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A woodcut showing a packhorse group travelling from Burnley to Halifax on The Stoodley Long Causeway near Heptonstall |
For centuries all the necessities of life such as salt, milk, coal and
lime were carried over the Pennines by packhorses,whose agility and strength
enabled them to negotiate slopes too steep for wheeled vehicles. The convoys
consisted of 30-40 pack ponies led in single file by a few men. These pack
horse trails were used until the early 1900's. One pack horse driver who
died in 1879 was Ailsa O'Fusses a lady who used Galloway horses on
the Limersgate (for carrying lime) which ran from Bacup five miles from
a route coming over the hill near Mankinholes.
The Stoodley Long Causeway formed part of the 'Salt Road' from
Cheshire which passed through Heptonstall and Midgley to Halifax where it
met with the "Magna Via" running north-south.Today these once busy trails are largely neglected and forgotten,
superseded
by the roads of later times which were built along the valley floors.
The Weavers' Rhyme
A rhyme from the 1700's or 1800's records the route from the Roche
valley via the Long Causeway that the weavers took between their homes and their markets at Halifax
and Wakefield.
Burnley for
ready money,
Mearclough noa trust, ye're peepin in at Stiperden, But call at Kebs, ye must, Blackshaw Head for travellers, and Heptonstall for trust, Hepton Brig for landladies, and Midgley near the moor, Luddenden's a warm shop, Royle's Head's cold; and if ye get to Halifax, ye mun be varry bold |
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Packhorse Trails across the Pennines |
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Wycoller Packhorse Bridge |
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Clapper Bridge at Wycoller |