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Burnley Express
Saturday 02 October 1886
Local Notes
Visitors must have been somewhat struck with the numbers of tenantless abodes scattered over the hills-sides and valleys. The road to the "Jerusalem" farm-lands, where the memorable archaeological explorations took place, is through Holden Clough, and a melancholy aspect overspreads this narrow valley, by reason of the ruined homesteads here and there. Older inhabitants of the locality, tell of the time when every building was occupied, and when such was the population that every ingenuity was exercised to devise methods of providing sleeping apartments. The Sanitary Inspector, urban and rural, had not then made his appearance, for in those times premises designed for the accomodation of beasts were utilized for human habitation, and berths suspended from the beams of the houses constituted the sleeping places. The quarries in the vicinity and at Worsthorne were then in "full go," so that there were resident quite an army of quarrymen. Moreover the handloom found occupation for the people at their homes. Some houses possessed as many as four or five hand-looms necessitating the swinging aloft of the improvised beds as stated. The corn-mill at Extwistle, whose ruins may still be seen, would I suppose then be working, and there would be in operation the antiquated process of lime washing on the hill-sides. So that fifty years ago, Briercliffe-with-Extwistle would be a busy hive of industry presenting quite a contrast to its present partially forsaken and decaying condition.
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Mel
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