Queen Street Mill can be found down the end of a quiet cul-de-sac in the Lancashire village of Harle Syke on the outskirts of Burnley and is the world’s last surviving operational 19th century steam-powered weaving mill. Set up as a worker’s cooperative in 1894 the mill operated for decades after its contemporaries had ceasedContinue reading “Cotton Chronicles, Queen Street Mill, Part One; Raising Steam”
Category Archives: #History
Clitheroe War Memorial
Clitheroe War Memorial depicts a Grenadier Guard bowing his head and stands in the grounds of Clitheroe Castle in the eponymous Ribble Valley market town, facing East towards the Nick O’ Pendle. The memorial was unveiled on the 18th of August 1923 by Lord Derby, the Mayor of Clitheroe at the time and commemorates theContinue reading “Clitheroe War Memorial”
Cotton Chronicles, Kirk Mill, Chipping
Kirk Mill At the height of the Industrial Revolution the village of Chipping, originally an agricultural village, quickly became a thriving centre of the cotton industry, in 1831 a population census counted 1334 inhabitants, whereas only a few years earlier this number had hardly reached 3 figures! Seven spinning mills provided the employment for thisContinue reading “Cotton Chronicles, Kirk Mill, Chipping”
The Lancashire Witches’ by Carol Ann Duffy
The Lancashire Witches’, by Poet Laureate Carol Ann Duffy One voice for ten dragged this way onceby superstition, ignorance.Thou shalt not suffer a witch to live. Witch: female, cunning, manless, old,daughter of such, of evil faith;in the murk of Pendle Hill, a crone. Here, heavy storm-clouds, ill-will brewed,over fields, fells, farms, blighted woods.On the wind’sContinue reading “The Lancashire Witches’ by Carol Ann Duffy”
Unnatural Histories, The Witches Way to Lancaster
It is over Four Hundred years since the infamous Pendle Witch Trials at Lancaster where the accused twelve were taken to be sentenced and hanged in 1612. In that fateful year, between the 17th and 19th of August, Eleven people went to trial on suspicion of practising witchcraft, it should have been Twelve but theContinue reading “Unnatural Histories, The Witches Way to Lancaster”
Unnatural Histories, The Fairy hole Caves at Whitewell
Lancashire isn’t exactly well known for its caves, with neighbouring Yorkshire enjoying all the potholing fun, but the edge of the Limestone reefs that underlie the North Yorkshire moors, which are famous for their extensive cave systems, do show their face again one last time in Lancashire before disappearing beneath the shale and gritstone ofContinue reading “Unnatural Histories, The Fairy hole Caves at Whitewell”
Unnatural Histories, A Grim Discovery at Quernmore
Quernmore Dark Age Burial In 1973 a dog walker, James Marshall, was walking his dog near Jubilee Tower on the fells above the village of Quernmore. Recently builders had been constructing a car park for the tower, a popular local landmark and viewpoint, and had been removing peat with a digger. Peculiar wooden artifacts AsContinue reading “Unnatural Histories, A Grim Discovery at Quernmore”
Unnatural Histories, Pudsey’s Leap and the Fairy’s Silver Bit
In St Peter and St Paul’s church in the village of Bolton-by-Bowland in deepest, darkest Lancashire you can find the ornate tomb of the 15th century landowner, Sir Ralph Pudsey, his three wives and twenty-five children. There are many stories about Ralph Pudsey but one stands out more than the others, this story is theContinue reading “Unnatural Histories, Pudsey’s Leap and the Fairy’s Silver Bit”
Northwest Nature and History 