Barrowford is a linear village situated to the north of Nelson on the A682. It has 17th and 18th century farmhouses and handloom weavers' cottages alongside the later 19th and 20th century mills. Pendle Water streams through the centre of the settlement past historic Park Hill, home of the Pendle Heritage Centre and the beginning of the Pendle Way.
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 It formerly lay on the old main road to Gisburn which was superseded by the Turnpike road built in 1804.
Park Hill, now home of the Pendle Heritage Centre, was the family home of the Bannisters from the 15th century until recently. Roger Bannister, who ran the first 4-minute mile, is a descendent of this local family. The current buildings were constructed in the 17th century and are currently undergoing much modernization to extend the facilities of the Heritage Center.
A couple of local snippets are:
in 1774 John Wesley, the Methodist preacher, had to hide in what is now the White Bear Inn, on Gisburn Road (just opposite the park, by Pasture Lane), when he was chased by a local mob. Before it was the White Bear, this building, built in 1607, used to be the home of cotton king, John Hargreaves. A group of young men, partial to a bit of nettle pudding, and frequenters of the Lamb Club (also known as "Bank Hall", a Jacobean house dating from 1696, not far from the White Bear) had a little task to perform before they were allowed to drink there. They had to go out onto the moors to eat the pudding and recite this tongue-twister, "Thimblethwrig and Thistlethwaite, who thinking to thrive through thick and thin, through throwing three thimbles hither and thither was thwarted and thwacked by thirty three thousand thick thorns." No wonder they had to say that before they had a drink! Although most of the mills have long since gone from Barrowford there is still one remaining - the East Lancs Towel Company, founded in 1932 in the Park Mill in Halstead Lane.
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