Smithills Hall is a medieval manor house on the northern edge of Bolton, one of the oldest surviving domestic buildings in Lancashire. The earliest parts date from the fourteenth century, and the hall was extended and modified over the following three hundred years, producing the characteristically irregular black-and-white timbered building that stands today. It was lived in continuously as a private residence until the twentieth century, when it passed to the local authority and was opened as a museum.
The interior preserves the original Great Hall with its open timber roof, a withdrawing room with sixteenth-century panelling, and a series of period rooms that give a good impression of domestic life across several centuries of occupation. The hall sits within a country park — a substantial area of meadows, woodland, and streams that provides good walking on the edge of the West Pennine Moors. The combination of the historic house and the surrounding landscape makes Smithills a considerably more atmospheric visit than most heritage sites of its type.