Through Time
2 total works
Haslingden's motto, 'Nothing without labour', is clearly demonstrated in this selection of old and new photographs of the high Pennine town and Helmshore, its picturesque village neighbour in the valley below. Both places were among the sturdy offspring of the Industrial Revolution, which transformed a thinly-populated corner of Lancashire into a thriving manufacturing district, famous for its woollen and cotton goods. This book records the coming and going of the mills, which once dominated the skyline; the switch from railway to motorway; and the changes of the last half century, which have made both Haslingden and Helmshore popular residential areas for people working in Manchester and other large towns. The municipal and spiritual life of the district along with sports and pastimes also feature.
For more than 130 years, photographers have been recording life in Edenfield, Turn, Stubbins, Irwell Vale and Ewood Bridge. Like most places in Lancashire, these villages have long histories stretching back to the sixteenth century and beyond. For many years, people hereabouts made a living from hill farming and handloom weaving, until industrialisation in the late eighteenth and nineteenth centuries brought water-powered and steam-driven mills to the neighbourhood. The period photographs in this book allow us to open a window to previous generations, showing long-vanished buildings, changing modes of transport and people at work and play. Accompanying them are up-to-date pictures, which show the area at the start of the twenty-first century and the profound changes that have taken place since our grandparents and great grandparents first ventured out with their cameras to capture village life on film.