Melling, Lancashire
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| Melling | ||
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| Postcode district: | LA6 | |
| Lat: | 54:08:09N (54.1359) | |
| Lon: | 2:37:06W (-2.6182) | |
Melling with Wrayton, Lancashire, in the United Kingdom, is a small settlement forming part of a cluster of sites along the Lune valley - the densest distribution of Norman castles outside of the Welsh border countryside. Each has evidence of a motte - as with Arkholme and Whittington - but Melling has no surviving bailey.
Until 1952 Melling was served by the Furness and Midland Joint Railway. The line continued in use for through traffic. Stopping traffic ended on the branch in 1960. A tunnel took the line to Wennington were it connected to the Midland Railway, the next station being at Arkholme.
On the edge of the first terrace 6m above the flood plain - and within St Wilfrid’s vicarage garden - the motte at Melling is located centrally in the village, some distance from the present course of the river. The mound has been damaged by landscaping activities, but former channels of the varied course of the Lune can still be detected – on the Melling side of the plain.
Locally attributed as, “The Cathedral of the Lune Valley”, lovely St Wilfrid’s parish church, with a belfry of six bells appears, originally, to have formed the manorial chapel within the, now missing, castle bailey.
