Old Clitheroe, a Poem by Thomas Birch Dedicated to the Ancient Ribble valley Market Town

Old Clitheroe

There’s a spot in Old England that’s still dear to me,

On the banks of the Ribble that runs to the sea;

In the shade of Old Pendle, whose summit I’ve trod,

Ere a thought of its grandeur had entered my “nod.”

I’ve traversed its meadows and pastures so green,

In my wand’rings their equal,

I’ve never yet seen,

I’ve plucked its wild flowers such abundance there grows,

And inhaled the sweet fragrance of hawthorn and rose,

I fancy, with rapture the sweet month of May,

Now the larks there will sing and the lambkins will play:

Sing on, thou sweet warbler, give one strain for me,

Whose home is now far away over the sea.

I’ve rambled o’er Salthill, and round the limekilns,

By the river at Brungerley, watching Its rills;

I’ve wandered o’er Longridge and Waddington Fell,

And I’ve quaffed the clear crystal at Walloper Well.

The dear ancient Castle, Its tower and wall,

How my youth seems renewed, as the scene I recall:

How much I revere thee,

Words fail me to show,

Thou “Gem of the Valley,” dear Old Clitheroe.

When I first left thy shelter,

I’d no reason why.

Except youthful fancy, my fortune to try:

At fortune I frown not, to me she’s been fair,

But I sigh when I think of lost friends over there.

To see thee once more, I’ll brave ocean and tide,

Dear home of my childhood, my manhood, my pride;

Father, mother and friends,

In thy old churchyard lie.

And two babes whose sweet memory still dims my eye.

Old ocean, thy terrors there’s none can deny,

When thy billows are tempest-tossed, rending the sky:

But be thou propitious, and let me once more,

Reach in safety the friends on my dear native shore.

The Author

The author of these verses, Thomas Birch, moved to the small town of Providence in Rhode Island, America in the 1800’s yet yearned greatly for his home-town back in England.

He became seriously ill in the 1860’s and, fearing that he may never return home, composed this poem and sent it to his sister in the eponymous Lancashire market-town.

He did, however, recover enough from his illness to make the voyage across the Atlantic and visit his sister in their home-town of Clitheroe in 1867.

A B-H

(Aug 2025)