HASLINGDEN, Lancashire’s highest market town, and the village of Helmshore, in the valley below, both have a long heritage.

Now, a new book records the ways in which the places have changed over the past century.

It records the coming and going of the mills, the switch from railway to motorway, and the sports and past times, through more than 180 photographs.

There have been settlements here since prehistoric times – the remains of a Bronze age circle can be seen on Thirteen Stone Hill – but the earliest written records are from the 13th century, when Henry de Lacy enclosed parts of Alden and Musbury as a deer park in 1304/5.

Textiles brought great changes.

Haslingden specialised in working up cotton waste from other factories, and Sunnybank Mill, Helmshore, gained a worldwide reputation for its papermaker’s felts, some of which were used in printing bank notes.

Quarrying the local millstone grit and bricks became other important industries.

During the Second World War, secret work at Holden Vale provided the RAF with a propellant for incendiary bullets, which helped our fighter pilots during the Battle of Britain.

At the same time, S S Stott engineers was making components for a pipeline under the English Channel, to supply Allied forces with oil after D Day.

The world’s first public IQ test was held in Haslingden in 1903, and the local corporation was one of the first to operate a municipal bus service in 1907.

Haslingden and Helmshore Through Time, written by Chris Aspin and John Simpson, and published by Amberley Publishing, is priced at £14.99.