Photos from WORKERS AT PLAY IN ROUGHLEE, BARLEY & NEWCHURCH 1900-1980
Exhibition date: 2025
WORK/LIFE is funded by Historic England’s Everyday Heritage programme. It dives into the working class history of East Lancashire to explore the changing relationships between work and leisure, town and countryside.
Focused on picturesque villages at the foot of Pendle Hill – Barley, Newchurch-in-Pendle and Roughlee – WORK/LIFE explores how families from local mill towns travelled to the countryside for relaxation, and how this transformed these tiny villages into rural leisure destinations for workers between 1900-1980.
…or jump to a section of the exhibition:
I: Work ⋅ II: Life ⋅ III: Clarion ⋅ IV: Tea ⋅ V: Beer? ⋅ VI: Local area (1) ⋅ VII: Local area (2) ⋅ VIII: Local area (3) ⋅ IX: Lake ⋅ X: Fun ⋅ Hill & High Fashion
WITH THANKS
Pendle Hill Museum CIC would like to thank the many contributors who have made this exhibition possible. Thank you for sharing your memories with us.
A special thanks to Susan Waine & Jon Bailey for sharing their family images of the lake; to Kai Horner for digitising the photography and Mia Horner for additional research; and to the RJ Hayhurst Collection, the Francis Frith Collection and the volunteers of Lancashire Archives’ Keeping East Lancashire in the Picture project for additional imagery.
We would also like to thank the photographers and models who participated in the ‘Hill & High Fashion’ photography workshop; Matty Hill of Sairo for organising it; and Quinn Lovero for being so generous in sharing his insights.
The WORK/LIFE exhibition was produced in 2025, funded by Historic England’s Everyday Heritage programme.
