Forgotten villages are gems waiting to be discovered

WE in Lancashire have our fair share of what I often call our forgotten villages.

The people who live in these places would not be pleased to be called forgotten, so I had better explain what I mean.

As traffic continues to build up on our roads, by-passes - often controversial - are being regularly built.

The villages whose main street used to vibrate to the thunder of heavy lorries are now quieter.

Imagine what Whalley would have been like if all the traffic which now used the A59 had to pass through it.

What about the problems faced by Fence, which I described last week, and Higham if first the bypass and then the M65 had not been built?

This week I've come to Goosnargh which was bypassed many years ago when the A6 road was built.

To see this village as its best, follow the road from East Lancashire through Hurst Green and Longridge and once in Goosnargh turn right along Church Lane.

My first stop was to buy some Goosnargh cakes which are said to be made from a "secret recipe."

It is so secret that nobody knows it but each housewife has her own recipe, which is really a sort of shortbread with caraway seeds added.

Goosnargh's name takes us back to the days of the Vikings who first raided and then settled in these parts.

The name literally means Goose Green and the village green still stands and looked a picture.

If you look at the timbers of the parish church of St Mary the Virgin, the roof looks like an upturned Viking longboat supported on walls. There have been many changes from Norman times onwards but the place still has a wonderful feeling of antiquity about it. Near the church is a crossroads dominated by two old inns - the Grapes and the Bushell's Arms.

Both of these were important coaching inns when the main road from Yorkshire to the coast of Lancashire came through the settlement.

In the early days of travel to Blackpool by the sea, Goosnargh was often "strangled by traffic."

The most magnificent building in the village, however, is Bushell's House, now a nursing home but with a fascinating history.

William Bushell died in 1735 but his lineage was long and can be traced back to Warrin Bushell, the first Baron of Penwortham, who came from Normandy with William the Conqueror.

When William Bushell died, he left only a daughter and in his will he stipulated that if she died before the age of 21 his estate should be used for the founding of a hospital.

The poor lass died in 1745 at the age of 19 and her portrait still has a pride of place in the nursing home.

This is fact but the village has its share of folklore, especially relating to the church.

Twelve feet up the wall of the 16th century tower is a circular structure said to depict a spinning wheel.

It is said that a lady worked all her life spinning to finance the building of the tower.

The wheel marks the point reached when she died. It is also said that some of the stones used in the church construction came from Chingle Hall, which was then much larger than it is today.

Chingle Hall is said to be the most haunted house in England.

There is nothing haunting about Goosnargh unless it is used to describe its history or its beauty.

It is one of Lancashire's gems and I'm glad that its hidden away from the snarling traffic of the A6.

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