Moses Gate Country Park

The area has seen several uses as an industrial site, at Moses Gate, one of the earliest paper mills in Lancashire was built by the Crompton family in Farnworth. The site at Farnworth was influential in the manufacture and the development of papermaking, the first work being started by Robert Crompton (1667–1737). Crompton was the first in a line of men of paper. Thomas Bonsor could well be called the first papermaking tycoon and his mill at Farnworth became a showpiece for the craft, he died on 5 September 1858 and was buried in the churchyard of St John the Evangelist's Church, Farnworth. The first steam weaving mill was opened in 1828 by James Rothwell Barnes, later becoming a spinning…

The park runs from the A6053 to Nob End along the banks of the River Croal. At Nob End, the Croal joins the Irwell which then continues for about two miles into Clifton Country Park. The name Moses Gate comes from the joining of two words, one a corruption of the word mosses meaning peaty or marshy lands, and gate is from the Old English gata meaning a way across, so we have the way through the mosses (also as in Kearsley Moss, Clifton Moss, Linnyshaw Moss, etc.). The alternate name of Crompton Lodges comes from the lakes which were mill ponds or lodges supplying water to Cromptons Paper Mills. The park lies on the Kingfisher Way which runs for 11 km from Clifton Country Park to Jumbles…