Forest of Rossendale. 269 



the youngest child after she was 102 years old, and was able to 

 employ herself in light work till a short time before her last illness. 

 Her complaint was natural decay ; and she retained most of her 

 faculties and memory to the last. 



Sharneyford Mill is the highest in England, being about 1250 

 feet above the level of the sea. The Rossendale man's answer, 

 which Tim Bobbin so much admired, had reference to the water- 

 shed of which Sharneyford forms part : — " I am always well 

 pleased when I think at the Rossendale man's answer, who, being 

 asked where he wunned, said, ' I wiin at tK Riggin 0' tK Woard 

 — at th' Jiiggin 0' th' Woard — for ih' Wetiir 0' tli tone Yeeosing 

 faws into tK Veeost, on th' tother into tli West Seeo.' " if) 



The site of what we now term Bacup has undergone quite a 

 transformation within the memory of " the oldest inhabitant." The 

 cluster of houses which at one time composed the village of Bacup, 

 used to be called " Giddy Meadow " by the old people of last 

 century. The reason of the name I have not been able to 

 ascertain. Not very long ago the land all down on each side of 

 Greave Water was quite a swamp that swung under the feet. The 

 whole of what is now called Tong, in Bacup; used to have quite 

 a park-like appearance, being thickly studded with trees, on which 

 the crows annually built their nests, as they do at Broadclough at 

 the present day. The slope betwixt Tong Lane and Todmorden 

 Road was a series of gardens in a high state of cultivation. So 

 also was the site of the " Club Houses" and St. James' Street. 



The early Baptists used to immerse in the river Irwell, at Lumb 

 Head. A story is related of an irreverent wag who placed a 



(/J This occurs in a letter from Collier (Tim Bobbin) to Robert Whitaker, 

 whose brother, Henry, was also a friend and correspondent of the celebrated 

 Lancashire humourist. See Westall's ed. of Tim Bobbin, 1819, p 297. " The 

 two Whitakers were brothers from Rossendale ; one of whom, Henry, was a 

 schoolmaster at Manchester, and the other, Robert, a land surveyor and 

 steward to Colonel Townley." (Canon Raines.) " Collier occasionally 

 assisted the latter, and both were his constant friends." The South Lancashire 

 Dialect, by Thomas Heywood, F.S.A. Chetham Miscellanies, vol. HI p. 47. 



