Gisburn Forest, ENG - Postcode - BD23 4SF

Description of Gisburn Forest

The Ribble Valley in Lancashire, England is home to the civil parish of Gisburn Forest. The parish encompasses the greater part of the village of Tosside as well as the hamlet of Grunsagill to the south, both of which are located primarily within the Forest of Bowland Area of Outstanding Natural Beauty. This parish was originally a part of Yorkshire's West Riding. In 2011, its population was recorded at 151.

It is located in the Craven district of North Yorkshire and shares borders with the parishes of Easington, Bolton-by-Bowland, and Paythorne in the Ribble Valley, as well as Lawkland, Giggleswick, Rathmell, Wigglesworth, and Halton West.

History of Gisburn Forest

Around Brown Hills Beck on the western boundary of the parish is believed to be a late Neolithic or Bronze Age bowl barrow. It is an oval earthen mound measuring 40 by 30 metres (131 by 98 ft) and reaching heights of up to 10 metres (33 ft). In Easington, there is a second similar mound on the opposite side of the stream.

The Domesday Book recorded the manor of Gisburn Forest as belonging to the Percy Fee. In 1189, the grazing rights and the right to take timber were donated to Sawley Abbey by Matilda de Percy, the widow of William de Beaumont, 3rd Earl of Warwick. In addition, her great-nephew William de Percy, 6th Baron Percy, gave the manor to the church in 1211. In 1561, Sir Arthur Darcy's son, Henry, acquired the manor and other monastic holdings. Thomas Browne, a relative of Mary, the third wife of Sir Robert Burdett, acquired the largest estate in the township at the turn of the nineteenth century and laid claim to the manor. The main house of this estate was called Grunsagill.

Governance

The Gisburn Forest community was originally a parish in the larger Gisburn parish, which was located in the Western Division of the Staincliffe Wapentake. It was in 1866 that Gisburn Forest was officially recognised as a civil parish, and by 1894 it had become a part of the Bowland Rural District. One hundred seventy-five hectares (432 acres) in the northwest corner of the parish were given to Rathmell in 1938. Originally located in the West Riding of Yorkshire, it was moved to the Ribble Valley district in Lancashire in 1974.

There is only one parish council for the three communities of Gisburn Forest, Sawley, and Bolton-by-Bowland. The parish is part of the Gisburn, Rimington ward of the Ribble Valley Borough Council, along with Rimington, Middop, Gisburn, Paythorne, Newsholme, and Horton.