The workhouse was opened in
1870 situated high on the West
side of the valley anyone using
the main roads from Bacup to
Rawtenstall would be able to
see it. The boardroom, the
porter's room, and relief rooms
were erected on the north side
of the house, the infirmary
situated on the south side, The
house itself stood back in the
quadrangle, the fourth part of
which was made up of grass
plots, the space between the
boundary wall and carriage drive being planted with trees and well grassed. The
main entrance to the workhouse was by a flight of stone steps which led into the
entrance hall. It is said the walls were painted and decorated with pictures. A few
steps led into the main corridor, which ran the full lenght of the building, the different
rooms for the inmates leading off on each, side. A similar corridor divided the
bedrooms on the second floor. Another corridor, branched off and this was where
the master and matron's private room, the kitchen, and the, dining hall, were
situated.
There was a workhouse to
accomodate 200 inmates in
Stacksteads, situated at Mitchell
Feild Nook. On New Years Eve
1864 the inmates were treated to a
dinner of Roast Beet, and mutton
followed by plum pudding. Each
child recived a orange and to every
adult who smoked a 1/2 oz of
tobbacco and a clean pipe. Non
smokers recived tea or snuff.
A rise in inmate numbers, together
with continuing pressure from the
Poor Law Board, led to the erection
in 1868-9 of a new union
Click to read article
A Visit to the Workhouse
The workhouse and its inmates often made the pages of the Bacup Times, in 1869 a report
appeared with the headline Haslingden Workhouse conditions horrific. The article read :
The present condition is revolting. We have heard of nothing more horribly revolting. Even the
fever patients cannot, in every instance be allowed a bed to themselves, and in the general
wards they are lying as many as three or four to a bed.
In 1886 A story emerged Reading, It is proposed to shunt off the bodies of dead paupers
from Haslingden Workhouse, to the shambles at Oxford University. This ought to send a thrill
of horror through the community of Rossendale. Why should they be denied the rites of
Christian, burial and sent to be insulted and cut up like the carcass of a dead pig.