Bashall Eaves

Bashall Eaves is a small village about 5 miles from Clitheroe on the road to Whitewell and a mile away from Browsholme estate. It’s a very small and cosy place, composed of a handful of pretty cottages, a post-office which is only open from 10 til 2 on a Tuesday, the village hall and, just a short walk down the road, the excellent Red Pump Inn.

Up until 2014 the village, part of a 1,200+ acre estate, was owned by a lovely lady called Miss Dorothea whom I was very lucky to have met on several occasions when I lived on nearby Browsholme Estate. Miss Dorothea Worsley-Taylor, to give her full name, sadly passed away in 2014 at the age of 93 and through her life was very well-regarded by the local community and a generous benefactress to local organisations including the Young Farmer’s Club, the W.I and Lancashire Wildlife Trust.

Miss Dorothea cared for the village and surrounding countryside deeply and had a great love for its flora and fauna, indeed if you were to visit this part of the Hodder valley yourself you would find it to be as well-tended and verdant as an English village should be, which I like to think is a good legacy of her tenure. You can find out for yourself in this interesting article by local walker and writer Bowlandclimber which is entitled ‘A Rural Ramble from Bashall Eaves’.

Beckshalgh

The name Bashall is thought to originate from ‘beckshalgh’, which translates as ‘hill by the brooks’, eaves referring to the fact that the village is on the higher part of the township which also comprises the older hamlet of Bashall town, this is just a small farm now, home to ‘Bashall Barn’ which is a wedding venue now but until 2015 was the home of Bowland brewery, now based in Holmes mill in Clitheroe.

Although the village is very chocolate-box and instagram-friendly there is a dark side to its history, an incident which has given the village the nickname ‘the town that wouldn’t talk’ as locals still divert conversations away from it if questioned; the still yet-unsolved murder of Jim Dawson which occurred in 1934 and for which no culprit has ever been found.

On a lighter note there is a charming little beauty spot nearby you can visit, a packhorse bridge known locally as the ‘Fairy bridge’ which legend has it was built in one night by fairies to help an old woodcutter cross to escape from witches after he had upset them by cutting down a tree around which their coven gathered!

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