History

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Contact:

Ann Groves (Hall Manager)

Tosside Community Group

Address:

The Community Hall

Tosside

BD23 4SQ

Telephone:

01729-840272

E-Mail:

tosside@hotmail.co.uk

More About us...

Charity Name :

Tosside Community Link

Registered Charity No: 1093125

Gift-aid Ref :

XR64933

Tosside village
literally straddles the
Yorkshire/Lancashire Border!

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Tosside Community Group

Legal ...

Sun 19th Feb @ 10 AM

( Version: KTD 12.02 / 03 rev:a )

A friendly rural community enjoying life on the Lancashire / Yorkshire border...

Local History

• Tosside’s Name

The village of Tosside takes it’s name from the Anglo Saxon name Todd-Set meaning “the moorland home (set) of Todd the fox”. It is thought that over time, through use and local dialect, the name Todd-Set was shortened to Tossett, and from this to present-day Tosside.

• Two Villages - Tosside with Houghton

Originally there were two distinct villages of Tosside and Houghton. Tosside originally extended West, down the hill past the Mount Zion church. Over time, Tosside and Houghton amalgamated into one village. Ironically, the site of the former Houghton village is now the present-day Tosside, with the majority of the site of the original village of Tosside, no longer being discernable - old photos are all that’s left now. It is thought that over time the name “Tosside with Houghton” simply became known as Tosside.

• Tosside Church v Houghton Chapel

It is for the reason above that Tosside church is sometimes referred to as Houghton Chapel. This former Chapel-of-Ease in the parish of Gisburn was noted in a Parliamentary Survey of 1650 recommending that the "Chapel be made a Parish Church”. In actual fact it took 220 years to materialise, but Houghton Chapel eventually became St Bartholomew’s Church, Tosside in 1870. The church is famous amongst other things, for its 17th century octagonal font made from local stone and its Jacobean pulpit dated 1701.

• Village Pub

The Dog and Partridge public house has had many uses including being both a horse sanctuary and earlier still a Temperance Hall — how things change!

• Dalehead, Fylde Water Board and Stocks Reservoir

Dalehead, a picturesque local valley was flooded in the 1920’s to construct Stocks Reservoir. The work was undertaken by the Fylde Water Board with the objective of supplying drinking water to Blackpool and the Fylde. The water catchment area for the reservoir was cleared of farms and dwellings before flooding Dalehead. A large part of the catchment area is now occupied by Gisburn Forest, which was first planted in 1948 by the Forestry Commission. Fylde Water Board became part of the North West Water Authority (NWWA) which went on to become the Water Division of United Utilities. As such, Gisburn Forest is now owned by United Utilities with forestry management being carried out on their behalf by Forest Enterprise.

The villages of Tosside and Houghton played a major part in the construction of Stocks Reservoir. Due to the use of early steam wagons which could not safely negotiate the hill in and out of Slaidburn, it became necessary to construct a Depot at Tosside and utilise a temporary light railway, in order to move materials between the road and the new reservoir dam site. The light railway left the road just below Mt Zion Church. The railway was used solely for the construction of the reservoir and was then dismantled, but the route of the old railway can still be largely traced through the forest to the reservoir site.

Stocks Reservoir was opened on 5th July 1932 by HRH Prince George in a ceremony called the “inauguration of the Hodder Supply”.

• Hindenburg

During 1937 the Hindenburg airship, involved in pre-war photo reconnaissance activities, was seen over Tosside following photography of the newly constructed reservoir. Accounts suggest that the Hindenburg was returning to Germany after having performed similar photo reconnaissance and intelligence gathering at the shipyards and Engineering facilities at Barrow-in-Furness and other industrial sites in preparation for war in 1939. It is understood that during the Second World War, on moonlit nights, Stocks Reservoir served as a way-marker for many German pilots on night bombing missions en-route to many of Northern England’s major cities.

Today, Stocks Reservoir and Gisburn Forest provide a first class location for recreation and wide range of outdoor activities.