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Darwen
Darwen is a market town and civil parish in the Blackburn with Darwen borough in Lancashire, England. The residents of the town are known as "Darreners". The A666 road passes through Darwen towards Blackburn to the north, Bolton to the south and Pendlebury where it joins the A6, about 18 miles (29 km) north-west of Manchester. The population of Darwen stood at 28,046 in the 2011 census. The town comprises four wards and has its own town council.
The town stands on the River Darwen, which flows from south to north and is seen in parks in the town centre and next to Sainsbury's located in the town centre.
Darwen's name is Celtic in origin. In Sub Roman Britain it was within the Brythonic kingdom of Rheged, a successor to the Brigantes tribal territory. The Brythonic language name for oak is derw and this is etymologically linked to Derewent (1208), an ancient spelling for the River Darwen. Despite the area becoming part of the Anglo-Saxon Kingdom of Northumbria by the mid-8th century, its Brythonic name was never supplanted by an Old English place name.[citation needed]
The area around Darwen has been inhabited since the early Bronze Age, and the remains of a round barrow from approximately 2000 BCE have been partially restored at the Ashleigh Barrow in Whitehall. The barrow had ten interments, nine of which were Collared Urn burials. As well as human remains, items found at the barrow included a bronze dagger some 7.5 inches in length, a flint thumb scraper, a sub-plano-convex knife and a clay bead. Copies of the Collared Urns may be seen at the Darwen Library.
The Romans once had a force in Lancashire, and a Roman road is visible on the Ordnance Survey map of the area. Medieval Darwen was tiny and little or nothing survives. One of the earliest remaining buildings is a farmhouse at Bury Fold, dated 1675. Whitehall Cottage is thought to be the oldest house in the town, and was mostly built in the 17th and 18th centuries but contains a chimney piece dated 1557.
Like many towns in Lancashire, Darwen was a centre for textile manufacture during the Industrial Revolution. Samuel Crompton, inventor of the spinning mule, lived there for part of his life. Rail links and the Leeds and Liverpool Canal arrived in the mid-19th century. The most important textile building in Darwen is India Mill, built by Eccles Shorrock & Company. The company was ruined, however, by the effects of the Lancashire Cotton Famine of the 1860s. Cotton manufacture was an important industry, and by 1907, the Darwen Weavers', Winders' and Warpers' Association had more than 8,000 members in the town.
In the early 1840s Eccles Shorrock created a large mill lodge (industrial reservoir) in what is now the lower part of Bold Venture Park by constructing a dam where Inverness Road now runs across the valley cut by Bold Venture Brook. In 1848, during a night of heavy thunder storms and torrential rain, water rushed down from the moors and the dam failed catastrophically. The water level dropped by 40ft almost instantly, and a wall of water swept down into the town centre, doing considerable damage and drowning a number of poor people who slept in cellars under shops and houses in the Market Street area.
Much of the town was built between about 1850 and 1900; placenames, date stones in terraces, and the vernacular architecture of cellars, local stone, locally made brick, pipework and tiles and leaded glass, the last now mostly gone, reflect this. It was one of the first places in the world to have steam trams.
Hub AI
Darwen AI simulator
(@Darwen_simulator)
Darwen
Darwen is a market town and civil parish in the Blackburn with Darwen borough in Lancashire, England. The residents of the town are known as "Darreners". The A666 road passes through Darwen towards Blackburn to the north, Bolton to the south and Pendlebury where it joins the A6, about 18 miles (29 km) north-west of Manchester. The population of Darwen stood at 28,046 in the 2011 census. The town comprises four wards and has its own town council.
The town stands on the River Darwen, which flows from south to north and is seen in parks in the town centre and next to Sainsbury's located in the town centre.
Darwen's name is Celtic in origin. In Sub Roman Britain it was within the Brythonic kingdom of Rheged, a successor to the Brigantes tribal territory. The Brythonic language name for oak is derw and this is etymologically linked to Derewent (1208), an ancient spelling for the River Darwen. Despite the area becoming part of the Anglo-Saxon Kingdom of Northumbria by the mid-8th century, its Brythonic name was never supplanted by an Old English place name.[citation needed]
The area around Darwen has been inhabited since the early Bronze Age, and the remains of a round barrow from approximately 2000 BCE have been partially restored at the Ashleigh Barrow in Whitehall. The barrow had ten interments, nine of which were Collared Urn burials. As well as human remains, items found at the barrow included a bronze dagger some 7.5 inches in length, a flint thumb scraper, a sub-plano-convex knife and a clay bead. Copies of the Collared Urns may be seen at the Darwen Library.
The Romans once had a force in Lancashire, and a Roman road is visible on the Ordnance Survey map of the area. Medieval Darwen was tiny and little or nothing survives. One of the earliest remaining buildings is a farmhouse at Bury Fold, dated 1675. Whitehall Cottage is thought to be the oldest house in the town, and was mostly built in the 17th and 18th centuries but contains a chimney piece dated 1557.
Like many towns in Lancashire, Darwen was a centre for textile manufacture during the Industrial Revolution. Samuel Crompton, inventor of the spinning mule, lived there for part of his life. Rail links and the Leeds and Liverpool Canal arrived in the mid-19th century. The most important textile building in Darwen is India Mill, built by Eccles Shorrock & Company. The company was ruined, however, by the effects of the Lancashire Cotton Famine of the 1860s. Cotton manufacture was an important industry, and by 1907, the Darwen Weavers', Winders' and Warpers' Association had more than 8,000 members in the town.
In the early 1840s Eccles Shorrock created a large mill lodge (industrial reservoir) in what is now the lower part of Bold Venture Park by constructing a dam where Inverness Road now runs across the valley cut by Bold Venture Brook. In 1848, during a night of heavy thunder storms and torrential rain, water rushed down from the moors and the dam failed catastrophically. The water level dropped by 40ft almost instantly, and a wall of water swept down into the town centre, doing considerable damage and drowning a number of poor people who slept in cellars under shops and houses in the Market Street area.
Much of the town was built between about 1850 and 1900; placenames, date stones in terraces, and the vernacular architecture of cellars, local stone, locally made brick, pipework and tiles and leaded glass, the last now mostly gone, reflect this. It was one of the first places in the world to have steam trams.