A NEW history trail, covering the hills and mills of Cornholme, will be launched at the weekend.

Pennine Horizons is bringing out its 12th e-trail, this Saturday, celebrating the scenery of the Calder Valley, as well as informing walkers of the area’s rich history.

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It can be downloaded as an App, which includes historical commentary and images, as well as directions for the walk which has been put together by a local volunteer group.

Paper guides are also available The four-mile guided walk will start at The Old Library community centre in Parkside Road at 2pm and will take in the landscape around the old industrial village, as well as its rich history of farming, water-powered mills and non-conformism.

Katie Witham from Pennine Horizons said: “Very little now remains of Cornholme’s textile past, but its origins can be discovered by taking a walk up out of the valley on to ‘the tops’.”

Walkers will pass the spot where Cornholme Bobbin Mill once stood, a complex of buildings linked by a clock-bridge spanning Burnley Road.

Lawrence Wilson founded the business in Todmorden in 1823, moved to a small water-powered mill in Pudsey Clough two years later and re-located into purpose-built premises in the bottom of the Calder Valley in the 1830s.

Wilson Brothers eventually became the largest manufacturers of bobbins in the world.

The mill suffered many fires, thanks to the combination of machine oil and wood shavings from the manufacturing process.

Unsurprisingly the factory created its own fire brigade, which also attended other mill and domestic fires.

The company, like the Fieldens at Waterside, also had its own gas works which supplied local houses and shops.

Lawrence Wilson died in 1859 and is buried in the nearby Mount Zion graveyard.

By 1930 the Cornholme works had closed down, although the buildings were used to store government equipment during the Second World War.

Another important building in Cornholme was Shore Baptist Chapel, which was built in 1777 and played a central role in the lives of local Cornholme people for more than two centuries until the roof collapsed during a storm.

As well as being a place of worship, the Sunday School provided local children from poor families with their only opportunity to learn to read and write.

It also played a central part in the social life of the local community.

The Shore Baptists maintained strict standards of behaviour.

In practice, however, many local people still turned to witchcraft in times of need as well as attending chapel.

The 1851 census records a man called John Holgate of Ingbottom who had practised as a wizard and fortune-teller at Frieldhurst near Shore for many years.

  • On Sunday, an eight-mile circular walk, starting from Todmorden Town Hall at 10am goes over the hilltops to look at a landscape forged by nature and the Fielden dynasty.
  • Pennine Horizons, the latest project of Pennine Heritage, has developed a series of 12 eTrails, which combine scenery with the area’s rich history.

View website www.pennineheritage.org.uk/Trails.

For more information or to book, contact katie@pennine-horizons.org.uk or telephone 07910 933319.