AN HISTORIC Rossendale church that has served its community for more than two and a half centuries celebrated its 255th birthday with a fun day.

Goodshaw Baptist Church, whose congregation first gathered for its first meeting in 1685 at the house of Henry Butterworth or in his blacksmith shop, threw open its doors to the villages for games, fun and food.

The church’s congregation has grown over the past five centuries, with meetings also held in the barn of John Pickup of Loveclough, before the second of two chapels was built in 1865.

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Robert Cooper, a member of the church, said: “It’s an annual celebration to celebrate our anniversary and it was free even including the burgers and the cakes. The weather was perfect after it was a little bit wet in the morning.

“This was our third one and every year we are trying to expand it to get more and more ideas. It’s really just to work with the neighbourhood.

“We believe that god has given us everything for free so we put on a free event – but the amount of cake that went, though. We went through 100 hotdogs and 100 burgers and there wasn’t a piece of cake left. Some people sat there for three hours eating cake and drinking tea.”

The first chapel wasn’t built until 1760 when the congregation carried the pews and fittings from the Lumb meeting house on their backs over the moors to Goodshaw. Amazingly, the the people of Lumb tramped over Swinshaw Moor every Sunday for service for the next 70 years.

Lumb eventually got its own Baptist chapel around 1830 but the chapel at Goodshaw continued to grow and in 1809 a Sunday School was built next the chapel. By the 1860s that chapel was too small so a new chapel was built lower down the hill on Burnley Road.

The trustees of the church handed the old chapel over to English Heritage and in 1976, after being unused for more than 100 years years, work commenced on a full restoration with the chapel being re-opened to the public in July 1985. But Mr Cooper said the day itself was all about having fun.

He said: “Rossendale and Pendle Mountain Rescue Team came and they wrapped up my 13-year-old grandson Joshua Marsh as they do if they need to get somebody down off a mountain.”

“The North West Birds Trust also came and the children and the adults could put on a glove and handle them, or stroke them.”

The event also included mask making, face-painting and balloon modelling.