Darwen Millowners
Darwen also had its exclusive suburb, though here the circumstances were rather less favourable. As a considerably smaller town, with fewer mills than Blackburn, and thus fewer mill-owning families or managers, there was never going to be development on the scale of Blackburn's western suburbs. But Darwen also had a lower percentage of professionals (doctors, lawyers and accountants) because it was a more workaday place than its larger neighbour. There was another disadvantage: in Revidge and Beardwood the top of the ridge on which the new suburbs grew was about 500-600 feet above sea level, but the south-west end of Darwen, upwind of the mills and collieries and enjoying fine views down the valley, was at 800-900 feet, markedly more exposed and chilly. Nonetheless, by 1900 there had developed in the Bury Fold and Whitehall area a residential suburb with splendid stone-built houses, standing in large wooded grounds alongside the rushing streams which came down off the moor. With names such as Spring Bank, Briarwood, Woodlands, Ashdale and Heatherby, so beloved of prosperous late Victorian people who had made their way in the world, these houses typified the success of at least one sector of Darwen, and indeed of Lancashire, society in that golden age of local industry.
Dr. Alan Crosby
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