THE warning by English Heritage that hundreds of Britain's historic buildings and structures are in danger of crumbling away unless urgent action is taken, is timely.

Yesterday we featured some of East Lancashire's ancient treasures including Cromwell's Bridge at Lower Hodder, the towering India Mill chimney, Darwen, Extwistle Hall, Briercliffe and Shuttleworth Hall, near Hapton.

It is all very well for Tony Blair and his team to promote Cool Britannia.

We have to look forward and this newspaper has always promoted that view.

But we have also got to respect our history, and what a history we have.

It is the envy of the world and is responsible for attracting millions of tourists to Britain every year, particularly Americans.

If we let our wonderful old buildings and structures crumble to dust we can say goodbye to a lot of that trade.

But there is another, and possibly more important, aspect to this. These structures are living history lessons for generations of children to come.

Let us be strong on modernity, but not at the expense of our heritage.

It would be unforgivable, for instance, to let a gem like Cromwell's Bridge drop into the river.

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