The Ridges, a Georgian house, was built in the late 1700' s by local landowners the Standish-Langtree family and has had only a handful of owners since then.

In the mid 1800's it was owned by a local mill owner and in 1880 was bought by John Haslem Gillett a wealthy cotton mill owner, with many mills around Lancashire.

The walled garden was planted with fruit trees and much of the six acres of land was developed into landscaped gardens and lawns, including many different species of rhododendrons, with woodlands surrounding it on three sides. This made the gardens very sheltered.

The Gillett family owned the house and gardens until the end of the 1940's when it was put up for auction. It was then that Barbara Barlow's parents bought it ( Barbara & husband John are the present owners) and it has been in her family since then.

Barbara's mother was a keen gardener but spent most of her time growing vegetables in the kitchen garden, whilst her husband mowed the lawns (he wasn't too keen).

In 1984 Barbara & husband, John plus their four children moved back to the family home after Barbara's father died because her mother was finding it difficult to manage the big house and gardens on her own. The property was divided into three separate parts being shared by Barbara, her mother and one of her brothers.

Barbara began to develop her part of the garden, this being half of the kitchen garden and one of the formal lawns. She concentrated on developing wide borders in the kitchen garden, planting with many different perennials, but keeping the same layout with the original brick pathways forming the basic structure
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Surrounding the large formal lawn she planted new shrubs and ornamental trees with various coloured leaves,complimenting their foliage with the original hollies, copper beech, and rhododendrons.

By 1994, having completed the bringing up of her family, Barbara decided she would like to try to restore the gardens. Being positioned to the rear and left hand side of the house and surrounded on the other sides by woodland the gardens were very sheltered, which allowed her to grow of an exceptionally wide variety of plants, creating an eclectic mix of styles ranging from almost chaotic to the more formal.

In the walled garden area , the old kitchen garden, she decided to mix perennials, complimenting not just flower colour but also their leaves, both colour and shape. Each year since then, a new feature was developed within this part of the garden and the large formal lawn has become a little smaller with new features added here too.

In 2004 Barbara's mother died (94 years old )and now Barbara and husband John own all the house and gardens. Today they are busily restoring the woodlands, which were previously included in her mothers part of the garden, clearing overgrown areas, creating interesting pathways and replanting with specimen trees and shade loving plants whilst retaining areas that are still carpeted with bluebells.