For the last few months I have been working on a book based on my presentation of  the

Owd Bacup slideshow.

It is now available to buy securely online.

Delivery is usually 3-5 business working days

Click the button below to purchase your copy. 

In October 1937 the Bacup Natural History Society celebrated its move to new premises in Zion Baptist church by holding a “Bacup past and present” lantern show. Many of the glass slides shown had been made from photographs taken by John Cook, my grandmother’s uncle. He was one of the founding members of the Bacup Camera Club. Some of the slides shown were, old Bacup Centre, old Boston Bridge, Bridge Street, Maden Memorial, Union Street, Market Street, Old Bulls Head, Bacup’s coat of arms, Broadclough, Broadclough Plantation, Meadows Farm, and Tong Lane.

 Over the years the slideshows have changed and developed along with technology from the early magic lantern, and magazine slide projector, to today’s digital projector. Over the years there have been many presenters of the Owd Bacup slideshow from James Henry Hargreaves, Edmund Pilling, Ben Ashworth, Harry O'Neil, each presenter putting their own mark on the show. I have presented Owd Bacup now for the last three years and this book is based on my own presentation.

Regular visitors to the site will notice I have made several changes to the site and some of these will continue over the coming months. Whilst I have been advised for a long time now by friends and family to start charging a membership fee for access to the site I have always been reluctant to do so. I have instead added a donate button  for which any donations would go to the upkeep of the site. If you  enjoy the site and find it useful and feel you would like to make a donation to the upkeep of the site please use the secure donate button on the home page. I have recently come across a Baptism book for Heald Chapel dating

 from 1834 if anyone would like a lookup please drop me a email.

Apologies for anyone who's been wondering if and when I was going to update. Time seems to just fly by at the moment and although I have had several articles ready to update I just never seemed to get time to sort it out. I hope the new updates will keep you busy for a while and that the next one will not take another six months :)

Welcome to the first update of 2009 and a Happy New Year to all our visitors. Christmas was a busy  time with the arrival of my new grandson Alfie who decided he would make his appearance on Christmas Eve morning, so if anyone is  still waiting for a email reply  to a question please feel free to send  me a reminder.

I have added some new pages which I hope you will enjoy. Quite often I begin one thing then get sidetracked into doing something else which is how the water and lodging pages came about.  On both the lodging house and water pages you will find extracts taken from the Public Health Report of 1849, this is a fascinating read and really gives you a insight into what life was like for our poorer Bacupian ancestors back in the 1840's. The full report can be read here http://www.bacuptimes.co.uk/publichealthreport.htm

There are a  few photographs that may not be very good quality, this is because they are actual photographs of  the original photographs from the Bacup Times article. For example  the death of Brownback Ebeneezer Mills in Whitworth's Cowm Quarry the pictures showing the extent of his fall are the actual pictures that were shown in the Bacup Times of 1902 although I have edited the story heavily due to its size. The others are included in the Floods of 1935 showing the Railway men clearing the tracks, again these are from the actual story at the time. I just feel that they are too good not to be used.

 I have highlighted the newest cases of court reports and news articles in  pale blue to make them easier to find and read.

Please let me know if you notice any broken links.

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