So now you are asking the question, “Is Nelson a nice area to live?” You’ve found a few estate agents that have been able to tell you exactly what you need. A local councilor says Nelson is up and coming. Now is the time for some realness. We have gathered hard data from the Police and the Indices of deprivation. Is Nelson really a good place to live or is Brierfield, Burnley, and Colne better? It is time to find the answer.
The Nelson (Pendle), real estate market has seen a steady increase in value over the past few years. However, it has also experienced slowing growth. Houses for sale Nelson: A detached house will cost on average £242,791, 12.7% more than last year. On average, a semi detached house costs £153.641, a terraced property £104.605 while a flat is £77.878. Renting a 2-bedroom apartment in a flat costs £451 per month.
Nelson (Pendle), which has slightly lower property prices than the average Lancashire property price, is slightly lower than similar locations in England. Looking at the annual increase in Nelson (Pendle property prices) is similar to the annual average price changes across the Lancashire area.
Property data is calculated using Pendle pricing data. It was published 23 March 2022.
Untold stories: Nelson, Lancashire’s curious beginnings
It was once called Little Moscow due to its socialist voters.
It is interesting to note that this town was once called the “America in Lancashire”, because it was young and rumbustious with a very recent past.
When the Northern Daily Telegraph’s Roving Commissioner ran his rules over Nelson in a report 66years ago, he was actually actually looking at a small town that had grown so rapidly and relatively recently that very few of its residents were over 50 years old. Although the town had a population of 38,000, it was only known officially as Nelson since 1940.
Nelson had no choice but to name it after Matthew Pollard, who was patriotically inclined. He constructed and named the Nelson Inn in Marsden on what was then a new road between Burnley, Colne during a time when the country was celebrating Lord Nelson’s victory over the Battle at Trafalgar in 1805.
He didn’t realize that he was creating “one romance of the cotton industry,” wrote the reporter.
The inn did well and the hamlet where handloom weavers and farm labourers lived soon took the name of its pub. But, nothing happened until 1849, when the railroad was inaugurated and power looms were installed at Ecroyd’s Lomeshaye mills.
“Other industries sprung up like mushrooms in a night and Nelson began grow to grow until, doubling the population each decade, there were over 20,000 residents living there by 1891 when it was established,” stated the reporter.
Nelson is an area without a history. It is the America, as it were. It has no traditions to discourage or inspire future development. The only thing to look back on is a little inn that was built 100 years ago on the Burnley Colne Road.
In 1932, it was still developing its character, he stated.
“The population grew quickly. People came from all across Lancashire, the rest of the UK and it was difficult to locate the Nelson type. There are likely to be fewer than 50 natives living in the town. Nelson was probably not even known to many grandparents in many cases,” he stated.
In fact, it was not known by others until long after Nelson became the official name of the borough.
Roving Commissioner told of Nelson soldiers returning home from leave in the First World War. Staff at London railway stations could tell about trains to Colne, Nelson in Wales, but they were unsure about Nelson in Lancashire. Another aspect of Nelson’s newness was its attitude, as the reporter discovered.
“The people who live in the young city have all the attributes and aggressiveness that youth has,” he stated.
“And they’re aggressive. This is evident by the confident way they walk on the footpath.
They didn’t live in a city that was built around a pub. Nelson had 13 pubs for every person in the country, and the most churches. Nelson did manage to get rid of one hangover from its roots in an inn.
The Commissioner was shocked to discover that the Nelson Hotel was now, “now, as the town-centre of the town, which is named after it, has been enlarged from all recognition by Matthew Pollard’s small hostelry.”
There was an open area in front of it that extended out onto the main street. It was the pub’s private property.
“Here,” wrote he, “the police cannot’moveon’ the mass flotsam-jetsam of people that congregate in any large town centre aimlessly.”
I wonder if Nelson has this strange sanctuary of the law.
More pieces are in the’spitewall’ puzzle
TWO other readers have joined Looking Back in the quest to discover the origins of the ancient “spitewall.”
The wall, located at Ribchester Street, Wilpshire was built out of rubble as well old tiles and half-bricks.
Clayton Manor’s owner had his neighbors build it so that they couldn’t look into his home.
Mrs. S Wood (Clay-le-Moors) recalls hearing as a child that the wall was constructed by Thomas Connor, her stone mason grandfather. This was for Howard and Bullough, Accrington textile machine engineers Howard and Bullough. Mrs Elsie Ellison grew up near Shore House Farm in Ramsgreave and remembers the wall when she was a young girl. She too was told that the wall was there to stop gawpers looking into the Manor.