Newchurch, Lancashire

Not to be confused with Newchurch in Pendle

Newchurch
Lancashire
St Nicholas, Newchurch
Location
Grid reference:	SD832225
Location:	53°41’56"N, 2°15’11"W
Data
Post town:	Rossendale
Postcode:	BB4
Dialling code:	01706
Local Government
Council:	Rossendale
Parliamentary constituency:	Rossendale and Darwen

Newchurch is a village in middlemost Lancashire, around one mile east of Rawtenstall and half a mile north of Waterfoot.

The village has a mixture of large detached houses and farmhouses, and smaller semi-detached housing on Staghills Council Estate where the majority of the village's population lives. It has are two large manor houses which have become nursing homes.

Most of the local village shops and the post office have closed in the last couple of decades due to increased transport making it easier to reach local supermarkets in nearby Rawtenstall. A takeaway, general store and hairdressers are the only remaining ones, as well as the last remaining local pub, the Boar's Head, which has been open since 1674. The other pub in the village, the Blue Bell, closed in 2013 and the empty building is currently for sale

Newchurch has two primary schools, of which one is a church school.

History

Newchurch is one of the earliest settlements in the Forest of Rossendale, the village developed around St Nicholas church, first built in 1511. The township of Newchurch stretched from Bacup to Rawtenstall, and in 1511 it was recorded as having a population of 1,000 people.

The village is built on a hill, Seat Naze. On this hill there is a stone circle with many rumours circulating about its original use. A mobile phone mast was erected on top of Seat Naze in the 1990s.

The hill also has a network of caves running underneath it, used for quarrying in the early 1900s. They stretch from Newchurch to Crawshawbooth around four miles away.

The original building for Bacup and Rawtenstall Grammar School was in Newchurch, on Turnpike. This site was used between 1701 until 1913 until they moved to their current site in Waterfoot. The site was then used as St Peter's RC Primary School until they moved to a new site in the 1970s. It remained derelict until 2000, when it was demolished and the land was used to build a house.

After Second World War the village was expanded with the construction of new homes, including a council estate at Staghills, and during the 1960s many of the historic buildings were demolished to make way for newer bungalows.

Churches

• Church of England: St Nicholas Church ('The Parish Church of St Nicholas with St John and St Michael')
• Methodist
• Roman Catholic: St.Peter's RC

Outside links

("Wikimedia Commons" has material about Newchurch, Lancashire)

• Newchurch Village Community Association