A SIX-year scheme to highlight historical sites in Burnley has reached its halfway point.

Members of a local history society have spent the past three years putting blue plaques at significant locations across the borough.

The latest one -- outside the Hare and Hounds pub, in Briercliffe Road, Haggate -- marks the spot where, according to Burnley Civic Society, five local men were killed in an English Civil War skirmish.

The scheme was first hatched to highlight political landmarks in the town, but has since been expanded to include a number of other sites of historical interest.

Other heritage sites include the Swan Inn, Bull and Butcher, Place de Vitry and St Peter's School.

More notable plaques awarded to Burnley citizens include one in 1930 to Sir James Mackenzie -- a doctor at Bank Parade, Burnley -- and a second to Sir Desmond Heap, in 1990 -- a well-known national town planner who used to live in Adamson Street.

One of the most famous plaques in the town is at the home of Lord of the Rings actor Sir Ian McKellen, who was born in Scott Park Road, Burnley, in 1939.

Civic Society chairman Roger Frost said: "We are about halfway through the project which originally planned to put 36 plaques across the area.

"We have just completed the third year and there are 18 installed now, the most recent of which is at the Hare and Hounds pub in Haggate which marks the spot of a civil war skirmish.

"We never had a full-scale battle in Burnley and it marks the point where the conflict came closest to us. What is interesting is that it happened in 1644 a few weeks before the battle of Marston Moor, one of the main battles of the civil war."

The Civic Society said it now intends to identify more sites in the Burnley borough that will see the project completed.