We have spent today touring around Anne’s old turf in the Burnley and Pendle District of Lancashire. If you are wondering why the name Burnley sounds familiar it is because after spending the last few decades in the lower divisions on the English Soccer Leagues they have finally made it through to the Premier League.
Consequently every where you turn the Claret signs are hanging from windows and people all over are wearing the team jersey.
Anne showed me around her old town of Brierfield. We looked at the houses she lived in and the schools she went to as well.
We visited the house at 41 Elland Road where Anne lived with her mum and saw the houses around the corner where her nana and grand dad lived and also the houses where her friends lived. We took photos too.
Brierfield View of Pendle Hill from Anne's House
Anne's childhood house at Brierfield - Anne's window top right
Anne went to Walter Street Primary School and Mansfield High School which we visited. Anne was shocked at the amount of security that the schools now need to have which seemed to make them look like prisons rather than schools.
St Lukes Brierfield
We also visited the Anne’s Church, St Lukes in Brierfield which was built in 1872.
We bought custard pies at the bakery shop that Anne used to go to as a kid and chatted with the owner who brought the bakery 20 years ago and remembered the original owner and filled Anne in on quite a bit of local news.
Then we had to visit the local cemetery and find the grave of Anne’s brother Peter, who died just 3 weeks after Anne’s last visit to England 12 years ago. This was a pretty sad part of the trip, but a very important one for Anne.
We returned back to Mick and Linda’s place for a dinner of Tattie Pie and then went for a walk around the old canal area to look at the locks.
The Leeds to Liverpool Canal was built to service the local industry and for this district it was cotton mills. With the canal built new mills popped up along it’s banks. The cotton industry continued to be the main employer until well into the 1960s, and it was only in 2006 that BSN (formerly Smith & Nephew) finally ceased production of woven cloth at Brierfield’s mills.
On the way back to the house we passed a welcoming pub so we went in for a pint of Guinness.
Pendle Hill Guinness