The Danes in Lancashire and Yorkshire

by S. W. Partington

It was also the custom of the early missionaries to establish a feldekirk by setting up a Cross near to the hamlet, where they used to preach Christianity and bury their dead.

Tradition says it was intended to build the Church on the site of the Cross, but that God willed it otherwise. God-ley Lane would be the lane which led from the village in Saxon times to God's Lea or God-ley, on which was the new church and burial ground. Thus the new town would take its modern name from the ground on which the Church stood, namely Brun-ley, Bron-ley, and Burn-ley.

The cross, built in Saxon times to mark the spot where Christianity was first preached, stood at the foot of the "burh" near the Brun, and thus the early name would be Brunford.

The records of Domesday Book contain no mention of Burnley. To the east and west would be the vast forest of Boulsworth and Pendle, while the valleys would be marshes and swamps. The ancient roads went along the hill sides, and there is an ancient road from Clitheroe by Pendle passing along the east side of the hill, now almost obliterated, leading to Barrowford. The ancient road on this east side of the valley, was on the Boulsworth slope from Brunford, via Haggate and Shelfield, to Castercliffe, Colne, and Trawden which gave its name to the forest, and Emmott.

Dr. Whitaker tells us that in his day, "in the fields about Red Lees are many strange inequalities in the ground, something like obscure appearances of foundations, or perhaps entrenchments, which the levelling operations of agriculture have not been able to efface. Below Walshaw is a dyke stretching across from 'Scrogg Wood' to 'Dark Wood.'"

The ninth century annalist says, "The Northmen protected themselves according to custom, 'with wood and a heap of earth,'" A Walshaw would therefore be a wall of wood. Nothing was safer, when attacked by bowmen, than a wood. Such was the Brun-burh. This burh at Red Lees with mounds and ditches, in a half circle on each side of the Causeway, would have the same appearance on being approached from the east and south-east as the eleventh century "burh" at Laughton-en-le-Morthen in Yorkshire.

The ancient way referred to in Dr. Whitaker, from Burnley to Townley, would be from the Market Cross, along Godley Lane to the Brunford Cross, up over the ridge to the top of Brunshaw, along the Causeway to Lodge Farm, through the Deer Park, through the Watch Gate at the foot of the hill, and up to Castle Hill at Tunlay.

Although Egbert was called the first King of England, his son Alfred the Great at the height of his power only signed himself "Alfred of the West Saxons, King."

England was still governed under the three provinces at the time of Henry I., namely Wessex, Mercia, and Danelagh. The latter province comprised the whole tract of country north and east of Watling Street. Mercia included the lands north of the Mersey. Danish Northumbria or Deira comprised the lands to the west of the Pennines.

Amongst the hills north of the Ribble the hostile nations could meet in security. Saxon-Mercia north of the Mersey, surrounded by alien nations, and having been itself conquered from that claimed as the Danelaw, would be the most likely where those nations could meet in time of peace, and was the debatable land in time of war.