BLACKBURN'S mill town past may not have been rich in scenes of beauty, but its tall factory chimneys and canalside weaving sheds had a powerful grandeur that has now vanished from its townscape.

But forgotten scenes from those days when cotton still dominated the town that once was the greatest weaving centre of the world are brought back to life in a new exhibition that opened at the weekend -- after years of being hidden from view.

They are in a striking collection of paintings by Sir Charles Holmes, one of the foremost landscape artists of the early 20th Century, who spent a year in the late 1920s capturing the industrial face of Blackburn in more than 40 paintings.

Born in Preston in 1868, Holmes was a self-taught artist who was initially painter of natural landscapes, but made "industrials" his trademark soon after completing his first industrial scene.

It was through his lifelong friendship with Blackburn cotton magnate Thomas Boys Lewis -- the man who in 1938 gave the town the textile museum named after him -- that the collection now on show at its Museum and Art Gallery was created,

"Lewis was dismayed that progress in the cotton industry was leading to an irreversible change in Blackburn's industrial landscape. He was convinced that Holmes could capture the town's elusive beauty so, in 1928, he commissioned his friend to create 'a permanent artistic record of a phase of civilisation now rapidly passing away'," explained Nick Harling, keeper of local and social history at the museum.

At the time that the by-then nationally-acclaimed artist went out into Blackburn with his sketch pad, cotton's pre-World War One heyday was over and the industry was in slump. Many of Blackburn's mills were idle; some were being stripped of their machinery for scrap. And while the Leeds-Liverpool canal was still a working waterway, it carried much less traffic than before the war.

"Although the industry did recover briefly, no new mills were constructed after 1915 -- rather, they began to be demolished. But before the chimneys disappeared for ever, Holmes preserved some of the town's essence in his remarkable paintings," Nick added.

The 11 oil paintings and 25 water colours in the exhibition not only form a unique social and historical record of Blackburn's past, they also are impressive as works of art that, in their realistic and strong style aptly reflect the monumental industrial architecture that was once typical of the town. They are characteristic, too, of the school of industrial art developed by a group of artists that also included Charles Cundall and the now internationally-famed LS Lowry.

"But Holmes focused on industrial architecture as a subject in its own right, not, like Lowry, as a backdrop. And Holmes has done for Blackburn what Lowry has done for Salford," Nick says.

Until now, however, that impact has been muted by the collection having been out of sight for so many years -- stored in a loft at Samlesbury Hall. Lewis died in 1942 and bequeathed the paintings and preparatory sketches for them to the trustees of the ancient hall in whose preservation he had played a leading part.

Now, it is hoped that after the closure on July 27 of the "Sombre Grandeur" exhibition in which they are displayed they may remain at the Museum and Art Gallery on extended loan.