Forest of Rosscndale. 



149 



which led than to pitch their tents in favoured localities with 

 regard to scenery, shelter, and general convenience, would not 

 fail to note the superior position of the site in question to any 

 other within their own dreary domain in Rossendale. 



Thus much for Rough Lee, one of those spots of locd interest 

 of which just sufficient* is known to arouse, but not enough to 

 satisfy, the enquirer's curiosity — too little to give it a fixed habita- 

 tion in the history of the district, or determine its influence on the 

 current of events. It is like one of those spirits said to haunt old 

 homesteads : content with its own knowledge of the past, it resists 

 all prying attempts to wring from it a recital of its story. A quaint 

 old place that the imagination finds no difficulty in peopling with 

 forms of a bygone time. Such a home of the imagination it must 

 probably remain. 



The Old Hall on the New Hall Hey estate, whose ivy-matted walls 

 still stand rugged and strong, is another ancient building regarding 

 the erection of which we are without documentary evidence. The 

 architecture is early Tudor Gothic. The wing of the Hall on the 

 northerly side appears to have been used as a chapel in past times 

 — a religious offshoot, it is said, of Whalley. On the removal of the 

 oak settles and wainscoating in the early part of th? present century, 

 a baptismal fount was found, and this relic is still in existence and 

 in possession of Mr. G. W. Law-Schofield, the present owner. 



