The first schoolhouse in Bacup was built on land purchased in 1692 from Mr. John Whitaker of Broadclough Hall. This site is now home to Bacup Library, which was formerly the Mechanics Institute, opened in 1846. The land was bought for £3.8s.0d. The school also served as a meeting house and a place for prayer. In Bacup’s early days, education was primarily conducted in private institutions, often referred to as “Seminaries.” For instance, Miss Gower’s Young Ladies Seminary was located on South Street in the North Street Primitive Methodist building. She accepted children from the age of four and taught reading, writing, arithmetic, and plain needlework for 6d per week. For 8d per week, she also included dictation, geography, grammar, and fancy needlework.
By 1892, Bacup Technical School was established in the Spring Gardens area of Tong Lane. The school operated there until 1913 when students were transferred to the newly opened Bacup and Rawtenstall Grammar School. As of 2025, only three of the original Bacup Board Schools remain in their original locations: Britannia, Sharneyford, and Northern. The schools at Thorn, Mount, Western, Tunstead, and St Saviours have all been demolished.
The Mechanics School was taken over by the Bacup School Board in 1893, and a year later Mr. Bell of Burnley submitted plans to build the new Central Board School at Thorn. The plans included two schools: an infant school with a capacity of 500 pupils and a junior school for 325 pupils. The infant building opened on September 2, 1895, and the junior school followed on Saturday, September 19, 1896. The opening ceremony was conducted by Mr. J. H. Maden Esq., who informed the crowd that the total cost was £1,100 for the land and £12,000 for the construction. Fifty-eight years later, in 1954, an under-5s nursery was built.
By May 1982, the County Education Committee had decided to close Blackthorn Secondary School, which had been built on land purchased from Bacup Cricket Club and opened in 1939. Secondary education was then transferred to Fearns County Secondary School. Five years later in 1987, it was decided that repairs to Thorn would be too costly and so the school was demolished, with pupils being moved to the old Blackthorn site. The site of Central/Thorn is now home to houses and bungalows known as Central Court.
In Stacksteads the new Western Board School was formally opened on 19th April 1903 by Mr James Ashworth vice chairman of the Bacup School Board, with the infants’ department being taken over by Easter. The mixed departments had been using the school for six months previous to its opening. Tunstead Church School, now the site of a residential area known as Old School Mews had been formerly opened by Mr Robert Munn of Heath Hill on November 12th 1882. Less than
100 years later in November 1982, pupils of Tunstead Church School and Western Board School took home paperwork proposing the merger of the two schools which both had surplus places due to a falling birth rate. Five years later on the 4th of July 1987, the new Tunstead Holy Trinity School was formally opened by the former headmaster of Tunstead Mr R Martin.