Samlesbury, ENG - Postcode - PR5 0SS

Description of Samlesbury, England

South Ribble, Lancashire, England is home to Samlesbury, a settlement and civil parish. Samlesbury Aerodrome and a big, state-of-the-art brewery owned by Anheuser-Busch InBev may both be found in the village, as can the ancient house known as Samlesbury Hall. There were 1,206 people who answered the census in 2011

The name of the town, which literally means "ledge fortification," comes from the Old English words sceamol (which means "ledge") and burh (which means "fortification"). It's also possible that the name comes from the Celtic goddess Belisama, whose name the River Ribble bore in Roman times. 

The Denyas family owned a stronghold beside the river in the 13th and 14th centuries; this structure was likely a stone tower. The Scots wiped it out during "The Great Raid" in 1322. Alicia Denyas, an heiress in the family, married Gilbert de Southworth, the man responsible for creating Samlesbury Hall. From its inception in 1894 until its dissolution in 1974, the parish was a part of Preston Rural District. The parish was included into South Ribble in 1974.

The manor house of Samlesbury, first constructed in 1325, has served as a variety of functions over the centuries, from tavern to boarding school for young women, and is now managed by the Samlesbury Hall Trust, a nonprofit organization established to prevent the building's destruction for its timber in 1925. Every year, over 50,000 people come to see this medieval manor house, which is so popular that it is on the National Register of Historic Places.

The Samlesbury parish church was established in 1096 and, like its neighboring Walton-le-Dale counterpart, is devoted to St. Leonard the Less. In addition to the burial armour of Sir Thomas Southworth, who died in 1546, the church also houses a Norman tub font, a bell from the Middle Ages, and other historical artifacts. Church chest, double-tiered pulpit, and box pews from the 17th and 18th centuries are also present. St. Mary and John Southworth is a Roman Catholic church. A Wesleyan Methodist church once stood there as well. Samlesbury Church of England Primary School is a great resource for the community. The school sits on the banks of the River Ribble, close to the Church of St. Leonard the Less.

The Samlesbury brewery is a massive, cutting-edge establishment that is part of the InBev family. It was finished in 1972 so that Whitbread could begin producing Heineken lager. Boddington's Bitter and Bass Pale Ale are brewed and packaged for international distribution.

Lord Wakefield of Kendal (who would eventually become Sir Wavell Wakefield) oversaw the Lancashire Aircraft Corporation at Warton, of which Samlesbury Engineering was a subsidiary. While buses were the company's bread and butter, they also produced high-quality engineering.

On the parking lot behind Samlesbury Hall was their workshop, where the doomed Bluebird K7 was conceived and constructed. In the 1950s, Donald Campbell piloted the turbo jet-powered hydroplane Bluebird K7 to seven new world water speed records; in 1967, he was killed while testing the craft on Coniston Water. 

Samlesbury Engineering and the Lancashire Aircraft Corporation merged to become what is now known as BAE Systems, and their former plant at Samlesbury is now known as BAE Samlesbury.