CLITHEROE

(Redirected from St. James\' Church, Clitheroe)

'Clitheroe' is a town and civil parish in the borough of Ribble Valley, Lancashire, England. It lies on the southern edge of the Forest of Bowland and is often used as a base for tourists in the area. The most notable building in the town is a Norman keep, quarreled as one of the smallest in the country.
The town elected two members to the Unreformed House of Commons. The Great Reform Act reduced this to one. It was one of the boroughs reformed by the Municipal Corporations Act 1835, and remained a municipal borough until the Local Government Act 1972 came into force in 1974 when it became a successor parish within the Ribble Valley district.
The place has been claimed to be the most (geographically) central town in Britain, by virtue of its proximity to the village of Dunsop Bridge.

Contents

Schools

The Castle

Industry

Society

Sport

Religion

External links

Schools

The three main secondary schools in the town are Clitheroe Royal Grammar School, Ribblesdale High Technology College and Moorland School. There is a Church of England Primary School, (St James's), a Roman Catholic Primary School, (Sts Michael and John's), and several other primary schools such as Pendle, Edisford and Brookside.

The Castle

Clitheroe Castle () is argued to be the smallest Norman Keep in the whole of England. It stands atop a 35-metre outcrop of limestone and is one of the oldest buildings in Lancashire. It is also the only remaining castle in the county which had a royalist garrison during the English Civil War.
The castle's most prominent feature is the hole in its side which was made in 1649 as was ordered by the government. It was to be put in "such condition that in might neither be a charge to the Commonwealth to keep it, nor a danger to have it kept against them".

Industry

Clitheroe enjoys one of the lowest rates of unemployment in the UK. This is largely due to the presence of several companies that each employ hundreds. Most significant are Ultraframe, Castle Cement, Tarmac and Johnson Matthey.
Castle Cement has been criticised for using industrial waste in its kilns, which some local inhabitants claim produces poisonous dioxins. Castle Cement claims that its filters remove these and that government inspectors have approved the plant. However, locals continue to campaign for the use of industrial waste as fuel to cease.

Society

Clitheronians are generally quite traditional. A Conservative member of parliament has represented the town for many years, with the exception of Michael Carr, elected in 1991 for the Liberal Democrats. The current MP is Nigel Evans. Previous to both these was the high profile David Waddington.
However, the borough returned one of the first six ever socialist MPs at the 1906 election, due perhaps to the large number of mill workers living locally at that time.
Jimmy Clitheroe, a comedian well known for his bawdy radio shows, was also not from Clitheroe but from nearby Colne. However, a cafe in the town is named after him.

Sport

Clitheroe F.C. play in the Northern Premier League Division One North. They play their home games at the Shawbridge Stadium.
Hurst Green are a semi professional football team from Clitheroe, they play in the East Lancashire Division 1, and in 2007 were crowned Champions
An annual cycle race, the Clitheroe Grand Prix takes place in the town.
Clitheroe is also home to the PESL Futsal Cup, an annual futsal tournament, which takes place every August at Edisford.
Professional UFC fighter Michael Bisping also hails from the town.

Religion

There are three Anglican Churches: St James' Church has recently been refurbished and is home to a lively all age congregation; the more traditional St Mary's is prominent on Church Brow atop another Limestone knoll; St Paul's is in the area of town known as Low Moor. The town also has a large Roman Catholic community, the majority of Roman Catholic children attend St Augustines RC High School. The Catholic Saint, Margaret Clitherow, was not from Clitheroe but lived and was martyred in York. There is also a Methodist and URC church in the town as well as the Clitheroe Community Church and Salvation Army citadel. In nearby Sawley there is a quaker meeting house.
There is also a growing Muslim community in the town. In order to gain permission for a local mosque from the town's residents, the Muslim community's leaders spent years on outreach, forming "an interfaith scout group — the Beaver Scouts — that honored many religious occasions, including the Taoist and Jewish new years. They established the Medina Islamic Education Center as an interfaith group for adults... and organized a series of lectures on global conflict that attracted important academics."
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External links

★ Clitheroe Football Club unofficial website

★ The PESL Futsal Cup

★ Clitheroe Royal Grammar School

★ Ribblesdale High Technology College

★ Clitheroe in the future

★ Clitheroe District Scouts

★ St James' Church

★ Captain James King

★ Medina Islamic Education Centre