Helmshore

Coordinates: 53°41′13″N 2°19′44″W / 53.687°N 2.329°W / 53.687; -2.329

Helmshore is a village in the Rossendale Valley, Lancashire, England. It is situated south of Haslingden, broadly between the A56 and the B6235, approximately 16 miles north of Manchester. The ward population taken at the 2011 census was 5,805.

Helmshore is part of the Rossendale and Darwen constituency. Jake Berry has been the Member of Parliament for Rossendale and Darwen since 2010.

History

Early history

The area around Helmshore is moorland. Post-Ice Age this would have been forested and bog oak can still be found on the flat peatland tops over 250 metres high. The forest declined in the Neolithic period, and largely disappeared during the Bronze Age, mainly as a result of climatic change although hastened by human activity. There is some evidence of human habitation in the area during the Neolithic period - stone implements found on Bull Hill and at Musbury valley, and the stones at Thirteen Stone Hill near Grane, and there are a relatively complex network of both local and long distance old tracks crossing the area.