ‘rigge’ means ridge or raised ground.

There was a Romano-British settlement under what later became Barkers House Farm, now part of Cartmel College.

The vast majority of what became the campus was part of Bailrigg Moor, a rough grazing land that the farmers in Scotforth had common rights to until 1809 when the site was improved.

Bigforth farm and the fields to the north-west of the site were already in existence at this time. The name ‘Bigforth’ represents the old Norse ‘bygg-thveit’ which translated into modern English means barley clearing. This would suggest that the farm originated in the period of Scandinavian colonisation between the tenth and the twelfth centuries. Bigforth Drive, the main road up to the Lancaster Campus, takes its name from the old farm.

Bailrigg in the early 19th century

The landscape altered dramatically after 1809 when Joshua Hinde created rectangular fields of pasture on the former moor.

Hinde (1761-1825) was part of large Lancastrian slave-trading family, he sold cargoes of enslaved people landed by English slave ships in the then West-Indies (Caribbean), worked as the manager of a sugar plantation in Grenada, and invested in a slave ship with his cousins. The wealth Hinde acquired through the slavery business enabled him to enclose former moorland and turn Bailrigg into a private agricultural estate.

While the University has no direct connection to the Hinde family, it is important to acknowledge the history of the ownership of the land on which the campus now sits. Since 2020, staff and students have been working with Lancaster Black History Group to acknowledge this history.

The fields were likely subject to paring, burning, re-seeding and field drainage to improve their quality. This was done at the height of the Napoleonic wars, so Hinde probably aimed to improve the land in order to increase food production during a time of shortages and high prices.

By 1833, the land had been developed extensively, largely through the plantation of a shelterbelt of woodland on top of the hill which would become the west side of the new campus.

As a 'sporting estate' in the mid-nineteenth century

By 1841, the whole Bigforth estate had passed to William Treasure Redmayne of Amwell, originally from Bury in Hertfordshire.

Leonard Redmayne (William’s father) raised himself from an obscure position to the head of the firm of Gillows. He was also one of the first directors of the Lancaster Banking Company. He was Mayor of Lancaster in 1842 and died in 1869. William Treasure Redmayne was Leonard’s only son. William, a Deputy Lieutenant of Lancashire, died in London on 30 November 1849, aged 42 years.

William Treasure Redmayne was likely responsible for the conversion of the site into a sporting estate. The framework of woodland had been planted as cover for game, and parts of this have survived to the present day.

New money, new landscapes

In 1887, the estate was purchased by Sir Thomas Storey. On his death in 1897, it passed to his son, Herbert Lushington Storey. At that time, the estate comprised of 523 acres of land and three farms, Hazelrigg, Bigforth and Bailrigg, and Burrow House.

The field boundaries in front of Bailrigg House were removed to create an area of parkland. Some of the fields adjoining the house were used to create kitchen gardens, a cricket pitch and a lawn tennis court. The existing framework of the woodland plantations was retained but the construction of a gentleman’s residence necessitated the estate’s conversion from open fields into a domestic pleasure ground in the style of a typical Edwardian county house. So, for instance, the farmstead was moved from Bigforth to Farm and an ornamental and fishing lake was built. This is now named Lake Carter, after the first Vice-Chancellor of the University.

The Storey Family

The twentieth century

In 1921, the land and estate were sold at auction and purchased by Townley Parker. The sale catalogue for the estate and Bailrigg mansion gives a vivid impression of what the house was like, as do the pictures of the house’s interior. The auction catalogue and map of the estate can be viewed in the Special Collections and Archives in the Library.

By the time of the 1930s Ordnance Survey map, the estate had all the features of a small, landed estate.

In 1961 Barton Townley was leasing the house, and he was approached by Don Waddell, Lancaster Town Clerk, with an offer of £50,000 to give up the mansion and the estate so that it could be used for the Lancashire County Council bid to the University Grants Committee.

Bigforth farm consisted of around 200 acres. Later, 50 acres at Hazelrigg Farm were bought, and then 90 acres at Bakers Farm in 1967. The area of land chosen as the site of the new university was a rich tapestry of copses, small patches of water and grassland with a number of stone farmhouses and buildings typical of north Lancashire and the Lake District. During the construction process, many of the belts of woodland along the north and east sides of the campus were preserved and can still be seen today.