DEMOLITION work is well under way at a 17th-century former pub and hotel.

The Old Rosins Inn, at Pickup Bank, Hoddlesden, will be turned into the new home of a local businessman.

And the hotel section of the historic landmark has been knocked down.

Steve Hartley, the owner of Darwen metal fabrication firm WEC, bought Rosins as an investment but found nobody wanted to take it on.

So he decided the best thing was to knock it down and build a house, complete with helipad.

When the planning application was submitted to Blackburn with Darwen Council in December, Mr Hartley said: “What do you do with a pub nobody wants?

People don’t want this type of recreation any more, so you’re just left with an old, delapidated building on a hill.”

A spokesman at the site said the pub section of the building, which dates back the furthest, would be kept as it is for the timebeing.