[4] A story is told of the murder of a young woman by her lover on the footpath to Edgworth above and to the south of Alden Valley.

Above Robin Hood's Well, the site is marked by an old cairn, and a stone carved by Rossendale-based artist Don McKinlay was erected by Horse and Bamboo Theatre at a special performance in 1978.

[5] In 1304–05 Henry de Lacy, 3rd Earl of Lincoln, nominated a large area of land from Grane to Alden Valley as a deer park.

This was a hunting area that fell into disuse over the next few hundred years, although the boundary earthworks can still be clearly seen between Alden Reservoir and Fall Bank.

From this point there are no more signs of the earthworks, but it emerged in Station Road, Helmshore, and from there led back to the White Horse.

Nevertheless, the parcel of land including the Alden section of the old game park was rented to Adam Haworth in 1527.

The relative tranquility of Alden Valley (and the fact that it was to the west, and protected by the prevailing wind from the smoke from his own mills) provided a suitable place for his son, William John Porritt, to create a house for himself, sufficiently distant from his own mills and the associated poverty.

In the 1970s the mill was sold to developers and was eventually demolished in 1977, including the chimney which had been one of Helmshore's dominant landmarks.

On Stake Lane, the moor road south from Dowry Head, is a well associated with the legend of Robin Hood.

The route today is a popular recreation site for walkers and cyclists, and is the way from the valley to the cairn of Ellen Strange.

[7]: 108 The local historian Chris Aspin remembers that "four Home Guardsmen armed with one old rifle and six rounds of ammunition" climbed to the top of Musbury Tor each evening to keep watch.

They had a small hut for shelter, but there was no telephone and in the event of an invasion one of the guards would have had to run down to their HQ in Musbury School.

[10] According to the West Pennine Way guide, American GIs set up camp on the flat top of Musbury Tor to practise paratroop drops and field exercises in the area with live ammunition before D-Day.

The area is blanket bog that was formed over 6,000 years, and this has led to a peat layer of up to three metres deep.

Over the past century, much of this bog has been badly damaged, mostly by attempts to drain the land believing it would improve grazing.

A number of agencies including Natural England and the local Commoners' Association have supported this work.

It has a number of aims, including creating permeable dams to restrict the flow of flood water.

Sphagnum moss has been introduced in the newly rewetted areas, which will help to make the top layers of the peat more permeable, and thus able to retain water, rather than it flowing freely as it does currently.