A Residential College for adult education, maintained by Lancashire County Council A Residential training venue for regional businesses.

Alston Hall is open for 51 weeks of the year, seven days a week and welcomes over 17,000 students and delegates each year.


Alston Hall's mission is to provide for all adults, learning opportunities of the highest quality and best value for money, in a supportive & welcoming environment, continually enhanced through staff training and development.

We aim to do this by:
Extending the opportunities for personal development through participation in creative, cultural and intellectual activities
Maintaining and strengthening the quality of the learning experience that is provided at the college;
Protecting and enhancing the special learning environment that the college provides;
Developing partnerships with educational, training and other organisations in order to secure high quality learning opportunities for adults;
Giving good value for money with our course programme and maintaining our low prices by efficient use of resources and by maximising the use of our training accommodation.


Alston Hall offers a wide variety of day and residential courses. These are both traditional, such as arts and crafts, music appreciation, local history, creative writing, cookery, literature and mythology and contemporary, such as fibrecraft, health, wine tasting and complementary therapies.

Who's Who
The management and office team at Alston Hall are:

Graham Wilkinson - Principal
Sheila Gridley - Asst. Principal
Val Haxton - Domestic Manager
Dorothy Little - Course Manager
Joanne Cook - Corporate & Community Development Officer
Christine Boswell - Courses Secretary
Sylvia Davis - Part-time Secretary
Marjorie Hamilton, Receptionist
Katherine Swarbrick, Receptionist/Secretary
Jennifer Worthington - Overnight Supervisor
Val Wallbank - Overnight Supervisor
Barbara Rigby - Overnight Supervisor

We are proud of our reputation as a caring, customer-oriented organisation, and work hard to maintain the trust and loyalty of our students and customers. There are several ways that we do this:

Suggestion Box
Located at the information point outside the college dining room

User questionnaires
We monitor all new courses and 10% of all others on our public programme by questionnaire. In addition, general questionnaires are supplied in all bedrooms.
A summary of feedback and action we have taken can be found on the noticeboard outside the dining room. The summary is available from the College office.

Complaints procedure
If you have a complaint, please let us know immediately, and we will do our best to rectify the situation. There is a duty member of staff available at all times when the College is open.
Our full complaints procedure is available in all residential information packs and on request from the college office.

User surveys
At regular intervals, a selection of our users are asked for feedback on our performance, on recent college improvements and invite any further suggestions.