Rivington

Shaws Clough, also known as Tigers Clough.

The boundary between Rivington and Horwich follows the line of the River Douglas, you can access the area via Roynton Rd walking through woodland at the Horwich side of Rivington and Blackrod High School. The upper part of the stream is locally known as 'Tigers Clough' named after an ale house that once existed there.¹⁾ Further uphill maps show the area as Knoll or Shaw Wood, both names come from previous land owners.²⁾ To access the upper area there you can do so by following the Pike route, heading up the pike footpath with the old quarry on your left turn right at Lower Knoll Farm ruin and ahead where you will find a bridge. The name Knoll is from an early land owning family.³⁾

The Tigers Clough landscape is a gorge created by a glacier at the end of the last ice age, prehistoric tools found at the clough are on display at Bolton Museum. Still visable upstream you can find the remains of Knoll bleach works originally operated at the turn of the 19th century by a tenant named Thomas Kay, he also operated The Tigers Ale House.⁴⁾ The Knoll Bleach works was closed to protect the water supply around 1868.⁵⁾ The video below is of Tigers Clough Waterfall.

It was in 1946 that a local man named Mr Southworth on a walk through the Tigers Clough picked up a six inch long stone from the bed of a river, the stone was shaped into an axe head. It was after a relative of Mr Southworth arranged to have the find examined in 1962 that it was realised it was only one of two ever found in the British Isles, being a Neolithic artefact from c. 2500BC made of scandinavian stone.⁶⁾

I was raised very close to the area I am now writing about and lived nearby for two thirds of my life, passing the spot on foot everyday when at school, it was whilst still at school I first saw the 1620 map of Horwich.

The Douglas diversion changed the path of the river a century ago, a small stream still flows through its old course at Jepsons Clough. The footpaths from there had existed longer than I have lived and still existed in the early 1980s, it was a nice ramble along the stream from the Clough heading around the back of the garden of remembrance, Horwich.

The area was once a lovely woodland and existed as long back as Lever Park, there are now new build houses off Lever Park Avenue inside the Horwich parish boundary where once you could ramble along the stream.

The land at The Clough was owned by a well connected family of Rivington Unitarian Chapel. The sister of Hugh, 15th Baron Willoughby of Parham, Elizabeth Shaw in her will of 1787 left Jepsons 31 acre 31 perches and the river to Daniel Shaw, her son. At the time of our map in 1620 the fields there were named Whittles after the grandparents of 11th Baron Willoughby. The Horwich side of the Douglas boundary from Tigers Clough to Lever Park is called Old Lords Estate.(Measurement is in Cheshire Acres) Jepsons Farm was purchased by Liverpool City Council on 9th July 1904 for £4500.⁷⁾

Plague mass grave c.1623, Lever Park Avenue, Horwich.⁸⁾,⁹⁾

The 1620 map of Horwich titled Platt of Horwiche was altered by an additional note of a plague pit, c.1623, in the period Bolton had a over 600 deaths from the plague.¹⁰⁾,¹¹⁾

The mass grave or plague pit is located on the Horwich side of the Douglas in a field off Lever Park Avenue, a part of the mass grave is under what is now a road. Before the road was built there was a hillock that measured 3 roods 20 perches close to the Douglas. On the 1620 map the grave is shown as 1/3 the size of the hillock, the grave being 1 rood 7 perches, about 1/4 acre.¹²⁾ The building of Lever Park Avenue cut through the hillock, its position was however noted by writers in the 19th century.

Until early in the 20th century, there was no road called Lever Park Avenue. Adjacent to where Lever Park Avenue is now close to the fence of the current field was a footpath passing over a hillock before reaching a footbridge to cross over the River Douglas.

The footpath from Scholes Bank, Horwich to Rivington as it reached the Douglas passed a hillock known as 'Thieves Grave' or 'Robbers Walk'. Lever Park Avenue as can be seen by overlaying a current map to the earlier ordnance survey maps is closer to Jepsons Clough than the original route.

Adding the information of the route of the Douglas, before it was diverted it is possible to estimate where the mass plague grave of 1623 is located.¹³⁾

Heartbreak Hill off Lever Park Avenue is a nearby field with poor soil that was first openned for the unemployed to grow food after the Great Depression (1929).

There has been some suggestion the plague pit could be closer to the allotment gardens based there. The name heartbreak hill is however due to conditions the poor soil and unemployment.

• Will of Elizabeth Shaw
• Family tree of Shaw descendants