The Lancashire Automobile Club St Georges Day Run 2019 Route Information Once again we bring you some of the finest rally roads from the 1950’s and 60’s when many of your cars took part in night rallies. This year we have returned to Blackburn Northern Sports for our start venue and will be taking in many new roads as we make our way to Heskin Hall to have comfort break and coffee then return through the Anglezarke and Pendle Hill before returning to Blackburn Norther Sports This Route Information booklet will let you know a little about the places you pass through on this 120 mile journey. First of all some information about the Club. The Lancashire Automobile Club was established in 1902. It rapidly gained a reputation for organising ‘reliability trails’ and hillclimbs. Some of the roads you will travel today probably featured on these early events. Think of your forebears as you enjoy today’s event. Anthony Taylor Clerk of Course. Joint Sponsors Hagerty Classic Car Insurance, Blue Butts and Bowker BMW and MINI Start – Blackburn Northern Sports The Club was formed in 1913, originally named Blackburn St. James' (affiliated to St. James' Church on Shear Brow.) After competing in the North East Lancashire League, the Club joined the Ribblesdale Junior League in 1922. In the period between the two World Wars a team from the Club also played in the Chorley and District League. The cricket ground was located at Longshaw, better known perhaps as Blackburn Railway Clerks' Ground and now the site of Longshaw Primary School. In the early 1920’s the clubs benefactor, the late Joseph Bassnett, an ardent cricket supporter, bought a field at Pleckgate. In the late summer of 1923 a summer fayre was held to commemorate the official opening in the presence of local dignitaries. Soon after, the area in the centre of the field was excavated and drained. Facilities at the Club have gradually been improved over the years. In the late 1960’s a new clubhouse of modest proportions (an old prefabricated doctors surgery) was erected. This has been extensively remodelled and extended over the years and now houses the members’ lounge and function room. Two new tennis courts were added during the 1970’s followed in 1978 by the opening of two new squash courts together with new cricket and tennis changing rooms. This project created a new squash section at the club, which is still thriving. Mellor (2.30mls) Atop the highest hill on Mellor Moor, overlooking Mellor, is the site of a Roman signalling station and a now-disused Royal Observer Corps Nuclear Blast and Fallout Monitoring Station. The monitoring post was opened in July 1959, was decommissioned in October 1968 and is situated on a low mound ten yards west of a trig point overlooking BAE Samlesbury Airfield. Many people still believe that this was a nuclear shelter or an air raid shelter for the use of the local population during times of war. A millennium viewpoint pillar has been erected alongside encroaching onto the top of the post. The village also boasts three disused quarries and the remains of an eel farm that was destroyed by fire in the 1990s. Samlesbury Hall (5.40ml) The hall was built with its solar end windows facing east, as was the practice. When the chapel was constructed 140 years later, it too was built to face east. However, when the chapel was connected to the main hall 60 years later, the angle of connection was less than 90° because of the solstice change in the Sun's position over the years. The chapel was originally built by the Southworth family to upgrade the house to a manor house, which had to have a large household, a chapel and priest, a store of fish for Fridays, usually a pond and a water mill and a grain store. Therefore Samlesbury Hall reflects the building styles and religious beliefs from the 14th century to the present day. Samlesbury Hall may have been built to replace an earlier building destroyed during a raid by the Scots, during The Great Raid of 1322. The hall has been many things in its past including a public house and a girls' boarding school, but since 1925, when it was saved from being demolished for its timber, it has been administered by a registered charitable trust, the Samlesbury Hall Trust. This Grade I listed medieval manor house attracts more than 50,000 visitors each year. Joint Sponsors Hagerty Classic Car Insurance, Blue Butts and Bowker BMW and MINI Hoghton Tower (8.70ml) The land on which Hoghton Tower stands has been in the possession of the de Hoghton family from at least the 12th century. The present building dates from about 1560–65, and was built for the Right Worshipful Thomas de Hoghton (1518-1580), replacing an earlier house on or near the same site. It has been suggested that the property has links to William Shakespeare through Alexander Hoghton who died in 1581. King James I stayed in the house for three days on 15–18 August 1617. James was accompanied by his favourite George Villiers, 1st Duke of Buckingham and by the Earls of Pembroke, Richmond, Nottingham, and Bridgewater; Lords Zouch, Knollys, Mordaunt, Grey, Stanhope and Compton; the Bishop of Chester many baronets and knights; and a crowd of Lancashire notables.[6] Following a petition of Lancashire folk he lifted the restrictions on Sunday recreations, that culminated in the publishing, initially just for Lancashire, and nationally the following year, of the Book of Sports. In 1643 the house was damaged by Parliamentary forces during the Civil War. In February 1643, after the taking of Preston by Seaton, Hoghton Tower was besieged by Parliamentary troops under Captain Nicholas Starkie of Huntroyd. At the time the house held a garrison of only 30-40 musketeers, who capitulated on 14 February. But when the Roundheads entered the house, the powder magazine in the old pele tower, between the two courtyards, exploded with immense force, killing over 100 Parliamentary men. This central tower was never rebuilt. From 1662, for over a hundred years, Hoghton Tower housed nonconformism in the Banqueting Hall, after Sir Gilbert's son Sir Richard (1616-1678) converted to Presbyterianism and by 1664 it had become a centre, in the Blackburn District, for both Independents and Presbyterians. John and Charles Wesley are reputed to have preached at Hoghton. Brindle (10.60mls) The name Brindle has its origin in the earlier Burnhul, the ‘hill by the stream’. There is no direct reference to the village in the Domesday Book but the heavily wooded area in which it was situated is mentioned. The name partly explains the village’s claim to be the site of the battle of Brunanburh, where in 937 King Athelstan "won undying glory with the edges of swords, against the Norsemen". The possible validity of this location was reinforced by the discovery of the great Cuerdale treasure in the nineteenth century; it can be seen in the British Museum. At the heart of the village is the Parish Church of St. James, in pre- Reformation days known as St. Helen’s. Its first rector is recorded as Ughtred in 1190. The present church tower was constructed about 1500 and two of the original bells are still regularly rung. Lostock Hall (15.60mls) Lostock Hall traces its origins to James de Lostock who in 1212 built Lostock's Hall in the then rural area of Cuerden Green in the township of Walton-le-Dale. A settlement expanded outwards Joint Sponsors Hagerty Classic Car Insurance, Blue Butts and Bowker BMW and MINI from Lostock's Hall, taking its name from the Hall. The former separate community of Tardy Gate is now for all intents and purposes a part of Lostock Hall - it used to be the farming community linking one part of rural Lancashire to another. Leyland Motors (16.50mls) A whole series of buses familiar to people all over the UK came from this factory. The single deck Leyland Lion, Tiger, Panther, Leopard. The double deck Titan PD series. Not to forget the Atlantean a Leyland design that radically changed the shape of buses all over the world. There were trucks as well the Beaver, Comet, Octopus and Hippo. Got to be careful though as specialist bus body builders used Leyland chassis so buses with the Leyland badge were often only the chassis. The last Leyland bodied buses were made in 1955. The company started in a back yard in Leyland, Lancashire, and grew through its fine products, business sense and gradual consolidation. At its peak the name Leyland covered almost all the remaining British owned vehicle manufacturing companies from Alvis to Wolseley alphabetically (can t think of any beginning with X, Y or Z) making cars, buses, lorries, not to forget Fire Engines. Of course the Centurion tank at the roundabout (17.05mls) was also one of Leyland’s finest products! Croston (26.95mls) Croston has historic homes, a church that dates back to William the Conqueror and a cobbled packhorse bridge, erected in the 15th century, which crosses the River Yarrow. The name of this village means 'Town of the Cross'. This name was given to commemorate a 7th Century Wayside cross which was used by the Celtic missionaries who brought Christianity to the North of England. The original cross is no longer there and it is thought to have gone in Cromwell's time. A new cross was placed in the village in 1950. Church Street itself, which has rightly been described as one of the best preserved rows of 17th century cottages in Lancashire.