Gisburn

Gisburn is some 40 minutes from Preston. Until 1974 in Yorkshire, it is now in Lancashire, so just about qualifies for "Around Preston". It has a population of between 500 and 600.

It was spelled Gisburne, but when a railway was built here, the railway company apparently decided spelling it with an "e" would save them many hours (I am not sure how), and the spelling changed.

It is mostly spread out along the A59, and we will start at the east end of the village. There are some fairly modern houses, mixed in quite tastefully with older, but the first of note in the Old Chapel. This was a Methodist church built in 1871, and closing in 1948. It is now housing and I suspect very much changed, though it still holds the name.


There used to be a pub, the Commercial Hotel, to the left of the chapel, but no sign of it remains.

The A682 heads north to Settle, and on the left of that road is St Mary's Church, while on its right the vicarage, which is an impressive building. It is set back a bit, so not a great photo.


On the left, and behind the church is this delightful house.


And then there is the church itself. Bits of it - possibly only the foundations of the tower - date to 1140, and they have a list of vicars from then. 



As I was taking photos two ladies were unlocking it and invited me inside. Judging from the visitors book, they do not get many tourists.


Back to the main road, and both these are the houses on the south side.



On the north side... 


There is one pub still open in Gisburn, visible in the image above, the White Bull. White Bull and Black Bull are popular pub names in Lancashire.


Next door but one was the Ribblesdale Arms, which closed around 2000, and seems to be accommodation now.


And just across Park Road was the New Inn, which I think was this building.


Park Road leads to an old stately home, the former residence of Lord Ribblesdale, now a weddings venue. It seems to be a private road, so I did not venture far up it, but the estate will feature a lot in the rest of this post. The estate retains the "e" in Gisburn.


Before visiting a place, I like to do a bit of research so I know what to look out for and part of that is looking at a map of the place from about 100 years ago, and I discovered that there used to be a cattle market here. I was even more surprised to find it is still there! How a village of 500 people supports a cattle market I do not know. I was even more surprised to find the market was in progress when I was there!


Hmm, they are sheep, so I guess not technically a cattle market.

The market is on the corner of Mill Lane, which heads northwards, and was where I now headed.

The railway between Clitheroe and Hellifield, which opened in 1880. I am not sure if passenger trains still use the line, but Gisburn station closed in 1962. This is where it used to be, viewed from Mill Lane:


Back in the day, there were cattle pens serving the market on the left.

The view the other way is of more interest, as you can see the ornate tunnel portal.


This is where the railway passes though the estate of the stately home, and Lord Ribblesdale demanded that the railway go through a tunnel so as not to disturb his horses. Below is a view a bit further along the road, and if you look carefully you can see the crenellations of the tunnel portals at both ends of the tunnel on the right of the image. Anywhere else, this would be a cutting!


Part of my reasons for visiting Gisburn was to see the tunnel, as I have made a model of it.


On the other side of the road is the only remainder of the station, the station master's house.


Mill Lane continues for some way, mostly down hill, to the River Ribble - it becomes Gisburn Road on the other side. Looking up river there is a curious ruin on the right. I think they used to be kennels.


Here is a view of the bridge; I think the building is an old mill, and the stone wall just left of centre would be the parapet of the bridge over the mill race.


Rather than cross the bridge, I headed eastwards, following a bridlepath through Gisburne estate. This is as close to the house as I got. It is impressive for its size, but architecturally rather dull to my eye.


The bridlepath crosses the Ribble.


This is part of the Pennine Bridlepath, which goes from Derbyshire to Cumbria, but which end I was heading towards, I am not sure, or where it went from here. I headed south along the A682.

This is where it crosses the Ribble.


It is then uphill to cross over the railway, before descending again to bring me back to Gisburn.




Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

The Southern End of the Lancaster Canal

Image
 I had a look at the real south end of the Lancaster Canal, where it originally ended when it was built. The canal was built to transport coal north from the Wigan coalfields, so it starts there, at a place now called Top Lock, a couple of miles northeast of Wigan town centre. Within a few years of the Lancaster Canal being built, the Leeds Liverpool Canal (LLC) connected to it, and after a while that section was leased and later purchased by the Leeds Liverpool, and so today it is known by that name, but it was originally part of the Lancaster Canal. History The engineer of the Lancaster Canal clearly disliked locks, which is very reasonably, given they require maintenance and water, plus they are a bottleneck. As far as I can see there were none on the southern section, and I do not think there were any on the northern section either as originally built (the Glasson dock branch has several). I wonder if the southern section is at the same height as the northern section, to ensure no
Read more

Southport

Image
Southport is about 40 minutes southwest of Preston. It was founded in 1792 by the landlord of a nearby pub, William Sutton, who built a bathing house on the site to tap into the fashion for bathing in the sea. A widow from Wigan  started to take in lodgers in her nearby cottage, so Sutton built a hotel, the South Port Hotel - despite there being no port. This gave a name to the town that developed. As a resort Southport had a early advantage over its rival in that it was on a canal - or at least only 4 miles from a canal. The Leeds Liverpool Canal brought people from Liverpool and Wigan and other local cities. It has always marketed itself as rather more genteel than the nearby Blackpool, but like all UK resorts is now looking like faded glory. Churchtown So we will start in Churchtown. This was the small village William Sutton came from. Today it has been subsumed into the sprawl of Southport. It is 2 miles from the centre of Southport, and very different to it. Apart from the car, it
Read more

Padiham

Image
Padiham is a small market town about half an hour from Preston, to the west of Burnley. It is a classic Lancashire town with a lot of charm. It has a population of around 10,000. And most of the car parks are free! The main street is a conservation area, and has some fine examples of architecture, many of which are weird shapes to fit the space between twisting roads. This was Barclays Bank at one time. The block behind and to the right curves at it goes down the hill. This is the view from the bottom. Note also the building on the left which comes almost to a point at this end. This is the end of the last building. Another bank, the National Westminster. To the right of that, and set back a bit is the Hand and Shuttle , the name being a reference to the cotton trade that the town was based on. I am not sure if it is still a going concern; it certainly looks very run down, but was reviewed (quite favourably) just six months ago. Further down the road, this building used to be the Liber
Read more