Place:Barrowford, Lancashire, England

source: Getty Thesaurus of Geographic Names

source: Family History Library Catalog

the text in this section is based on an article in Wikipedia

Barrowford (letter "A" on map) is a large village and civil parish since 1974 in the Borough of Pendle in Lancashire, England. Barrowford is part of the Nelson conurbation; the centre of Nelson is to the southeast. The parish had a population of 6,171 at the UK census of 2011, a small increase from 6,039 in the 2001 census. Barrowford was once a township in the ancient parish of Whalley. The township became a civil parish in 1866, and then in 1894 the parish was made into an urban district, a type of administration that was kept up until 1974. When the urban district was formed, a part of the original parish was broken off to form the separate civil parish of Blacko. Barrowford is situated on what was the Marsden–Gisburn–Long Preston turnpike. One of the original toll houses, dating from 1804–05, can still be seen at the junction with the road to Colne, complete with a reproduction of the table of tolls which were paid. Barrowford is located about half a mile from the Leeds and Liverpool Canal, and a set of seven locks leads to the highest section of the canal between Barrowford and Barnoldswick (once in Yorkshire, now part of the Borough of Pendle).

For code for numbered places, see the page for Burnley Rural District.

About a mile on from the locks heading towards Leeds is Foulridge Tunnel known locally as the "Mile Tunnel". The packhorse bridge near Higherford Mill is the oldest in Barrowford, dating back to the end of the 16th century. It formerly lay on the old main road to Gisburn, which was superseded by the Turnpike road built in 1804.

The village has a modern Anglican church (St Thomas') built to replace the original church of 1839, which burnt down in 1964.

The village has two rivers: Pendle Water, which flows through the town, and Colne Water, which joins Pendle Water behind the site of the now demolished Samuel Holden cotton mill and flows down from the moors above the town of Colne.

Industrial history

the text in this section is based on a section of an article in Wikipedia

Barrowford has been a centre for textile production since at least the 16th century when a fulling mill is recorded as being in the village. Until the late 18th century, the manufacture of woollen cloth was the primary industry, but in 1780 the fulling mill was rebuilt by Abraham Hargreaves to produce cotton.

The cotton mill was powered by a water wheel and fed by water drawn off at the weir on Pendle Water. For the next fifty years, cotton cloth was woven in the many handloom weavers' cottages which can still be seen along the village's main road.

As power looms were introduced into the cotton industry in northeast Lancashire in the 1820s, weaving gradually became a factory industry and production moved from the home to the massive weaving sheds which began to be constructed. A second weaving shed existed at Higherford Mill.

By the 1860s, the village was heavily reliant on the cotton mills for employment, and, along with the rest of Lancashire, was badly affected by the Cotton Famine caused by embargoes on the import of cotton during the American Civil War.

Until recently, one of the last examples of a working weaving shed could be seen at the East Lancashire Towel Company, but the firm, which still produces traditional "terry towelling" on Lancashire looms, moved to premises in Nelson, and then ceased production in the United Kingdom altogether.

Research Tips

• See the Wikipedia articles on parishes and civil parishes for descriptions of this lowest rung of local administration. The original parishes were ecclesiastical (described as ancient parishes), under the jurisdiction of the local priest. A parish covered a specific geographical area and was sometimes equivalent to that of a manor. Sometimes, in the case of very large rural parishes, there were chapelries where a "chapel of ease" allowed parishioners to worship closer to their homes. In the 19th century the term civil parish was adopted to define parishes with a secular form of local government. In WeRelate both civil and ecclesiastical parishes are included in the type of place called a "parish". Smaller places within parishes, such as chapelries and hamlets, have been redirected into the parish in which they are located. The names of these smaller places are italicized within the text.
• An urban district was a type of municipality in existence between 1894 and 1974. They were formed as a middle layer of administration between the county and the civil parish and were used for urban areas usually with populations of under 30,000. Inspecting the archives of a urban district will not be of much help to the genealogist or family historian, unless there is need to study land records in depth.
• Civil registration or vital statistics and census records will be found within registration districts. To ascertain the registration district to which a parish belongs, see Registration Districts in Lancashire, part of the UK_BMD website.
• The terms municipal borough and county borough were adopted in 1835 replacing the historic "boroughs". Municipal boroughs generally had populations between 30,000 and 50,000; while county boroughs usually had populations of over 50,000. County boroughs had local governments independent of the county in which they were located, but municipal boroughs worked in tandem with the county administration. Wikipedia explains these terms in much greater detail.
• Lancashire Online Parish Clerks provide free online information from the various parishes, along with other data of value to family and local historians conducting research in the County of Lancashire.
• FamilySearch Lancashire Research Wiki provides a good overview of the county and also articles on most of the individual parishes (very small or short-lived ones may have been missed).
• Ancestry (international subscription necessary) has a number of county-wide collections of Church of England baptisms, marriages and burials, some from the 1500s, and some providing microfilm copies of the manuscript entries. There are specific collections for Liverpool (including Catholic baptisms and marriages) and for Manchester. Their databases now include electoral registers 1832-1935. Another pay site is FindMyPast.
• A map of Lancashire circa 1888 supplied by A Vision of Britain through Time includes the boundaries between the parishes and shows the hamlets within them.
• A map of Lancashire circa 1954 supplied by A Vision of Britain through Time is a similar map for a later timeframe.
• GENUKI provides a website covering many sources of genealogical information for Lancashire. The organization is gradually updating the website and the volunteer organizers may not have yet picked up all the changes that have come with improving technology.
• The Victoria County History for Lancashire, provided by British History Online, covers the whole of the county in six volumes (the seventh available volume [numbered Vol 2] covers religious institutions). The county is separated into its original hundreds and the volumes were first published between 1907 and 1914. Most parishes within each hundred are covered in detail. Maps within the text can contain historical information not available elsewhere.
• A description of the township of Barrowford Booth from British History Online (Victoria County Histories), published 1911