Danes House, Burnley, is thus referred to by the late Mr. T. T. Wilkinson, F.R.A.S.:—"Danes House is now a deserted mansion situated about half-a-mile to the north of Burnley, on the Colne Road. It has been conjectured there was a residence on the same site A.D. 937, when Athelstan, King of the South Saxons, overthrew with great slaughter, at the famous battle of Brunanburgh, Anlaf, the Dane, and Constantine, King of the Scots. Tradition states that it was here that Anlaf rested on his way to the battlefield from Dublin and the Isles, hence the name Danes House. The present deserted mansion has undergone little change since it was re-erected about the year 1500." This house has now been pulled down.
The Dyke or Dykes, Broadclough, Bacup.
This mighty entrenchment is over 600 yards in length and for over 400 yards of the line is 18 yards broad at the bottom. No satisfactory solution has yet been offered of the cause of this gigantic work or of the use to which it was put originally. Speaking of it Newbigging ("History of Rossendale") says:—
"The careful investigations of Mr. Wilkinson have invested this singular work with more of interest than had before been associated with it, by his having with marked ability and perseverance, collected together a mass of exhaustive evidence, enforced by a chain of argument the most conclusive, with regard to the much debated locality of the great struggle between the Saxons and the Danes, which he endeavours, and most successfully, to show is to be found in the immediate neighbourhood of Burnley, and in connection with which the earthwork in question constituted, probably, a not unimportant adjunct."
Again, he says:—
"If Saxonfield (Saxifield) near Burnley, was the scene of the engagement between the troops of Athelstan and Anlaf, then it is in the highest degree probable that one or other of the rival armies, most likely that of the Saxon King, forced, or attempted to force a passage through the valley of the Irwell and that there they were encountered by the confederated hosts intrenched behind the vast earthwork at Broadclough that commanded the line of their march. Whether this was taken in flank or rear by the Saxon warriors, or whether it was successful in arresting their progress, or delaying a portion of their army, it is impossible to determine; but that it was constructed for weighty strategical purposes, under the belief that its position was of the last importance, so much of the remains of the extraordinary which still exists affords sufficient evidence."