C1200 Roger de Lacy gave the lands of Brandwood to the monks of Whalley Abbey. The area of Bacup known as Ffulbachope, the meaning given as baec-hop “ valley by a ridge” hop, “ a small enclosed valley” from old English.
1216 The Abbott of Whalley builds houses at Brandwood.
1324 Bacop is mentioned as a vaccary in the Lancashire Inquisitions.
1450 A forge is described at Smithy Croft in Brandwood by a man named Ashworth who was possibly a cutler.
1507 Under the commissions of Henry the Eighth, lands were cleared, houses and farms were built. Deforestation took place and no more than twenty people lived in the forest of Bacopboth according to the Clitheroe Court Rolls.
1511 The chapel of Newchurch was erected.
1538 Dissolution of Whalley Abbey, Brandwood was in the hands of the King.
1541 The manor of Spotland, including Brandwood, was granted to Thomas Holt of Grislehurst.
1541 A coal mine was recorded in Rossendale; it was not until the 18th Century that coal was used extensively, due to the advent of steam power.
1561 The lands of Brandwood in Spotland pass to Posthumous Holt.
C1610 Woollen manufacturing had begun.
1610 A description of the boundaries of Rochdale in Rossendale.
1626 A corn mill mentioned in Cowpe.
1632 Date stone at Waggoner Tunstead, Stacksteads.
1632 Recorded as the datewhen Boston Bridge was built.
1666 Recorded as the date Broadclough Hall was built. Broadclough Hall situated on Burnley Road, was the home of the Whitaker family for many years, the Whitaker family came to Bacup in 1523.
James Whitaker of Broadclough served as Greave of the forest in 1559, following in the footsteps of his grandfather, who held the same
position in 1515.The current Broadclough Hall, dating back to around 1816, is the third to be built on the same site by the Whitaker family, with the previous two believed to be half-timbered structures. Some of the enormous oak timbers from these earlier buildings were once used as fencing in the hall’s grounds. In 1892, a winter storm felled a giant oak, said to be 500 years old. Born on November 1, 1789, James Whitaker became the town’s first magistrate in 1824. He married Harriet Ormerod, whose father owned Waterbarn Mill.
The Whitaker family owned at least 50 farms in the area, particularly on the hillsides around Bacup and the Lumb Valley. They also owned the Club Houses (established in 1813) and many shops between Rochdale Road and Newchurch Road.
James Whittaker passed away on April 19, 1855, at the age of 65.