The shire probably originated as a county of the Kingdom of Northumbria, but was much fought over, and by the time of the Domesday Book it was considered a hundred of Cheshire. The seperateness of the district was reinforced when it became a royal bailiwick in 1122. In 1182, it became part of the newly-created county of Lancashire. Over time, the term fell out of use, but it remained a hundred until the abandonment of that system in the early nineteenth century.
For hundreds of years Barnoldswick remained a small village, however the arrival of the canal, and later the (now closed) railway, spurred the development of the existing woolen industry, and helped it to become a major cotton town.
Barnoldswick was historically administered as part of the West Riding of Yorkshire (although Blackburnshire in Lancashire sometimes claimed the area).
It was transferred to the administrative jurisdiction of Lancashire by the Local Government Act 1972 in 1974.
The monks’ lands at Barnoldswick lay adjacent to the forest of Blackburnshire and straddled the Yorkshire / Lancashire border.
They were the source of a particularly lengthy and litigious dispute in the early years of Edward III’s reign (1327-77), for when the forest of Blackburnshire came into royal hands in 1322 the abbey lost its common rights on this land.
The forest had previously been held by Kirkstall’s patronal family, the Lacys.
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