Places to visit, attractions, heritage and things of interest in Lancashire, North West England.
North-West England’s River Lune meanders around 50 miles from the Cumbrian fells to Lancaster. It seems attractive and tranquil, a mixture of woodland, meadows and beckoning hills, punctuated by attractive stone-built villages. Yet, once upon a time, it must have been a very different, possibly even violent, place – because it possesses an apparently disproportionate […]
The Castles of the Lune Valley Read More »
The story of the Witches of Pendle is one of the most sinister and troubling tales to come out of Lancashire. It does not feature cackling old hags riding broomsticks across the night sky, but real living beings, victims of time and circumstance. The broad facts are well-known locally, but lest you be unaware, in
The Witches of Pendle Read More »
It is a wild, wind-blown, rain-lashed winter’s night. A spectral horse gallops up to the moss-covered ruins of old Wycoller Hall, the rider a man dressed in early 17th century fashion He slides swiftly from the saddle, enters the house and dashes up long-vanished stairs. A door is flung open. Terrified shrieks pierce the pitch
The ghosts of Wycoller Read More »
Slaidburn is a village in Lancashire. It is one of those places that proves the north of England is not (or no longer) purely a place of dark satanic mills, clogs, cloth caps and Whippets; all pies and prejudice as Stuart Maconie might have put it. As a Southerner in exile, I grudgingly admit that
A bit about Slaidburn Read More »
Pendle Hill looms over East Lancashire between the towns of Clitheroe and Nelson. With its distinctive humpback shape, visible for miles around from all directions, it is a local landmark, rising from an area of green beauty. The district is dotted with tiny hamlets and farms, divided by ancient drystone walls and full of folklore
Test your lungs on Pendle Hill Read More »
This walk round Silverdale began as a bimble, but in the interest of alliteration became a saunter. Silverdale, for those not in the know, is a small, almost modest, parish nestling close to the Kent estuary on Morecambe Bay in the northern English county of Lancashire. As you would expect, it possesses a little natural
A Silverdale saunter Read More »
I have recently wondered if there is a particular lesson for us in the old place names of North West England. Now, the interpretation of place names can be a complicated, uncertain, business and it should be stressed that I am no toponymist. That said, a lack of knowledge doesn’t deter anyone these days, and
Race relations and the place names of North West England Read More »
The first sight of Gawthorpe Hall may strike a chord with fans of Downton Abbey, the period soap-opera that followed the fortunes of the Crawley family and those that served them. I’m sure those of the true Fellowes’ faith will correct me, but doesn’t this Lancashire house look a little like Highclere Castle, the real
What does Gawthorpe Hall remind you of? Read More »
Middle Earth is in Lancashire; it’s official. Just as Beatrix Potter was inspired by the Lake District, Thomas Hardy by his native Dorset and AA Milne, in a manner of speaking, found Pooh in Ashdown Forest, so JRR Tolkien is claimed to have been illuminated by the verdant countryside of the Ribble Valley. John Ronald
Hunting Hobbits in Lancashire Read More »
Who was the third Brontë sister? It’s a good question for quiz night down at the Olde Rupturede Ducke. There was Charlotte and Emily, of course – the authors of Jane Eyre and Wuthering Heights respectively. But who wrote The Tenant of Wildfell Hall? Tracy Brontë, perhaps? Or Chelsea? No – if you’re a literary
Our Brontë tour begins in Haworth Read More »
This is one of our friend Jeni’s favourite places and she said we should go; so of course we did. Heysham (pronounced ‘hee-shum’, not ‘hay-sham’) sits on Lancashire’s coast at the southern end of Morecambe Bay. I knew of Heysham as a ferry port, offering services to the Isle of Man and Ireland, as well
St Patrick’s Chapel, Heysham Read More »
Up on the moors on the edge of the Forest of Bowland is a large, box-shaped, chunk of rock. It sits just inside North Yorkshire on the border with Lancashire. With characteristic English wit and imagination, it is known as the Big Stone, or the Great Stone of Fourstones – because apparently there used to be
The Great Stone of Fourstones Read More »
I found Rufford Old Hall rather like nouvelle cuisine; it looked interesting, but a little over-hyped. It was good, but there should have been so much more to it and at the end I was left feeling vaguely dissatisfied. I imagine the estate agent’s blurb something along the lines of: “Well-presented one-bedroom detached house in
Wandering around Rufford Old Hall Read More »
There are two villages called Warton in Lancashire, both of them with connections across the Pond. One, just west of Preston, is known for the airfield used by the United States Army Air Forces during World War Two. Further north, the other Warton nudges the border with Cumbria. And there, inside the medieval parish church
Imagine if George Washington had been Lancastrian Read More »
