Buildings of Interest

Description

“Thornfield”, at 140 Wigan Road, Bryn, served for over a century as both doctor's surgery and family home. It was built in 1895 for Henry Winstanley, afterwards a town councillor, surgeon/physician and council medical officer. Henry's daughter Dorothy and son-in-law George Alexander Fulton both qualified as medical practitioners and raised their children at Thornfield. In 1957 George took into partnership a newly qualified doctor, Norman Trevor Burnett. Thornfield became, in turn, the Burnett family home and workplace until Dr Burnett's widow sold the property a decade or so after her husband's death in 2002.

In Dr Burnett's time the consulting rooms were in an annexe at the back of the property, patients entering via a side entrance on the right as viewed from Wigan Road. Dr Winstanley's original coach-house, with stabling for a horse, still stands alongside. Some original interior features, such as the decorative corbels in the main hallway, are also preserved.

Images and text by The Makerfield Rambler