Читать книгу The Ribble Way. A Northern England Trail онлайн

9 страница из 28

INDUSTRY

In contrast to many of the fastflowing rivers that originate in the Lancashire and Yorkshire Pennines, the Ribble is hardly touched by the industry and conurbation of recent times. The only towns of any size on its banks, Clitheroe and Settle, appear to turn their backs on the river, and even the flourishing city of Preston largely ignores its presence. Things could have been very different, though, for in earlier times the Ribble was both a source of power and a means of transport.

The great abbeys of Fountains and Furness held extensive tracts of land in upper Ribblesdale, and throughout the medieval period wool production, as well as some mining in the surrounding hills, were important industries. Downstream the land came within the influence of the abbeys at Cockersands, Whalley and Hornby, and while sheep again prevailed on the higher ground, cattle, oats and hemp were farmed within the valley. By the 16th century an important linen industry had evolved, later switching to cotton as trade with the New World developed. Fulling and dyeing were cottage industries, carried out in small mills on farms and in villages by rivers, until the mechanisation of the weaving and spinning processes brought the advent of the factory system at the end of the 18th century. The water power of the river fuelled the developing factory system, and the construction of the Lancaster and the Leeds and Liverpool canals helped establish Preston, and even Settle, as industrial centres. Had the Leeds and Liverpool Canal been looped around Balderstone and Whalley, as initially suggested, it would no doubt have spawned a succession of factory towns along the Ribble east of Preston, but in the end the canal followed the Calder valley and Blackburn and Burnley grew as industrial sprawls instead.