Past Events
A record of the talks, walks and exhibitions the society has held in the Blackburn area.
Looking back over the season
Blackburn Local History Society meets to share research, to show what members have found in archives and in the streets, and to talk with people who remember the town as it was. This page keeps a plain record of those meetings so that members and visitors can see what has been covered.
Each event is described briefly here. Where a speaker or walk leader prepared notes, the society has kept them with the programme file, and the main points are summarised below.
Talks and walks
A street walk through the older terraces of the town, looking at building materials, chimney stacks and the shopfronts that once lined the main roads.
Members brought copies of census returns and trade directories to an evening session on tracing a family through the town's mills and workshops.
Exhibitions and displays
A display of photographs and maps arranged by neighbourhood, showing how roads, rows and open land changed over several generations.
Visitors were invited to compare old photographs with the same places today and to add their own recollections to the notes beside each print.
What the programme covered
- Illustrated talks on the textile industry and the people who worked in it
- Guided walks through older parts of the town centre and its churchyards
- Sessions on reading parish registers and census records
- Displays drawn from members' own photographs and family papers
Notes from these events are kept by the society and can be consulted by members who want to follow up a particular subject.
Future meetings and walks are listed separately. Please check the programme before attending, as details can change.
For the forthcoming programme, see future events. For research sources used in preparing talks, see useful local history resources.