Buile Hill Park Buile Hill. After the end of the war, and an amount of refurbishment, the park reopened to the public in 1948. In 1963, a garden for the blind opened, and in 1972 Pets Corner. People noted to have visited the park include Pendlebury artist L.S. Lowry, a local rent collector, and author Frances Hodgson Burnett who wrote her classic children's novel "The Secret Garden" during one of her many visits to the estate house. In 1975 the Lancashire Museum of Mining opened in the house, closed in 2000, after which the house was proposed to be renovated as a conference
Frances Hodgson Burnett stressed the age difference—Townsend was ten years younger than she—and she referred to him as her secretary. Biographer Ann Thwaite doubts he loved her. She claims at that time the 50-year-old Burnett was "stout, rouged and unhealthy". Thwaite believes Townsend needed her to help with his acting career and support him financially. Within months, in a letter to her sister, she admitted the marriage was in trouble. She described Townsend as scarcely sane and hysterical. Thwaite argues Townsend blackmailed her into the marriage: he wanted money from her and he wanted to control her as a husband. Unable to bear