BY JACK NADIN.

HISTORIAN Jack Nadin takes a stroll round the village of Worsthorne, which means 'homestead by the the thorn bush'.

The most imposing building around the green is St John's Church, which was built in 1835.

The first vicar was the Rev William Thursby, whose family, from Ormerod Hall, were, among other things, colliery owners in the Burnley area and had a long-standing connection with the village.

The chancel and organ chamber, which were added to the church in 1894, was the gift of Sir John Hardy Thursby and dedicated to the memory of his vicar father.

He was, in turn, remembered by his son, Sir John Thursby, who paid for the new tower in 1904.

The 22 members of the parish who fell in the Great War are remembered on an oak tablet inside St John's and on a stone cross erected by the congregation in the grounds.

The church is built on the village green which was used in former times for bull baiting and cock fighting.

On its left hand side is the former National School, built in 1873 on the site which was presented by the Rev Thursby and local hero General Scarlett, with the people of the parish also subscribing to the £1,990 cost.

Gorple Road takes its name from a now long-abandoned farmstead over the moors - its ruins can still be seen; John Crowther and his wife Ada farmed the 133 acres attached to Jackson House Farm in the 1880s.

John is buried in St John’s churchyard, after being struck by lightening while leading sheep down Gorple Road in 1887.

This wasn't the last time someone was struck in Worsthorne - in 1952 a fruit salesman named John Allison was also struck.

Jackson House, named after the farm, in the village centre is believed to have been built in the late 1500s, with a wooden hall and a west wing being replaced with the present building in 1627 - and a plaque in the hall commemorates the builders, Christopher Jackson and his wife Susan.

The original Crooked Billet pub dates at least from the late 19th century, though it was largely rebuilt just before the First World War.

Worsthorne's reading rooms, were erected by Mrs Thursby in 1874 and presented to the parish in 1918. They were the home of John Todd, a Worsthorne quarry worker, his wife Elizabeth and daughter Ann in the 1880s.

Stone from the Worsthorne quarries it was said ‘went far and wide’ and they employed many men folk in the latter part of the nineteenth century.

The Bay Horse pub replaced a much earlier tavern, said to be haunted by ‘Old Thrutch’ the spirit of a women who came to check the hoard she had hidden before she drowned in the swollen river near Roggerham Gate.

There are many other interesting nooks and crannies around this old village, including the Square, the ancient Wallstreams Hall and Old Hall Farm; the aisled barn at Butchers Farm has been dated to circa 1630.

Other little mysteries are why does a house in Ormerod Street have a 'red man' on it and just who was the ‘captain’ at Captain's Cottage?