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A link to Lancashire terms and words :http://www.troubleatmill.com/speak.htm#u
The majority of the research focuses on the northern part of the county and in particular the "Forest of Bolland" which is a relatively unknown part of Lancashire (UK) but which, I think, is one of its gems.
History of the Bolland Area:
As with most of the more northern parts of England, northern Lancashire is not well documented before the Norman Conquest. Lancashire was not even a recognised county until 1182. Although the land in Bolland can appear dark resembling millstone grit and peat, the area is in fact a limestone one. Following the Ice Age, boulder clay was deposited and in time deciduous trees covered all but the highest ground in the area. Rainfall has always been high at about 60" (150cm) per year, this in turn has always kept the many streams and rivers very active.
Pre Roman times:
There are several pre Roman sites dating back to the Bronze Age. One of the earliest is at Bleasdale (SD 577460) where a circular village site has been located. This is a few miles from to one of the family's homes - Crombleholme Fold. Carbon dating of timbers on this site give a date of 1810 BC (+/- 90). Another has been located near Chipping at Fair Oak Farm very close to the land from which the Crumbleholme family name is derived. Early peoples were semi-nomadic operating the "cut and burn" technique still used in today's tropical forests. The principal river of the area, the Hodder is very suitably named from the Celtic words meaning "pleasant and peaceful stream"
The Romans:
The Romans established a large fort at "Bremetennacum Veteranorum" later to become Ribchester. This fort was built at the junction of the roads leading from Chester, York and Carlisle on an ancient crossing of the River Ribble. The 20th Legion had its headquarters at Chester and it is now thought that the fort at Ribchester served as a centre for a region covering Lancashire. The original fort had been built in approximately 78 AD and it seems that about a century later this had been flattened deliberately to be replaced by a larger fort.
Rome had then been able to station some 500 elite cavalrymen here in one of the remotest outposts of its empire. These troops were largely the heavily armoured cavalry of the Sarmatians (from across the Danube) who had been absorbed into the Roman Army in the Dacian Wars in the 1st and 2nd centuries. They had become somewhat of an embarrassment under Empereror Marcus Aurelius (161 - 180 AD) and were thus banished to the north western front of the Roman Empire !
Unusually in this case, an army officer (a centurion of Legio VI) was seconded to supervise an area of civilian settlement by veteran auxiliaries. In time, these veterans started a local community of farmers and horse breeders. The fort remained an important military position against invasion and was a substantial walled enclosure against the ever present threat of the Scots to the north.
In the summer of 1989 a team of archaeologists from Lancaster University discovered the well preserved remains of a Roman Ordnance factory or Fabrica adjacent to the fort. This had iron working furnaces, ovens and hearths producing weapons, equipment and tools. The garrison had evidently been prosperous as fine examples of jewellery, ornaments and pottery were also uncovered. A nine metre wide road connecting Ribchester with another fort to the west at Kirkham was also discovered. This archaeological dig served to highlight the fact that Ribchester was probably far more important with a higher degree of military organisation and civil engineering than previously thought.
The Antonine Itinerary of the second century AD lists the main roads and distances between the Roman forts and towns. The area around Ribchester is somewhat confusing with the route to the south not being very logical. However, there was one Roman road constructed running north from Ribchester up through the Bolland area. This road passes very close to the area where the early Crombleholme families are later recorded. This road is thought to have been built in approximately 79 A.D. by General Agricola along with the early fort at Ribchester during the subdueing of the north. The modern road follows this Roman one in some places especially just north of the Hodder. Due to the terrain the Roman settlements were concentrated near their forts or roads. In AD 385 General Magnus Maximus withdrew the garrison and thus the Roman influence in the area declined.
After the Romans:
The period that followed the Roman occupation can only be surmised. The northern forts had always had to be well garrisoned. The various tribes had been difficult to subdue completely and they had been especially prone to revolt from time to time on this western side of the Pennines. The Romans had divided them by the large network of forts and roads and in fact Chester had been built to keep them from joining forces with the tribes in north Wales. There were obviously areas away from the Roman influence in which they lived albeit contained and divided from the other tribes which had formed the confederation known as the Brigantes.
Carlisle to the north of the area seems to have been one town where civilised life in some form continued for some time. It had been a trade centre where merchants had set off to trade beyond the frontiers. It continued well beyond the fourth century but gradually all Roman lifestyles broke down with the slow but constant invasions from elsewhere. The governmental systems had vanished and the very advanced Roman buildings and roads fell into disrepair.
Various diseases and plagues had also affected such towns far worse than the small communities elsewhere. The new invading and settling peoples very wisely gave such disease ridden areas a wide berth. The early church had a limited influence and again Carlisle had remained a northern centre for the new faith. There was some continuity of settlement in the Roman town and fort areas although it was only by oral tradition that their names survived coupled with their economic position and good natural locations as centres on the trading & travelling routes.
The Angles and Norsemen:
The "first English" the Angles arrived from the mainland Europe in the 6th and 7th centuries. They settled the lowland areas and began clearing the area and left many origins of names: croft (small enclosure); clough (ravine); edge (escarpment) as well as many settlement's names ending in "ton" and "ham". A force of Mercians were routed at Whalley in 798 AD by these ("north of the humber") Northumbrians. The old English word for market "chepin" gave rise to the name Chipping as the market centre for dwellers in the Hodder Valley at this time.
The Norsemen arrived in the early 900's and settled on the higher ground. They lived in small family units in "thwaites"(clearings), "wicks" & "ergs" (farms). Many other place names including "laithe" (a barn), "keld" (a spring or well), "beck" (a stream), "gill" (a stream in a small/narrow wooded valley), and "garth" (enclosure) were introduced into the area. These later newcomers although causing some initial destruction and pillage lived on the higher ground and soon settled into the area without much further conflict.
My own DNA has been taken (via Ancestry) and shows that I have about 19% Viking DNA. (see The Name & Earliest Family Records and also DNA & Ethnicity Estimate
The Bolland area would have still been heavily wooded at this time but gradual clearing by the settlers allowed them to rear stock in the area. This fact gave rise to the area's name:
"Bolland" deriving from the Norse "Bu" = cattle. and "Bol" = a byre or shippon.
Although continuously occupied from early times with gradual integration of the succeeding newcomers, the area would have still been sparsely populated. The simple farming economy had settled in a manner unchanged through the various "invasions" due largely to the remote nature of the area. It has been calculated that such areas of the north had a population of under 3 persons per square mile compared with some areas in the south of the country which exceeded 10 persons per square mile.
The Normans:
In common with large areas of northern England, the area did suffer from the severe ravages of the Normans after the defeat of the Northumbrian Earl Tosti at Stamford Bridge on 25th September 1066. William the Conqueror caused further devastation during his "harrying of the north" three years later in retaliation for rebellion against Norman rule.
However the famous Domesday Survey taken after the Norman Conquest portrays what is probably a far too bleak picture of the population and land of this region. This is borne out by the fact that nearly all of the villages and hamlets recorded as desolate in the survey were thriving a century later. Lancashire as a county did not exist at the time of Domesday. The River Ribble was taken as a natural division of the western part of the north of the country. The region to the north of the Ribble was known as Amounderness and Ribchester as "Ribelcastre".
At the survey date of 1086, Amounderness as a region was recorded as having 62 settlements of which 46 were deserted and waste. The 16 with "a few inhabitants" are not specified. It is doubtful whether the commissioners of 1086 even ventured into the area. They probably considered the whole area as being recently ransacked and therefore not worth the time and resources needed to survey this area quickly for the purposes of the survey. It is very probable that much of the population took to the hills to avoid the troubles and that many of the small farms and communities were remote enough to remain unaffected.
The Domesday did survey the area of Bolland under the Manor of Grindleton and was recorded to be in the hands of Count Roger de Poitou a nephew of William the Conqueror. There were 13 vils or townships with 38 carucates of land, the whole manor being approximately 140 square miles. The 7 square mile area now known as Little Bolland was then known as Chippingdale and was added to this manor in the early 1100's. This was part of the forest or Chace of Bolland."Forest" (from the earlier "foris") in its original meaning was really waste or uncultivated land. In Bolland's case, in early times, many large trees in the modern sense of the word existed. Large stumps are often mentioned in later records, these presumably being the remains after later clearing.
The Medieval Period:
Roger de Poitou transferred authority from Grindleton to Slaidburn which was more centrally situated. Early in the 12th century William Rufus permitted him to grant the area to Robert de Lacy whose family remained landlords until 1311. Much land in turn was granted to the Church by the de Lacy family. The Cistercian order established itself at Whalley in 1296 and a Whalley monk in 1347 explained that although there was a remote chapel in the Brennand Valley (near the Trough of Bolland) "there was no graveyard there , the bodies of the dead from the whole of Bouland forest were brought to Whalley and buried there, as being the mother church."
Nearby Sawley Abbey (N E in Yorkshire and of the same order) had been established earlier in 1147. When established Whalley Abbey competed for the trade in timber, salt, iron and bark (for tanning). There were other disputes with local bodies over incomes and tithes. However it thrived especially later in the 14th century from the woollen trade of the area. It ceased in 1537 with the Dissolution of the Monasteries.
In 1258 there were seven vaccaries (from the Latin vacca = cow : stock rearing farm) but many more were created in time. These were farmed out to various families and tenants who seem to have remained for generations without change. The cattle were supplied and farmed out by the Lord and supervised by a Storer. The area was divided into four wards for sporting and other purposes each with one or more "foresters".
The four wards were: Bashall-ward; Slaidburn-ward; Harrop-ward; & Chipping-ward.
There was some upset and pillage following the insurrection and death of Thomas of Lancaster and the devastation of the north by Bruce's Scots army in 1323. Ribchester and Preston were practically razed to the ground. However raids by the Scots from the north were always a threat to the otherwise peaceful and remote area.
Entering the country via Weymouth in Dorset, the Black Death ravaged all of England in 1349, 1361-2 and 1369. This had a dramatic effect on communities and due to the resulting shortages of labour, caused rents and wages to take the place of the old payments in kind and services. The attempted introduction of a Poll Tax caused the Peasant's Revolt in 1381. The overall outcome was to establish a much more free society with a social structure of gentry, large and small, farmers, and peasantry dependant on wages. It also started the decline in the power of the church which derived huge incomes from the lands and rents.
In Bolland by 1399, the King's stock had ceased to be farmed out to the vaccaries, all of them being occupied by leaseholding tenants. Twenty or so years earlier large parks or "launds" were introduced probably by the chief forester Walter Urswyk in order to contain the red and fallow deer as well as wild cattle and horses. There were three Bolland Parks: New Launde and Radholme at Whitewell and Leagram in the ward of Chipping.
The river Hodder would have been a very different river to that which exists today. Today the river water is extensively used to supply far off Blackpool and Fleetwood via the large Stocks reservoir several miles upstream north of Slaidburn. The old farm called "Stakes" on the north bank of the Hodder has a "stone boathouse" mentioned in a document of 1655. It is very likely that a boat could have been used on the river in earlier times and that large trout and other fish were once very plentiful. There are recorded cases of poachers catching fish here "by lowe and lister" : torchlight and spear.
The ancient vaccaries were gradually subdivided into smaller tenements and smallholdings. Some larger vaccaries were held as leasehold estates by well established families. Cultivation and stock rearing were the main source of income and in some cases (the Crombleholme family included) the tenants were also skilled craftsmen who as carpenters maintained the forest lodges and deer park enclosures.
The deer parks were initially a royal estate preserved for hunting deer and as a source of timber. Until the late Middle Ages nature was left largely alone with only a few keepers to drive off intruders after the deer or timber. However by the late 1500's nature was losing and the local population sometimes with royal permission but often without, had helped themselves to both commodities. The Park at Leagram was farmed out to the de Hoghtons and then to the Sherburne family who finally bought it. It finally passed by marriage to the Weld family of Dorset who along with the nearby famous Stonyhurst and has remained part of their estates since.
The Industrial Revolution :
During the Industrial Revolution, cotton mills sprang up across Lancashire. Lancashire and the Pennines offered the ideal location for cotton factories for numerous reasons. Firstly, the decline of domestic industry left a surplus of skilled workers looking for work. Prior to the Industrial Revolution, Lancashire was known for its wool industry. It also had skilled workers.
Secondly, raw cotton, which came in from places like Turkey, the Middle East and north America could easily enter Lancashire via the main port in Liverpool.
The cottons mills were dependent on running water as a source of power and the water that came from the nearby Pennines was ideal as it was also soft water that was ideal for washing the cotton.
As well as water, coal was also abundant in Lancashire. Early canals were built to give good communications and later meant that factories could easily use steam power. New entrepreneurs were attracted to the area and the main port of the area, Liverpool, became a major port for exporting and importing. It also became the main port in the country for the mass emigration to North America.
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