DARWEN CHAPELS - MEMORIES OF THE DISTRICT

The world has been moving on

from DARWEN WEEKLY ADVERTISER - Friday 19 July 1930

Three or four hundred years ago there was no such Darwen as that we know today. Then it consisted of two villages - "Darwen Chapels" and "The Green" - and these were linked together by a horse-track.

Here and there were a few cottages where husbandmen and handloom weavers and colliers lived. The Pack Horse road - narrow, circuitous and crooked - connected these two villages from Chapels down to what is now Robin Bank road to the River Darwen.

The road was impassable on frequent occasions when the river was in flood; and the river's power and depth were often great, indeed a little more that a hundred years ago, Mrs BOWDEN ( wife of the Rev. Richard BOWDEN, minister of Lower Chapel) and the horse she rode were swept away in the river at that point.

Onward the road continued to the Green, up to what is now Bridge street and there a second ford of the river was encounteed and had to be crossed in order to continue the road to Sough.

To Chapels it was that in ancient times, Peter WALKDEN, a Chipping parson rode on horse back with the yarn he wove for his son, a hand-loom weaver, and to barter and preach. Peter kept a diary and an interesting one it was, for he tells of his son John washing potatoes before offering them for sale and of the "little refreshment" he had before taking on his preaching duty.

And at a later period when Christopher HINDLE was chief constable, a man who wore a blue plush coat, white stockings, and a short wig was convicted of stealing a horse.

In far off days Chapels had it's characters - it's football players whose range of play along the roadway extended to Tottington, it's poets who produced doggerel with a foundation of their neighbour's frailties, it's story tellers, it's wrestlers and fighting men and it's cock fighters.

But before their time there had come into existance the ecclesiastical structures that had given to the district it's name. Three centuries ago the message was being brought to Darwen and it was at Chapels that Non-conformity was first represented by a sturdy band of men and women.

And the whole of the Congregational Churches Darwen has today are direct or indirect branches of old Lower Chapel. There was a time when these Non-conformists had to worship in secret places.

Here and there about Chapels stand buildings that have more than passing interest for those who know the story of the district; the former homes of families that have become influential, some of whose members have occupied high positions.

In Bury Court and Catlow Fold, as well as elsewhere, there are houses of interest, and there are some who have not forgotten that two and a half centuries ago Non-conformists acting under a licence from the King, applied for the keys of "Higher Chapel", now St James's Church, claiming it as their own, and that they took forcible possession of it, breaking open the doors. And when the King was appealed to he would not say aye or no what his license meant, but merely revoked it.

So the Non-conformists came to worship in a barn, a building long ago demolished more completely than was the Empire of the Hittites. Though there was religious strife and bickering, worship was continued.

Men and women of the different bodies married, and it is on record that on Sunday mornings they went together to the top of the brow, and there parted for a time, one to go to service at St James's Church and the other to worship at the Non-conformists' house.

Lower Chapel stands for a great deal with Non-conformists in Darwen. It was there their families in olden times received inspiration and the old faith and the love for the old building has lived on.

One old lady, who died in a far away country, said, when she was at the last, could she but see the old sanctuary at Chapels once again she would ask no more in the world.

Another, whose only daughter was born to her in a distant town, made a long journey by road to Chapels that her babe might have the blessing of baptism in the old Lower Chapel, where she had herself been baptised.

And on anniversary day, Lower Chapel was a gathering place of the representatives of it's old families - men and women who came, and frequently brought their food with them, from long distances to spend the day worshiping with the faithful of the Chapel.

Many stories are told by the oldtimers of how the dead were carried long distances and along field paths to the chapel for services and interment, mournful processions that were followed by family gatherings.

And some of these old Chapels folk have other interesting stories to tell. They speak of Molly HARWOOD, the sister of Edmund HARWOOD, who composed the "Vital Spark", - she became England's most famous prima donna though she began life on looms down Hoddlesden way.

She sang at many services at Higher Chapel, which was the only place of worship in her days which had an organ.

And they say that life was hard for most folk a century ago at Chapels. "Wages were low, and there was the truck system"; one old man mentions they were paid in kind. Money was bad to get. Material and food was given them for their work, not money.

"Trading was mostly done by swopping. Clothing was poor, and it was generally worn a long time. Food was coarse and rough, and often it was of such a character that folk today would not look at it. But it didn't kill them; not a bit of it.

"If they had any pride they had to swallow it along with such stuff as was given them. It was a case of what you could get and being thankful for that, so my old dad often told me.

"And we had some grand old folk in Chapels - Joan o'Simon's, "th' Duke o' Darren", who was a great cock-fighter and had a share in many big matches at the old cockpit at Knowle Fold.

"An Earl of Derby came one day to one of the fights and I have been told that he had some birds in the pit and some heavy wagers on the fight. The birds were trained for fighting, and some of them wore metal spurs." There were others besides cock-fighters in Chapels in those old days; some were striving for a different life, though it was hard in a distict where drinking matches were common, and so many people were entirely indifferent. Still there were good influences at work - those for whom Lower Chapel meant something more than:-

Fine old seats

All bronzed by lapse of years;

Or antique windows, small but dim,

Through which the light appears.

[The significance of this cutting, supplied by Vonna McDonald of Canada, is the description of the Duke o'Darrun as John o'Simons - which is taken to be a reference to his father]