WHILE the first printed record of the Cherry Tree and Feniscliffe areas of Blackburn comes in an 1818 map of the town by Greenwoods of London, their origins lie further back.

The only named building was Livesey Hall with few buildings situated close to the old Preston to Blackburn Turnpike road, except for two isolated farms.

Cherry Tree, by 1818, had not developed as a specific area although the name was used in 1800, with the building of Cherry Tree House.

Feniscliffe can be traced back further, named Faniscliffe in 1522, when its land was exchanged by John the son and heir of John Garstang of Stanworth for tenements in Walton-le-Dale.

Research into the area's early days by Mike Sumner for the Cotton Town local history website reveals that in the early days of Cherry Tree and Feniscliffe these areas were dominated by the Livesey Family whose home was Livesey Old Hall.

He writes: "The Livesey family controlled the Livesey Township or Manor which covered a wide area to the south and west of Blackburn.

"The family history before the 13th Century is obscure with the first member of the family being Galfred de Levesaye who gave his son Hugh some crofts in Tocholes in 1220.

"The family can be traced without a break for 600 years to the 19th Century. James Livesey, a governor of Blackburn Grammar School, who died in 1619, built the earliest parts of Livesey Old Hall on a low sheltered site above the River Darwen Valley.

" It was built to a plan of an E as were many houses at this time as a tribute to Queen Elizabeth and situated with a picturesque background of trees."

Mr Sumner reveals that the Boardman family of Livesey, Witton and Feniscliffe have a close association with the origins of Cherry Tree.

By the late 1700s Robert Boardman is shown as a gentleman living at Cherry Tree House.

Mr Sumner writes: "It is presumed that he built the house naming it after a cherry tree that had grown on the site.

"This is the earliest use of the name Cherry Tree which would soon develop into a specific area of its own."

Mr Sumner shows how the area began to contribute to the growth of Victorian industrial Blackburn noting 'The 1818 map also shows the area crossed by the newly built Leeds and Liverpool Canal on its way to Blackburn and would soon become an important transport link for the developing cotton textile revolution' adding: "It was known coal mining took place at a Livesey colliery in the 19th century."