24 Facts About Blackburn

Blackburn is an industrial town and the administrative centre of the Blackburn with Darwen borough in Lancashire, England.

Blackburn is the core centre of the wider unitary authority area along with the town of Darwen.

The most rapid period of growth and development in Blackburn's history coincided with the industrialisation and expansion of textile manufacturing.

Blackburn has had significant investment and redevelopment since 1958 through government funding and the European Regional Development Fund.

Blackburn was recorded in the Domesday Book as Blacheborne in 1086.

Related searches

Blackburn is located where a Roman military road crossed the river Blakewater.

Blackburn has been associated with many improvements in the manufacture of cotton, among which was the invention of the "spinning jenny" which was invented in nearby Oswaldtwistle by James Hargreaves, who died in 1770.

In 18th-century Blackburn, weaving was primarily undertaken by handloom weavers working from their own cottages.

Blackburn became the first town to undertake the mass fingerprinting of people following the murder of June Anne Devaney in May 1948.

Motto, granted on 14 February 1852 to the former Borough of Blackburn, is poignant, as Blackburn, once a small town, had risen to importance through the energy and enterprise of her spinners and manufacturers, combined with the skill and labour of her operatives.

Previous MPs for Blackburn include the former Labour cabinet minister Barbara Castle from 1945 to 1979.

Blackburn area was subjected to glaciation during the Pleistocene ice age, and the sandstone-and-shale bedrock is overlain in much of the area by glacial deposits called till of varying thickness up to several tens of feet.

Blackburn is within a green belt region that extends into the wider surrounding counties, and is in place to reduce urban sprawl, prevent the towns in the nearby Greater Manchester and Merseyside conurbations from further convergence, protect the identity of outlying communities, encourage brownfield reuse, and preserve nearby countryside.

Sizeable areas of green belt exist within the borough, west and south of Blackburn surrounding Witton Country Park and Pleasington parish, with other parishes in the borough containing portions of green belt, Tockholes, Eccleshill, Yate and Pickup Bank parish, Livesy, Darwen, with North Turton largely covered.

Blackburn's newly redeveloped railway station in the town centre is served by Northern.

In 1926 the Diocese of Blackburn was created and the church gained cathedral status.

Blackburn was selected above other locations for the new wave of Archbishop Temple's cathedrals because of its then excellent public transport infrastructure – the cathedral stands next to the bus and railway station.

Blackburn Arena, opened in 1991, houses an ice rink and is home to the Blackburn Hawks ice hockey team.

Blackburn Cemetery is located to the north of the town centre in Roe Lee.

Blackburn has smaller libraries for the Mill Hill, Livesey and Roman Road parts of the town, and a mobile library service.

Secondary education in Blackburn is provided by nine state-funded schools and one private school.

Blackburn is mentioned in The Beatles' song "A Day in the Life".

In politics, William Henry Hornby, a leading industrialist, the first mayor of Blackburn, and Chairman of the Conservative Party was born in the town in 1805.

John Morley, 1st Viscount Morley of Blackburn, OM, PC, Liberal statesman, writer and newspaper editor was born in the town in 1838.