Townships: Yate and Pickup Bank

YATE AND PICKUP BANK

This township was formerly part of Hoddlesden in Over Darwen, but became separate and considered extra-parochial, as part of the forest of Rossendale. Yate Bank, containing an area of 413 acres, and Pickup Bank, adjoining it on the south, and containing 437 acres, together constitute one township, and derive their respective names from the situation upon banks or spurs of the moorland hills, which here slope steeply to the west to Hoddlesden Brook. The summit of Yate Bank at Belthorn rises over 1,000 ft. above the ordnance datum, and Pickup Bank Height, or Greet Hill, to over 1,100 ft. on Edgerton Moss. The subsoil of the former consists of the Coal Measures, of the latter mainly of the Millstone Grit. The soil is clayey and the land pasture, with some meadow-land. The scattered habitations are connected by lanes with the main roads of the adjoining townships. The population in 1901 numbered 603 persons. (fn. 1) The nearest railway station is at Darwen, 2 to 3 miles distant.

At Quaker Fold is a small burial-ground of the Society of Friends, containing about forty graves and several inscribed stones in memory of one of the numerous local families of Yates; at Red Earth, in Yate Bank, there is a similar burial-ground, which formerly belonged to and was used by the family of Scoles.

There are reservoirs belonging to the Blackburn Corporation, below Hoddlesden, on the brook of that name, and below Ooze Castle Wood, on Tinkler Brook, between Yate Bank and Pickup Bank.

There were two houses having as many as three hearths liable to the tax in 1666.

There is a parish council.

The trustees of the fifth Duke of Buccleugh are the owners of the soil, and Mr. Atherton West is the principal landowner. The land is entirely of copyhold tenure of the honor of Clitheroe. There is no manor, because the township originally formed part of the great free chase known as the forest of Rossendale. The scanty particulars of its history have been recorded above, under Hoddlesden in Over Darwen.

The division of the booth into two parts is first recorded in a list of the tenants made about 1630, from which it appears that there were then seven tenants in 'Piccoppbank in Hodlesden' paying rents amounting to £3 5s. 8d., and nineteen tenants in 'Yatebanke in Hodlesden' paying rents amounting to £6 14s. 0½d. (fn. 2)

The Parliamentary commissioners of 1650 reported that Yatebank and Piccopbank, part of the forest of Rossendale, were parcel of the rectory of Blackburn, their tithes worth to the farmer of the tithes £5 per annum.

Mr. Abram has given some account of the different families of Yates and Holden, who were for a long period the principal copyholders of the township. (fn. 3)

The places of worship have been mentioned in the account of Darwen. On the Indulgence in 1672 licence was granted for a Presbyterian meeting at the house of John Durden at Yate Bank. (fn. 4)