Chorley and South Ribble History Pages

(This article was originally posted in 2016). When I moved to Whittle-le-Woods over thirty years ago, it was an industrial village but now, after much housing expansion, it is in effect a suburb of Chorley. Prior to the industrial revolution, however, Whittle was a thinly populated area of predominantly pastoral agriculture, with small scattered farms and little hamlets. Before that, in early medieval times, it was covered, as its name suggests, in woodland, part of an extensive swathe of woods that ran north–south down the rising ground between the Lancashire plain and the West Pennine moors. Most of that woodland has now gone and in this article I will explore the question that forms the title of the article: why are there today no ancient woods in Whittle-le-Woods? Types of Woodland What is meant by the term, ancient woods? To answer this, it is perhaps best to examine the term in the context of a typology of woodland. The leading authority of British woodland was the late ...

As I write, the country is in the middle of the coronavirus lockdown. All who don’t have to go out to work are encouraged to stay at home, save for trips to the supermarket and for exercise. For the latter, we should walk, run or cycle modestly and locally. This is not a hardship for me. Living in Whittle-le-Woods, I have the luxury of several rural or semi-rural walking routes, and for the past 35 years I have been exploring them regularly. I enjoy both their familiarity and the occasional new discovery that improves my understanding of the history of where I live. In this article, I will consider the ancient, and in one case not-so-ancient, roads and lanes that form a network throughout the township. Lucas Lane (East) is an archetypal country lane, probably of medieval origin There are different types of road in Whittle, some of recent origin, others that are likely to have been here for a thousand years or more. We have our own motorway, the M61, that neatly bisects the t...