Drive & Stroll, with Ron Freethy

I LOVE it when one of my columns persuades a reader to write and add more information to my interest in Lancashire's history.

Mrs M Little, of Commercial Street, Rishton, wrote about my memories of Stopper Lane and Martin Top and said:

It brought back many memories because my father worked in lead mines and Stopper Lane. My parents moved to the area from Yorkshire and lived in an old railway carriage on top of a hill across the fields from Ings End and Hollins Farm. In 1923 my brother was born in the railway carriage with just a standpipe outside for water supply. After a couple of years they moved into a cottage at Stopper Lane where my sister and I were born.

I remember the farmhouse at Ings End had a large water tub outside. Also my mother pointed out to us the Quaker burial ground in the area.

Some years later my brother, who was then around 50, came to visit us from his home in Eastbourne. He had a great desire to find the place where he was born and so we went in search. We were on the point of giving up when we saw the rounded roof of a hen cabin. We found that this was the railway carriage. The floor was partially rotted but there was still a little fireplace and the coat hooks around the walls. It was a dreary day but we managed to get a photograph of his birthplace.

The Duckworth family then ran the little shop at Stopper Lane. They were possibly related to Francis Duckworth, who wrote the famous hymn tunes.

Mrs Little's letter is just what Lancashire's history is about to me. It is not about dates or battles but about people and the way they live. It will not be long before I go strolling along Stopper Lane looking for the history of Quakers' burial ground and the railway carriage. Mrs Little is also right when she said that the owners of the shop had a famous son.

Francis Duckworth was born on Christmas Day 1862 and by the time he died in 1941 the hymn tune which he named after his home village of Rimington was already one of the world's best known.

When he was five Francis moved with his family to Stopper Lane, where they ran the village shop which was next to the Wesleyan Chapel.

The family were all devout Christians, especially Uncle Joe whose favourite phrase was "Jesus shall reign where'er the sun."

This made a lasting impression on young Francis who, in 1904, wrote the hymn Rimington.

Jesus shall reign where'er the sun

Doth his successive journeys run

His kingdom stretch from shore to shore

Till Moons shall wax and wane no more.

The period in which Francis Duckworth lived was much more parochial than is the case today, where we all have cars and the pace of life is faster.

The Pendle countryside around Stopper Lane, Rimington, Twiston and Downham would inspire people to enjoy music and, in Francis Duckworth's case, to write it.

Mrs Little's letter arrived the day after I had spent a happy day around Downham enjoying the glorious sights and sounds of a countryscene which thankfully has changed very little for more than a century.

I now have an excuse to return to the area in search of yet more history and natural history.

Converted for the new archive on 14 July 2000. Some images and formatting may have been lost in the conversion.