Ordsall Hall has been through many lives over the years – country manor, working men's club, a school for clergy, and a radio station. As such, there isn’t much of a collection there that relates to former owners or occupiers.

That was until 2011 when these portraits were found in an outbuilding of a farm in Cumbria. The owner, a descendent of the Markendales, donated them to the Hall where they had hung, 160 years before. One portrait has already been conserved and Ordsall Hall is currently looking to raise the funds to restore the other. Up close, you can see right through it – it would be super if Mary Markendale’s picture could hang in pride of place in the Hall once again, some day.