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Taken from "A Lancashire Township. The History of Briercliffe-with-Extwistle". Roger Frost
High Sim is the name once given to a picturesque house which overlooks Burwains. There were at least five cottages there, two at High Sim and three a few yards down the lane at Lower Sim. In addition there has also been a Methodist Chapel and Sunday School at High Sim. The name probably comes from the Simpson family who lived in one of the cottages. To this day one of the fields is called Simpson Pasture, a close which the Briercliffe family owned until the eighteenth century.
In 1841 High Sim is listed as a place of six cottages in which thirty-eight people lived. Only one occupation, that of handloom weaver, is recorded. There were two groups of buildings, and properly the name 'High Sim' should be applied only to the houses at the top of the lane. The building, now partly used a a garage, at the point where the present road to Foulds House branches off, is really called Lower Sim. It seems that the area takes its name from a family called Simpson who once lived there. There is a field close by, which is called Simpson's Meadow. This was once part of the Burwain estate and it seems to have been leased by Robert Briercliffe in 1736. In 1739 Robert mortgaged 'Simpson's Cottage'. This could be a reference to High Sim.
By the 1851 census there are still six dwellings mentioned at High Sim, but there is also reference to an additional unoccupied cottage. Two years later we have the first evidence that there was a religious establishment at High Sim for, in 1853, a Sunday School had been started. It can be assumed that the chapel preceeded the Sunday School, but by how many years we cannot tell.
In a list of Sunday Schools in the Burnley area, compiled in December, 1858, by John Todd whose father, William, had established the first successful Sunday School in Burnley, there is the following information about High Sim. The Chapel was described as being of the sect known as the Free Gospellers (Independent Methodists, we could call them). The Sunday School, five years after its establishment, had twenty male and twenty-one female scholars who were attended by eight teachers (two male, six female). The informatin was verified by John Higson who we can assume was an official of the Chapel or Sunday School, or both.
By 1871 the census records High Sim as being a place of only four properties. Two of them were houses occupied by the Sutcliffe and Duerden families and another cottage was uninhabited. The fourth property was described as a 'Free Gospel Chapel'- a simple entry and a peculiar one in that this is the only reference to a chapel in the 1871 census.
An interesting story is told of High Sim when the chapel was still in use. On one Sunday the congregation had assembled to hear the preacher and, in the course of the service, a young lad distracted a man who, in return, admonished the boy by hitting him with a stick. It seems that the youngster wasn't particularly keen on going to chapel every Sunday and so he decided to spoil the next service and get revenge for the rebuke he had received. On the following Sunday he feigned illness and his mother told him to stay at home, but the boy secretly made for the chapel.
It was winter and the coal fired stove was in use. The lad clambered to the chimney and covered the aperture with a large sod of earth. The smoke could not now escape and soon the preacher and the congregation werre coughing and spluttering. Before they could make their way out into the fresh air the boy had gone and was racing down the fields to Purse House where an old man, a devout Methodist, lived. The lad knocked at the old mans door and said that he had heard that he was ill and would he like someone to read him a favourite passage from the Good Book? The old man agreed and chose a Psalm and the boy read it out, making his way home as soon as he had finished.
The people back at High Sim were none too pleased and they resolved to call a special meeting of members to discuss the matter. This was duly held and the old man, recognising the importance of the event, attended. During the meeting the man who had struck the lad a few weeks before, said that he thought that he knew who was responsible adding that he was of the opinion that a certain boy may have felt that he had a 'score to settle'. The boy's name was mentioned. His parents protested that their son had been ill in bed that day and had not attended chapel. Then the old man, with tears in his eyes, said that the boy had been to his house and had given him a reading from the Bible. How could he be suspected of doing siuch a dreadful thing? But the boy's parents knew better and the story concludes that when they arrived home the boy got a good hiding.
The date of the closure of High Sim is not known, but it must have been in the 1880's for in 1887, the Methodist Chapel at Haggate was built. This building is known locally as 'Canaan' but the name on the wall is 'Jehovah Jireh'. It was a Free Gospel, or Independent Methodist Chapel as was High Sim, and I (Roger Frost) have been told that the chapel at Haggate was built to replace the old meeting place at High Sim.
The people who had worshipped at High Sim came from the remoter parts of Briercliffe, Thursden, the area towards Trawden and probably from Marsden, but the population in most of these areas declined. Some families moved to Haggate, Lane Bottom and Harle Syke which were expanding at this time. A more convenient place of worshi[ was needed and land was obtained in Haggate from the Towneley Estate. It seems that the lead in this venture was taken by the Berry, Greenwood and Pickles families all of whom had worshipped at High Sim.
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Mel
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