Newchurch is a village within the borough of Rossendale in

Lancashire Lancashire ( , ; abbreviated Lancs) is the name of a historic county, ceremonial county, and non-metropolitan county in North West England. The boundaries of these three areas differ significantly. The non-metropolitan county of Lancashi ...

, England. It is around one mile east of

Rawtenstall Rawtenstall () is a town in the borough of Rossendale, Lancashire, England. The town lies 15 miles/24 km north of Manchester, 22 miles/35 km east of Preston and 45 miles/70 km south east of the county town of Lancaster. The town is at the cen ...

and half a mile north of Waterfoot. The village has a mixture of large detached houses and

farmhouse FarmHouse (FH) is a social Fraternities and sororities in North America, fraternity founded at the University of Missouri on April 15, 1905. It became a national organization in 1921. Today FarmHouse has 33 active chapters and four associate ch ...

s, and smaller semi-detached housing on Staghills Council Estate where the majority of the village's population lives. There are two large manor houses, Heightside, a nursing home for those with

mental disorder A mental disorder, also referred to as a mental illness or psychiatric disorder, is a behavioral or mental pattern that causes significant distress or impairment of personal functioning. Such features may be persistent, relapsing and remitti ...

s and Ashlands, a care home for the elderly. It is part of the

Rossendale and Darwen Rossendale and Darwen is a constituency in Lancashire represented in the House of Commons of the UK Parliament since 2010 by Sir Jake Berry, the former Chairman of the Conservative Party. Boundaries 1983 to 1997: The Borough of Rossendal ...

constituency, with

Jake Berry Sir James Jacob Gilchrist Berry (born 29 December 1978) is a British Conservative Party politician and former solicitor who served as Chairman of the Conservative Party and Minister without Portfolio from 6 September to 25 October 2022. He pr ...

having been the Member of Parliament (MP) since 2010.

History

Newchurch is one of the earliest settlements in the

Forest of Rossendale The Rossendale Valley is in the Rossendale area of Lancashire, England, between the West Pennine Moors and the main range of the Pennines. The area includes the steep-sided valleys of the River Irwell and its tributaries (between Rawtenstall and ...

, the village developed around St Nicholas church, first built in 1511. The

township A township is a kind of human settlement or administrative subdivision, with its meaning varying in different countries. Although the term is occasionally associated with an urban area, that tends to be an exception to the rule. In Australia, Ca ...

of Newchurch stretched from

Bacup Bacup ( , ) is a town in the Rossendale Borough in Lancashire, England, in the South Pennines close to Lancashire's boundaries with West Yorkshire and Greater Manchester. The town is in the Rossendale Valley and the upper Irwell Valley, east of ...

to Rawtenstall, and in 1511 it was recorded as having a population of 1,000 people. The village is built on a hill, Seat Naze. On this hill there is a stone circle with many rumours circulating about its original use. A

mobile phone mast A cell site, cell tower, or cellular base station is a cellular-enabled mobile device site where antennas and electronic communications equipment are placed (typically on a radio mast, tower, or other raised structure) to create a cell, or adj ...

was erected on top of Seat Naze in the 1990s. The hill also has a network of caves running underneath it, used for

quarry A quarry is a type of open-pit mine in which dimension stone, rock, construction aggregate, riprap, sand, gravel, or slate is excavated from the ground. The operation of quarries is regulated in some jurisdictions to reduce their envi ...

ing in the early 1900s. They stretch from Newchurch to

Crawshawbooth Crawshawbooth is a small village on the edge of the Pennine hills in England just north of the market town of Rawtenstall, Lancashire, and just south of Loveclough. It is part of the valley of Rossendale, an ancient royal hunting ground. The m ...

around 4 miles away. The original building for

Bacup and Rawtenstall Grammar School Bacup and Rawtenstall Grammar School (BRGS) is a selective co-educational academy grammar school in Waterfoot, Rossendale, Lancashire, England. The school is named after the two main towns either side of Waterfoot, Bacup and Rawtenstall. ...

was in Newchurch, on Turnpike. This site was used between 1701 until 1913 until they moved to their current site in Waterfoot. The site was then used as St Peter's RC Primary School until they moved to a new site in the 1970s. It remained derelict until 2000, when it was demolished and the land was used to build a house. After

World War II World War II or the Second World War, often abbreviated as WWII or WW2, was a world war that lasted from 1939 to 1945. It involved the vast majority of the world's countries—including all of the great powers—forming two opposin ...

the village was expanded with the construction of new homes, including a council estate at Staghills, and during the 1960s many of the historic buildings were demolished to make way for newer

bungalow A bungalow is a small house or cottage that is either single-story or has a second story built into a sloping roof (usually with dormer windows), and may be surrounded by wide verandas. The first house in England that was classified as a b ...

Transport

The 483 bus service ran by

Rosso Rosso is the major city of south-western Mauritania and capital of Trarza region. It is situated on the Senegal River at the head of the river zone allowing year-round navigation. The town is 204 km south of the capital Nouakchott. The Ar ...

passes through the village on a regular basis giving easy access to

Bury Bury may refer to: *The burial of human remains *-bury, a suffix in English placenames Places England * Bury, Cambridgeshire, a village * Bury, Greater Manchester, a town, historically in Lancashire ** Bury (UK Parliament constituency) (1832–19 ...

and

Burnley Burnley () is a town and the administrative centre of the wider Borough of Burnley in Lancashire, England, with a 2001 population of 73,021. It is north of Manchester and east of Preston, at the confluence of the River Calder and River Bru ...

. The 273 bus provides transport through to Burnley and

Bolton Bolton (, locally ) is a large town in Greater Manchester in North West England, formerly a part of Lancashire. A former mill town, Bolton has been a production centre for textiles since Flemish people, Flemish weavers settled in the area i ...

Sport

It was the home of semi-professional

football Football is a family of team sports that involve, to varying degrees, kicking a ball to score a goal. Unqualified, the word ''football'' normally means the form of football that is the most popular where the word is used. Sports commonly c ...

club Rossendale United until they dissolved in 2011. Their home ground Dark Lane was set on fire in January 2012. The site is currently being redeveloped with 95 new family homes.

Services

Newchurch has three churches, St Nicholas Church, St. Peter's RC and a Methodist church. Most of the local village shops and the post office have closed in the last couple of decades due to increased transport making it easier to reach local supermarkets in nearby

. A takeaway, general store and hairdressers are the only remaining ones, as well as the last remaining local pub, the Boar's Head, which has been open since 1674. The other pub in the village, the Blue Bell, closed in 2013 and the empty building is currently for sale Newchurch has two primary schools; St Nicholas and St Peter's as well as Staghills Children's Centre and Nursery, rated as "outstanding" by

Ofsted The Office for Standards in Education, Children's Services and Skills (Ofsted) is a Non-ministerial government department, non-ministerial department of Government of the United Kingdom, His Majesty's government, reporting to Parliament of the U ...

Notable people

* John Rushton (1798-1868)

Archdeacon of Manchester The Archdeacon of Manchester is a senior ecclesiastical officer in the Church of England in Greater Manchester. The archdeaconry of Manchester, unusually, was established (on 29 September 1843) a few years before the Diocese of Manchester (on 1 S ...

from 1843 until 1854. * Major Hugh Hay MC (1889–1965) a British WWI flying ace credited with five aerial victories.

References

External links

Newchurch Village Community Association
{{authority control Villages in Lancashire Geography of the Borough of Rossendale