THE pretty Pendleside village of Downham has long attracted visitors and feeding the ducks on the brook, a popular Sunday afternoon activity.

This image, however, shows what happened the day the babbling brook became a ferocious torrent after heavy storms.

It was 1967 when the villagers' homes, many of them built in the 18th and 19th centuries as hand loom cottages, were deluged by rising floodwater.

And once it had all subsided, the pretty lanes and properties were left covered in debris and mud, with villagers throwing sodden flooring and carpeting out of their front doors as they began to mop up.

The history of Downham has been closely linked with the Assheton family since the mid 1500s and their seat is Downham Hall, which still contains traces of an original Tudor house, though, has obviously been remodelled over the years.

It's thought that a medieval chapel, which once stood on the site of St Leonard's Church, which overlooks the village and was built in 1909, was once under the jurisdiction of the Abbot of Whalley Abbey.

Indeed the font was presented by the last Abbot, John Paslew in the 16th century.