Blundles Fold was the residence of Joseph Harrison, Ellen Ball, and their children from about 1857 to 1862. In fact, Joseph and Ellen may have settled here when they first married in 1855. Joseph and Ellen had two children at Blundles Fold: Elizabeth born in 1858 and Henry (Henry Harold’s father) born in 1860.
Ellen Ball’s grandparents, Henry and Betty, and some of their family members also settled at Blundles Fold when they were obliged to leave Heywood Farm sometime in the late 1850s. It is possible that the Harrisons and the Balls moved to Blundles Fold together. It is also possible that the Balls went to live with the Harrisons when they were forced out of Heywoods.
Either way, Blundles Fold was the residence of 11 ancestors of Henry Harold Harrison at the time of the 1861 census. These included his father Henry Harrison, his grandparents Joseph Harrison and Ellen Ball, and his great-grandparents Henry Ball and Elizabeth Ormishaw, his uncle Edward, and his aunt Elizabeth. James Ball, the widowed son of Henry and Betty, also lived there as did three of Henry and Betty’s grandchildren.
The Harrison – Ball clan had left Blundles Fold by the end of 1863. Henry and Betty passed away that year. Joseph and Ellen had moved to Wigan.
In total the 1861 census enumerated 52 people in six families at Blundles Fold, including the Harrisons and Balls. Therefore there were several dwellings at that address (we have not found a good definition of a “fold.”) Blundles Fold does not appear on any historic maps of Blackrod and therefore we do not know its precise location. However it was almost certainly located along Arley Lane (east of Arley Hall) or its continuation, Blundell Lane. A property known as Blundell House is shown on the old survey maps but is not enumerated in the 1861 census and so may have been the property in question. Blundell House was about 2km east of Heywood Farm.
Today there is a farm called Blundell House Farm located off Blundell Lane, however this was probably not the location of Blundles Fold. The property known as Blundell House in 1850 is now called Croftons on the gate and Hollins Head on recent maps.