Photo: Bill Boaden, CC BY-SA 2.0
About Trawden
Witches, jam and a village that owns itself
Trawden, near Colne, sits at the foot of Boulsworth Hill on the Lancashire–Yorkshire border. Here are the stories we tell our guests.
We've lived in and around Trawden for years, and we still find new stories. It's a small stone village of about 2,000 people, but it punches well above its weight: a famous witch trial began on the road here, the villagers own their own pub, shop, library and community centre, and the Sunday Times once called it the best place to live in the North West.
1612
Where the Pendle witch story began
England's most famous witch trial started with a few pins on the road to Trawden. On 18 March 1612, according to her own confession, a young woman called Alizon Device met a pedlar from Halifax, John Law, on the highway at Colne Field, near Colne. She asked for pins; he wouldn't open his pack. Moments later he collapsed, probably from a stroke. Alizon, who seems to have believed she had cursed him, "went begging in Trawden Forest that day".
That encounter led the magistrate Roger Nowell to the Demdike and Chattox families, and on to the trials at Lancaster that August. Ten people were hanged. The court clerk Thomas Potts wrote it all down, which is why we know exactly where Alizon was heading. (Some historians date the meeting to 21 March; we've followed the date in the trial records.) Read the full story on our local history page.
Community owned
The village that bought itself back
When the community centre faced closure, villagers took it on in 2014. Then came the shop, and the library, which has the post office inside, all run by a small army of volunteers.
In 2021 the last pub, the Trawden Arms, came up for sale. The village had already listed it as an asset of community value, so it had the chance to buy. A community benefit society, the Trawden Forest Community Pub Group, sold shares to more than 400 people and raised about half a million pounds. The village completed the purchase on 29 October 2021.
The BBC reported that Trawden is believed to be the only village in the UK where all four (pub, shop, library and community centre) are in community hands. Pop in for a pint or a loaf: every visit helps keep them going.
2022
Best place to live in the North West
In April 2022 the Sunday Times Best Places to Live guide named Trawden the winner for the North West. The judges asked: "Is this the most community-spirited village in the country?" and called this "unsung corner of Lancashire" an example to the rest of rural Britain. You'll still spot the signs around the village.
10 April 2024
A royal visit
The Princess Royal came to see what the village had done. On a very wet 10 April 2024 she visited the Trawden Arms and the community centre, shop and library, and met volunteers and village groups, from Trawden in Bloom to the Cubs and Guides. Crowds lined Church Street in the rain. It was, the community centre's founding chair said, the village's first royal visitor.
Hartley's
The jam pan in the Poetry Garden
In the middle of the village, a little garden of local poems (including Lancashire dialect verse) grew up on the site of an old public toilet. Beside it sits a big black cast-iron jam pan. Its plaque says, carefully, "Jam pan possibly Hartleys circa 1900".
The link is real. Sir William Pickles Hartley was born in Colne in 1846, and in 1871, so the story goes, a supplier let him down, so he made his own jam. Hartley's grew into one of Britain's best-known jam brands, made first in Colne and then near Liverpool. When Sir William died in 1922 he was brought home to be buried at Trawden.
Cake
Jackie and Francesca's
Every village needs a proper cake stop. Ours is Jackie & Francesca's Old Rock Café & Cake Shop, run by mother and daughter Jackie and Francesca Stansfield. They started out home baking and selling at Colne and Clitheroe markets before opening the café in the village in 2023. Expect cooked breakfasts, lunches and a counter of home-made cakes, plus celebration cakes to order. Walkers and dogs are welcome. Check their Facebook page for opening days.
Medieval Trawden
A royal hunting forest with no trees
The parish is still called Trawden Forest, but "forest" here meant hunting ground, not woodland. By 1296 there were five great cattle farms, or vaccaries, at Wycoller, Winewall and Beardshaw, with the land between kept for deer. Later it passed to the Crown. In 1345 a gang was charged with hunting in "Queen Isabella's free chase at Trawden", carrying off deer and assaulting her servant. In 1507 royal commissioners let the old cattle farms to the tenants, among them a Geoffrey and a John Hartley, and the forest became farmland.
Folklore
Ghosts, druids and a black dog
Lad Law. The summit of Boulsworth Hill, 517 metres up, is called Lad Law. Victorian antiquarians guessed the name came from an old word for sacrifice, and the gritstone boulders, with their weathered basins, picked up names like the "Druid's Slaughter Stone". It's a good tale for the top; the hollows are almost certainly natural.
The spectre horseman. Over the hill at Wycoller, tradition says a horseman in Stuart dress gallops to the ruined hall once a year on a wild night, rides up the stairs, and is followed by a woman's screams. He's said to be a squire who frightened his wife to death. (Local historians point out there was never a squire of that name.)
The Guytrash. Local legend also tells of a spectral black dog in the lanes, a "Guytrash", whose appearance spells bad luck. Charlotte Brontë used the same northern spirit in Jane Eyre, and Wycoller Hall is thought to be the model for Ferndean Manor, where Jane finds Mr Rochester at the end.
The village year
When to come
Garden Festival & Scarecrow Trail
Early July. Home-made scarecrows appear all over the village and gardens open their gates. It ran again in July 2026.
Trawden Agricultural Show
A Sunday in August: over 1,300 animals, heavy horses, dry-stone walling, a fell race and 70-plus stands. Next show: Sunday 8 August 2027.
Music & Beer Festival
September at the Trawden Arms: live music, real ale and money raised for Pendleside Hospice.
Out of season it's the quiet that people remember. There are no big-town lights up here, so on a clear night the stars put on a show.
Sources
Book direct to avoid third-party booking fees
Your base in Trawden, near Colne
A 300-year-old stone cottage with a stove, a garden and the moors close by. The total, including the £40 cleaning fee, shows straight away.
More to explore