ROSSENDALE AND HYNDBURN

Rossendale and Hyndburn is a district with borough status in Lancashire.

holding a number of small former mill towns centred on the valley of the River Irwell in the industrial North West. Rossendale combines modest size urban development with rural villages and is immediately south of the more populated town of Burnley, east of Blackburn and north of Bolton, Bury, Manchester and Rochdale, centred 15 miles (24 km) north of Manchester.

In the 2001 census the population of Rossendale was 65,652, spread between the larger towns of Bacup, Haslingden and Rawtenstall; the villages of Crawshawbooth, Edenfield, Helmshore, Waterfoot, Whitworth; and as well as Britannia, Broadclough, Chatterton, Cloughfold, Cowpe, Irwell Vale, Loveclough, Newchurch, Shawforth, Stacksteads, Stubbins, Turn and Weir. The population at the 2011 Census had risen to 67,922.

The district was formed on 1 April 1974 under the Local Government Act 1972, from the municipal boroughs of Bacup, Haslingden, Rawtenstall, part of Ramsbottom Urban District and Whitworth Urban District.

Rossendale is twinned with the German town of Bocholt, located close to the Netherlands border.

The name “Rossendale” may also refer geographically to Rossendale Valley, and historically refers to the medieval Forest or “Chase” of Rossendale, which encompassed approximately the same area as the modern district.

The Rossendale Valley is situated between the West Pennine Moors and the main range of the Pennines. The area includes the steep-sided valleys of the River Irwell and its tributaries. These flow southwards into Greater Manchester. The rivers cut through the moorland of the Rossendale Hills, generally characterized by open unwooded land. The Valley is part of the Rossendale and Darwen constituency.

Undoubtedly, it is a beautiful and distinctive part of East Lancashire. Dramatic, undulating landscape peppered with characterful towns and villages, reservoirs, old stone quarries, textile mills and chimneys. Indeed, these are all iconic features of this valley, where the Irwell wends its way south towards Manchester.