The Parish of Whalley in the County of -- Lancashire --

For territorial extent no parish in Lancashire equals that of Whalley. This great parochial division of the county comprehended, even in its dissevered state (in 1835), one of the borough and forty-nine townships (forty-four in the upper and five in the lower division of the hundred), as already enumerated, of which thirteen were chapelries. Its breadth from the northern boundary in the township of Chatburn, to the southern boundary of the hundred in the forest of Rossendale, within this parish, is fifteen miles; and its length, from the western boundary in the township of Chatburn, to the eastern boundary, in the township of Oswaldwisle, to the eastern boundary, where the counties of Lancaster and York are separated by the division line at Wolfstones, in the forest of Trawden, is eighteen miles.

The name, like the parish itself, is Saxon, signifying a Field of Wells, expressed by the term Walabaeg, on which point Dr. Whitaker, the learned historian of Whalley, says, "No term more strikingly descriptive could have been chosen, for, situated as Whalley is, upon a skirt of Pendle, and upon the face of those vast inverted mineral beds, popularly denominated the Rearing Mine, the earth, if drained, bleeds almost at every pore, and there are no less than six considerable springs within the immediate precincts of the village."

The original parish of Whalley, comprehending as it did four hundred square miles, was much more extended than that which at present exists, and included the parishes of Rochdale, Blackburn, Ribchester, Chipping, Mitton, and Slaidburn, with part of the district of Saddleworth. The boundary division at this early period consisted of the Ribble and the Hodder to the south, and the Tarne and the Chaw to the south. At what time Rochdale was dissevered from the parish of Whalley does not appear, but it was certainly before the termination of the deanery, in 1291. The parish of Whalley is stated in the census of 1881 to have an area of 111,942 statute acres, and a population in that year of 244,107.