52 residents #20 travel

Well there's not much of that at the moment. Springhill residents, together with the rest of the world, are cancelling their summer holidays and hardly daring to make plans for later in the year. Meanwhile they are celebrating being able to drive to take their daily (or now, more than once daily) exercise.

In many ways though the residents of Springhill are lucky in having so many beautiful walks/cycle rides available directly from the front door. Many of these are feasible even in lockdown, though the 'tops' have been busier than usual as people take the opportunity to explore their local area and enjoy the good weather.

Some of these walks pass over Hurst Lane, one of the original C16 roads through Rossendale. Others go over Oakenheadwood Lane, another old route. Oakenheadwood is in reasonably good condition but Hurst Lane on the other hand. Whilst technically a road, and occasionally subject to 4x4 drivers' attempts to use it as such, it has probably changed little since the area emerged from Forest law in 1507.

There are a number of entries in the Clitheroe Court Rolls in the C16/17 where various residents were amerced for failing to maintain the highway. Others were cited for obstructing the highway, and the blocking of rights of way by landowners is still going on. Others were in trouble for trespassing with beasts. It isn't usually beasts but trail bikes (and occasionally horses) on the footpaths churning up the subsoil and causing damage which it the modern equivalent.

The Haslingden to Todmorden turnpike, of which Newchurch Road is part, was established in the later years of the C18 and extended up to Burnley in what is now Burnley Road (Rawtenstall), Burnley Road East and Burnley Road (Bacup) in and around 1915. Road namers had a lot of imagination in those days.

Canals passed us by but the coming of the railways meant that quarrying became economical. Trams ran along the main roads but not over Newchurch Road, probably because the gradient on Turnpike was too steep.

The roads gradually became more congested and the Edenfield bypass was constructed in the 1960s. The intention then was that any motorway extension would go up through Rawtenstall and Crawshawbooth to Burnley. Of course it didn't, but the M66 motorway extension cut travelling time to Manchester down by about an hour.

For most journeys however walking is fine!

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