Helmshore (/hɛlmˈʃɔːr/) is a village in the Rossendale Valley, Lancashire, England, south of Haslingden between the A56 and the B6235, 16 miles (26 km) north of Manchester.

The forest declined in the Neolithic period, and largely disappeared during the Bronze Age, mainly as a result of climatic change although hastened by human activity.

[4] One of the main early tracks that passed through Helmshore was a route from the south (by the Pilgrim's Cross which was in existence in AD 1176) on Holcombe Moor, and then goes through Haslingden on its way to Whalley.

Later, in the medieval period, several chapels-of-ease were attached to Whalley church for the 'ease' of the scattered population providing access to the Mass and the sacraments.

questioned this theory, and suggested the perhaps rather more plausible alternative that these 'pilgrims routes' were actually used by drovers, moving livestock from grazing areas to markets.

[6] To the south on the old pilgrim road is Robin Hood's Well, and above that is a cairn and memorial stone in memory of Ellen Strange, generally believed to be a young girl murdered by her lover – an event recorded in a Victorian ballad by John Fawcett Skelton but now known to be a murder of a wife by a husband in 1761[7] that has become replaced by a colourful, but fictional, story.

The ballad was commemorated by Bob Frith and Horse and Bamboo Theatre by an event at the site in June 1978, during which a memorial stone carved by Liverpool artist Don McKinlay was unveiled.

Porritt worked as a young man at Dearden Clough Mill as a hand-loom weaver and eventually became a cotton merchant.

Porritt invested heavily in the new seaside resort of St. Annes, and some of the houses there were built using stone from his Helmshore quarries.

[11] Holden Wood Manufacturing Company, know locally as the Bleach Works, and earlier as Nobels, produced a top secret propellent for aircraft as part of the World War II effort.

The accident happened on the line between Snig Hole and the Ogden Viaduct, both local beauty spots, 400 yards from Helmshore station.

"When the guard released the brakes there was a jerk and 16 carriages broke away from the train and started sliding down the line between Helmshore and Ramsbottom.

Ewood Bridge station was destroyed by bombs and, after passing over Helmshore, the Zeppelin flew on to Holcombe where it did further damage.

[18] The West Pennine Way guide mentions that American GIs set up camp on the flat top of Musbury Tor to practice paratroop drops and field exercises with live ammunition before D-Day.

He also mentions seeing, as a boy, GIs camped near the bullock sheds above Great House, just before D-Day, and the practicing with live ammunition in Alden Valley.

There's another railway story, relating to a murder in a trackside hut on the disused line between Helmshore and Ramsbottom, close to Irwell Vale.

Built by the Turners in 1789, and rescued from dereliction by Derek Pilkington and Chris Aspin in the 1960s, it is now managed by Lancashire County Council Museums Service and details the changes made in textile technology over the last three hundred years through the use of interactive displays.

Mill ponds, weirs, sluice gates and an aqueduct are also part of the museum as well as a 19th-century working waterwheel, fulling stocks and other machinery associated with the finishing of woollen cloth, an original Arkwright water frame, and a Hargreaves Spinning Jenny.

Originally the runners ran to, and around, Big Nor, a large stone at the tip of Musbury Tor, and back, but it was stopped after the farmer withdrew permission to use his land.