Romans building their road
The handful of people living in Knowle Green 2000 years ago would have been aware of the large cavalry garrison living close by in Ribchester. Foreign troops were stationed there from about 70AD for 300 years or so. All through that long period of time, soldiers wearing outlandish uniform, speaking foreign languages and from entirely different cultural backgrounds were living only two miles away from Knowle Green in the fort at Ribchester. Roman soldiers would have been seen constructing a road from their fort along the line of the present Stoneygate Lane to Cox Farm, then straight up to Jeffrey Hill, a valuable vantage point. This was a major highway, 12 metres wide. It was the Roman equivalent of the M6 and was the main route from Chester, via Manchester, to Carlisle and Hadrian’s Wall. A section of this road was unearthed in 1997 when workmen were building a new septic tank for the Hall’s Arms. Another road from Ribchester passed close by Written Stone Farm heading north west towards Lancaster.
A civilian settlement grew up outside the Ribchester fort and Roman soldiers from Spain and Romania reaching the end of their service were given land and settled here. Some families in Knowle Green could well be their descendants!
The long period between the departure of the Romans around 400 AD and the Norman Conquest nearly 700 years later, has been called the “Dark Ages”. Certainly there is little evidence to show what life was like for the people of our area during this time. No doubt the fort fell into disrepair and was plundered for its stone.
Lancashire reverted to the control of the Celtic Britons but gradually Saxons pushed in from the south and east. By 900AD Lancashire was also being invaded by the Vikings and the Norse name “Fell” given to the hill north of Knowle Green implies that the Vikings reached this area. The people of Lancashire were probably a racial mixture of Celtic Britons, Saxons and Scandinavians. There was an ancient national system of administration in which the land was divided into “hundreds”. These large areas were subdivided into townships. Ribchester, Dutton and Dilworth townships were in the Hundred of Amounderness.
In the Domesday Survey (1086) ordered by William to assess his New Kingdom for tax, Amounderness is considered of little economic importance. Sixty-two settlements are mentioned of which sixteen “have a few inhabitants ... the rest are waste”. This may not have meant “wasteland “ more likely that it wasn’t worth surveying in detail. Knowle Green was probably in this ‘waste’.
After the Norman Conquest William gave control of Amounderness to one of his barons, F Roger de Poitou but his lands later passed to the Honor of Clitheroe controlled by the de Lacy family who owned Clitheroe castle. After the death of Henry de Lacy in 1310 “without male issue” his estate passed to the crown and was later granted to the de Hoghtons.
Ancient documents record that in 1396 the de Hoghtons gave the water mill at Lum (Dilworth Bottoms on Cowley Brook) to John de Ravenhalgh for a rent of 6 shillings and 8 pence. The mill was probably a manorial corn mill where local people brought their oats, barley and possibly wheat, to be ground. This mill is also mentioned in later deeds. There may, in addition, have been a second corn mill, Knoles Mill, on Cowley Brook just north of the Longridge - Clitheroe Road. In 1440 the Lum mill was leased to the Cottam family of Knoll Hall (now known as Cottam Hall) and remained in that family for at least 100 years. In the 1600s the Rhodes family are mentioned in the Parish records as being millers, although it is not clear whether this was at Lum Mill or at “Knoles Mill”. Certainly in the 18th century the Rev. Peter Walkden of Thornley Brow took his corn to be ground both at the Lum mill and at “Knoles Mill”.
Corn milling continued at Lum Mill until the end of the 18th century when John Strickland bought the land and water rights at Lum Mill Delph to build a spinning mill. He converted the corn mill to cottages.
The precise sites of these old corn mills remain a mystery. However, in Dilworth Bottoms today there is a cottage beside Cowley Brook, known as Woodbine Cottage. Its construction and lack of windows are unusual. Could this be the converted corn mill?
