Chipping is situated in the Ribble Valley on the edge of The Trough Of Bowland.

A well kept secret to many, this picturesque Lancashire village has won a number of best kept village competitions over the years.

The village is known to be at least 1,000 years old and is named in the Domesday book as 'Chippenden' ~ the name coming from the medieval 'Chepyn' meaning market place.

Chipping really thrived during the Industrial Revolution when there were seven mills located along Chipping Brook. Today only one survives - the famous chairmaking factory of H.J.Berry - where furniture has been designed and made since the 1890’s.

The Trough Of Bowland is both a delight and a pleasure with its rolling pastures, working farmland and dense forestry. The area is classed as “an area of outstanding natural beauty” and it certainly lives up to expectation. The Forest of Bowland occupies most of the north east of Lancashire. It consists of barren gritstone fells, deep valleys and peat moorland. It's an attractive alternative to the overcrowded Lake District, and today this grouse moorland is also used for walking and cycling.

The name 'forest' is used in its traditional sense of 'a royal hunting ground', and much of the land still belongs to the Crown. In the past wild boar, deer, wolves, wild cats and game roamed the forest. The origins of the name Bowland most likely came from the long-standing connection of the region with archery - the 'land of the bow'.

Just to the North of the village the access areas of Clougha, Fair Snape, Wolf Fell and Saddle Fell have been opened up to the public by access agreements negotiated between Lancashire County Council and the owners. This means that over 3,260 acres of open country is now open to walkers.

Well worth a visit is the village Church, which is commemorated by an annual fair held on St Bartholomew's Day, August 24th. The church of St Bartholomews has a number of heads carved on a pillar in the north aisle. They appear to be pulling faces and are thought to have been carved in the 14th century. Also inside the church can be found a 12th century piscina in the chacel and a plague stone. In 1879 the Belgian people made a gift of a chest to St Bartholomews Hospital in London which is now housed in the church near two 1450 holy water stoups. A local tradition has it that when a wedding has taken place in the church local children tie the church gates shut. The wedding couple must then throw money to the children in order to get them re-opened.

Perhaps the most interesting of the local tales is connected with a young serving girl Lizzy Dean who worked at the Sun Inn. One day she heard the bells ringing from the church across the street. Looking out the window she saw here fiance arriving to be married to another. Lizzie was heartbroken and hanged herself. Her suicide note stated that she wished to be buried beneath the church path, so that everytime her fiance went to church he would have to walk over her grave. The vicar would not agree to this and buried her at the South-East corner of the church. It is because her final wishes were not carried that the locals claim that her spirit still haunts the Sun Inn to this day.

The Brabins Craft Centre is one of the oldest buildings in the area, it is recorded as being the oldest continually used shop in England. The shop and adjoining house were completed in 1668 by one John Brabin, a London cloth merchant and dyer. Following his death in 1683, he left instructions to create a trust providing relief to the poor and education for the young. Outcomes of this can be seen on Windy Street today with the “old school house” and the “alms houses”, both completed a year after his death. His house, next to the shop, still bears the original date stone and is said to be haunted by the ghost of John Brabin. Since Mr Brabin first set up in business in 1668, the shop has had a number of incarnations including; a bakers, a grocers, an undertakers, a Post Office and a butchers the lettering of which is still just visible above the front door.

<Taken from About Chipping, courtesy of www.chippingvillage.co.uk>