The archive is extensive and we aim to make as many of these images available online as soon as possible.
We have Upcoming Events to raise awareness of the collection and our project and photographs of the Gannow area can now be viewed at Gannow Community Centre until the end of the year.
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OCTOBER 2021 **GOOD NEWS** UPDATE: Our archive rooms are now open to a restricted number of volunteers who have been vaccinated. We have taken a cautious and gradual approach and the majority of volunteers are now hard at work again. PENDLE AND WEST CRAVEN images in the Surrounding Districts pages will also now include images from 1963 to 1970 which are scanned from negatives (in addition to those scanned from photographs). These image stories are being transcribed from Nelson Library newspaper film rolls.
50 years Ago
Towneley Hall's new curator, Mr John Blundell, examines the pall, now a centrepiece of the General Scarlett Exhibition.
The funeral pall of Burnley's Crimean War generalissimo, General Sir James Yorke Scarlett, has been rediscovered in the baptistry of St Peter's Church, just in time for the centenary celebrations. The find was made by the Bishop of Burnley, the Rt Rev. Richard Watson, while he was sorting out some chests. Explained the curator of Towneley Art Gallery and Museum, Mr John Blundell, who helped to identify it: "The Bishop and his assistants were pretty sure that this was the pall, but I was able to confirm this with reference to the 1871 memorial service handbook. What seems likely is that it was put away after the general's funeral and then apparently forgotten about. It may have been taken out of the chest a few times, but probably nobody realised the significance of it until the Bishop unearthed it."
Now the pall, valued at 100 gns in 1871, is on display with other General Scarlett relics in the exhibition, "The Military Career of James Yorke Scarlett," at Towneley Hall.
