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.
The place everyone dreaded ending up in. Mitchell Field Nook at Waggoner Tunstead
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    
The Workhouse Home Early Days Transport & Work Services Wartime Entertainment Memories & People News & Weather Links Waggoner Tunstead, road to the workhouse. Laying of the foundation stones of the new workhouse at Pikelaw.
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.