The modern civil parish includes Gawthorpe Hall and extends across the River Calder leaving the hill it is named after.

[4] The manor covered a much larger area than the parish, including Heyhouses (now part of Sabden), Padiham, Habergham Eaves, Burnley, Briercliffe (without Extwistle) and Little Marsden (Nelson south of Walverden Water and Brierfield).

[8] The earliest surviving reference of the name occurs in a charter signed here by John de Lacy, 2nd Earl of Lincoln in 1238, and it appears again in the grant of free warren obtained by his son Edmund in 1251.

[8] The 19th-century historian T D Whitaker theorised that the site provided a preferred stop-over as the de Lacys travelled over the Pennines between Pontefract Castle and Clitheroe, and later as the Plantagenets continued on to Lancaster.

[11] Continuing as a royal stud, records from 1343-44 show four horses were acquired by the first Duke of Cornwall, Edward the Black Prince.

A ridge to the south has today been cut through by the M65 motorway and East Lancashire line railway, with the Leeds and Liverpool Canal running a in tunnel under it.

[21] In the early 19th-century the Calder had become extensively polluted by manufacturing waste and the Shuttleworths had its route diverted away from Gawthorpe to the other side of the valley.

[22][15] Gawthorpe is one of the trailheads of the Brontë Way, a 43-mile (69 km) long-distance footpath that crosses the South Pennines to Haworth, continuing to Oakwell Hall, Birstall, West Yorkshire.

[25] The present parish was created in 1894, mainly from the former, but with the small part of Habergham Eaves lying north of A671 Padiham Road, added to it.

[28] 2004 saw the parish regain some of the territory previously transferred to Burnley and added the area around All Saints Church and Park Hill School.

[38] There were 52.7 crimes per 1,000 inhabitants in the year to December 2007 (Lancashire average 89.4), a fall of 8.1% on the previous twelve months[38] Notes Citations Bibliography