Tourist guide to Accrington

12:00pm Tuesday 24th July 2007

Comments (5)   Have your say »

ACCRINGTON is one of those underrated towns with a longer and prouder history than many give it credit for.

The name derives from a "settlement around the oak trees".

We still call the fruit of the tree the acorn and the circuit around the town is called "The Acorn Trail".

Accrington once became famous for its production of linen then came carpet sweepers, red bricks, Terylene, brushes, baseballs exported to America, billiard tables, glassware and textile machinery.

Richard Kenyon of Ewbank invented a carpet sweeper in the 1860s and in doing so invented a new word.

In the Second World War the factory was taken over to produce parts for bombers and gliders. It was the First World War, however, which provided Accrington with fame and horror.

A battalion of 1,100 "Pals" was raised very quickly and on the first day of the battle of the Somme over 550 young men were killed, injured or missing.

The town's famous football team has recovered from extinction and Accrington Stanley is once more a force to be reckoned with.

The town centre is worth a long visit because the Victorian Market Hall, built in 1868, is a hive of activity on market days.

The town hall, supported by Corinthian columns, was formerly the Peel Institute and was erected in 1858.

The Carnegie Library on St James Street was built in 1909 and in the entrance hall are busts of Dante, Milton and Shakespeare.

Accrington once belonged to the monks of Kirkstall Abbey and the Cistercians had a farm called a Grange in the area.

When the abbey was dissolved in 1538 the townsfolk bought the monastic estates and the present St James Church was built on the site in 1763 and the tower added in 1803 as the town became prosperous during the cotton boom.

On the outskirts of the town is the Haworth Art Gallery, which has the best collection of Tiffany Glass outside the United States.

This collection was given to the town by a local lad named James Briggs who worked in the factory during its heyday in the 1920s.

In 1974 boundary changes created the Borough of Hyndburn, named after the river.

The name literally means the stream or burn where deer paused to drink.

As well as Accrington, Hyndburn now incorporates Church, Oswaldtwistle, Clayton-le-Moors, Rishton and Great Harwood.