A NEW website, which looks at life in the little village of Salterforth through the years is causing quite a stir.

For villagers old and new are looking back at people they once knew, things they used to do and places they once went.

The Facebook site has been created by Salterforth Primary School which has won Lottery funding for a community heritage project.

Pupils are investigating the village, which is steeped in history and creating a ceramic map and plaques to accompany a historic stroll around the village.

Older residents have also been invited to tell them all about growing up in the village in years gone by.

Once a farming community, and said to be a stopping off point for Oliver Cromwell in his battle against the Royalists — rumours are he stayed in the little house called The Castle.

It was a time when hand loom weavers worked in their cottages, but the arrival of the canal in the late 1700s, the mill and the quarry all had an impact on the community.

There also used to be a war munitions store there, too and archery was believed to take place in a local field.

The Leeds Liverpool canal arrived in 1790 and there’s little doubt that an army of navvies descended on the village and probably built some kind of shanty town as they dug out the waterway with spades and muscle power.

Though there are farms in the area dating from the 1680s, one of the oldest buildings in the village is the local hostelry, now known as The Anchor Inn.

It dates back to 1655, and was built on the old pack horse way once used by the salters and drovers.

in the late 1700s and early 1800s as the canal was excavated it was known as The Traveller’s Rest, but because it was below the water line, a new inn was built on top of the old one and renamed the Canal Tavern.

The original building, now the cellar, was so damp that stalagmites and stalactites have grown there.

It got its present name at the turn of the century.

Deeds and censors show that over the years, villagers have been involved in a variety of trades, from carpenters and wheelwrights, to grocers, lime merchants, quarrymen, machine makers and farmers. Archery with longbows is believed to have been held at Cross Butts.

Salterforth did not have an early church and villagers probably walked to Gill Church in Barnoldswick for Sunday Service.

The Inghamite chapel was first built in 1753 — the present one is one of only two remaining in the country, but is soon to close down — and the Baptist chapel in 1851.

A barn belonging to Broadstones Farm became a Quaker meeting house, which was used by the Methodists as a church and Sunday school in the 1920s and 30s.

In Earby Road are Grade II listed mounting steps, for horse riders, with five steps on either side, up to a platform. It is thought to be in its original place from around 1800.

Visit: www.facebook.com/groups/salterforthheritage