In the hilly coun­try of the Pen­nines, trade between cen­tres of pop­u­la­tion depended on the pack­horse. A map of 1772 shows a net­work of pack­horse routes in York­shire and Lan­cashire. One such route was the road which passes Cold­well en route from Colne to Hal­i­fax, known as The Kings High­way. The road, or track as it was then, was marked at inter­vals by way­side stones or crosses, where the car­ri­ers and their ani­mals could find shel­ter, food and rest. Ponies car­ry­ing cloth from the hand­loom weavers of Lan­cashire to the tex­tile mar­kets of the West Rid­ing would pause before tack­ling the rough moor­land track ahead of them. Orig­i­nally, a tem­plar cross (one with four arms) stood on the south gable mark­ing the build­ing as a place of refuge and hos­pi­tal­ity. With the even­tual demise of the pack horse as a means of trans­port the Inn at Cold­well became an ordi­nary pub­lic house.
In more recent times, the Inn acquired a noto­ri­ous rep­u­ta­tion as the prin­ci­pal venue of gam­blers from a wide area. Many police raids took place over the years, the largest occur­ring in Octo­ber 1922 when a military-style oper­a­tion resulted in mass arrests and fines by Nel­son Magistrates.The fines totalled over £1800, a con­sid­er­able sum in those days.

Author: CBebenezer
Key­words: Cold­well Inn Nel­son Lan­cashire Pen­dle Cold­well
Added: Feb­ru­ary 24, 2009