Alden Valley

Coordinates: 53°41′13″N 2°21′11″W / 53.687°N 2.353°W / 53.687; -2.353 The Alden Valley is a small valley in the east Pennines, west of Helmshore in Rossendale, Lancashire. In 1840 it was home to about 20 farms; largely cattle rearing, although most inhabitants were also involved with the production of textiles. Now it is dominated by sheep grazing, with 3 working farms and a number of smallholdings.

At the end of the eighteenth century small water-powered mills appeared in the valley. Midge Hole Mill dated from 1794, and the original Sunnybank Mill from 1798. By the 1830s there was a small bleach works at the head of the valley (Alden Old Mill), Clough Mill near Sunnybank, and Higher and Lower Alden Mill. The Higher Alden Mill was the first dedicated cotton mill, immediately below the present-day Alden Farm. These small mills were to disappear by the second half of the nineteenth century, as the large mills of Turner and Porritt and others and associated housing grew up in Helmshore around the turnpikes and railway. The outlying mills in Alden were no longer practical, and the valley reverted to farming. The relative tranquility of Alden Valley provided a suitable place for William John Porritt to build a house for himself, sufficiently distant from his own mills and the associated poverty. Porritt bought up most of the farmhouses in the valley, making his family the largest landowner. The Porritts were great tree-planters and planted most of the wooded areas we see today in the lower valley.

To the north and north-west is Musbury Tor, to the south-west is Wet Moss, to the west is Musden Head Moor and Burnt hill, to the south is Bull Hill and the Holcombe rifle ranges, to the south-east is Beetle hill. The Valley is picturesque, with associated sites of interest: