A FORMER Huncoat resident made an emotional return to see part of her family history which has been restored.

Mary Evans, now 92, was the last of the Hudson family to have lived at Brown Moor Farm which dated back to 1390 and stood in a meadow of the same name off what is now Altham Lane.

The ancient farm was sadly demolished in 1950 after the Hudson family, who had lived there for generations, were forced to move out when they were served a government compulsory purchase notice to allow Huncoat Power Station to be built in the 1950s.

One item from the farm did survive - an old grindstone which was used by previous tenants in her family and by the Bentley family who also lived in the farm for generations.

Mary moved to a house in Oswald Street in Accrington following her marriage but not before her father had startled her as a girl by recounting a tale about the ghost who was rumoured to haunt Brown Moor Farm!

He was a farmer and cobbler called Ned Bentley and his rumblings and nailing was often heard long after he passed away.

Mary and her son Phil Evans got to see the old grindstone after it had been refurbished and brought back to the Huncoat farm’s nearby cottages on Peter Grime Row by the Hudson family descendants.

Mary recalls many happy times living in Huncoat and then later when working at Moffats the haberdashery and general stores in Church Street, Accrington.

The families of the Hudson sisters Marjorie, Lavinia (both now sadly deceased) and Mary are proud of the history and legacy of the farm, the grindstone and the ghost which their family once knew.