Burnley Wood

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Burnley Wood is a district of Burnley, Lancashire. In broad terms it lies between Parliament Street in the north and Stoney Street in the south, and from the railway in the west to Todmorden Road in the east.

1 History
2 Today
3 References
4 External links

[edit] History

Todmorden Road, the de facto eastern boundary of Burnley Wood, looking north

In the sixteenth-century, as the name suggests, the area was mostly covered by rough moorland and woodland, with a scattering of farmsteads on the outskirts of Burnley proper: Whittaker Farm (at the junction of modern day Hufling Lane and Todmorden Road), Moseley Farm (on what is now Glebe Street), Hufling Hall, and Hollingreave House (at the junction of modern day Brunswick Street and Hollingreave Road). Todmorden Road, which became a turnpike road in 1817, dates from this period. From 1673 to 1819, the majority of Burnley Wood was glebe land in the ownership of St Peter's Church, and as such could not be developed. By 1825, the first development had appeared: back-to-back cottages and mills along the canal at Finsley Gate. Between 1825 and 1844 Spring Gardens Mill, together with back-to-back cottages, were built between Plumbe Street and Eastgate (now Yorkshire Street); several large houses in extensive grounds were built along the western side of Todmorden Road; a small hamlet developed around the Woodman Inn at the junction of Todmorden Road and Hufling Lane; and further up Hufling Lane, a row of cottages known as 'Organ Row' were built near the railway line. In the second half of the nineteenth century, widespread development occurred with two distinct characters: large stone-built houses in spacious grounds, flanking Brooklands Road and Todmorden Road, and high density terraced housing, mills and associated buildings, largely built between 1860 and 1890 in the area between Hufling Lane, the canal, the railway, Oxford Road and Todmorden Road. These houses essentially form today's housing stock in the area, with some limited modern infill.^[1]

[edit] Today

Houses in the Burnley Wood clearance area awaiting demolition, with the tower of St Stephen's Church visible in the background

In recent years, Burnley Wood has suffered from housing market failure,^[2] and is now part of East Lancashire's Elevate scheme to clear, rebuild or remodel sub-standard housing.^[3] It lies in the Rosehill with Burnley Wood ward, which is 96.86% White.^[4] The index of multiple deprivation places part of Burnley Wood among the 5% most deprived areas in the country, while parts of neighbouring Rosehill in contrast are more affluent than the national average.^[5] 21.41% of children in the ward are eligible for free school meals.^[6]

The area has a traditionally strong local identity. An active community group, Burnley Wood Community Action Group, publishes a free newspaper, the Burnley Wood Argus, for the area,^[7] and Burnley Wood Park, a new community park financed by Elevate, has been built in the centre of the housing clearance area.^[8] Previously high crime levels, especially antisocial behaviour by young people, now appear to be in decline: there were 114 crimes per 1,000 inhabitants in the year to December 2007 (Lancashire average 89.4), a fall of 19.2% on the previous twelve months.^[9]