There’s a ‘lost village’ where cars are banned just down the road from Manchester

In Lancashire there lays an abandoned village where all cars have been banned and walkers are free to roam and explore the ruins of a ‘haunted town hall.’

While this may sound like the plot of a poorly thought-out horror film, it is an actual real life place and it boasts an incredible history. Wycoller, near Colne, was once a handloom weavers’ village and it saw a number of prominent figures in its hay day – the Bronte sisters, most famously.

The famed writers are said to have regularly walked the ten miles there from Haworth in neighbouring Yorkshire where they grew up. In fact, the town hall, which dates back to the 1600s, is believed to have been the inspiration for Charlotte Bronte’s Fearndean Manor in her novel Jane Eyre.

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However, during the Industrial Revolution, the village was abandoned by its residents who, faced with poverty and unemployment, were left with no other choice but to relocate to nearby towns to find work in the developing mills. Over thirty-five houses were deserted and gradually fell derelict and into ruin. By 1896 the majority of people had moved away from the village and it was virtually uninhabited.

But over fifty years later in the 1940s, that was all set to change.

Volunteers began the gradual restoration of the village’s remaining buildings and, decades later in the 1970s, Lancashire County Council would go on to buy the land from the Water Board, with the village and surrounding countryside becoming a designated Country Park.

A number of the original stone cottages were gradually restored and renovated and now act mostly as residential housing – there’s even a B&B holiday cottage in a converted 300-year-old barn at Oaklands.

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The most prominent feature in the village, however, is the looming Wycoller Hall, which is rumoured to be haunted by a ‘ghost horseman’, said to be a former squire of the hall who was blamed for the death of his wife. The ghost and his stead are said to gallop through the village once a year on the ‘darkest and coldest of nights,’ before he makes his way up the ghostly stairs in the ruins.

Braver visitors are free to wander through the ruins where the ground floor rooms all used to be – although climbing up them is forbidden. 

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But perhaps the best aspect of the village’s new lease of life? There are no cars.

As a result of the Country Park’s increasing popularity, councillors made the drastic decision to ban all cars from the village – except for disabled badge holders and residents -with signs halting vehicles at the main road into the area.

Instead, there are two main carparks situated on the edge of the village at Trawden Road and Hayworth Road where visitors can pay-and-display before walking a mile and a half to the village. 

There’s also a number of refreshments on offer to visitors – the village’s old dairy is now a cafe and arts centre, although it is currently operating as a takeaway only via a hatch – with ice creams, hot drinks, home made cake and their classic ‘bacon teacake.’ There’s also a visitors centre, though it is yet to reopen fully. 

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So, how do you get there?

Wycoller is around thirty-eight miles from central Manchester, and it takes around an hour’s drive via main motorway routes along the M60, M66 and M65 into Colne.

It’s then around a three mile drive through country lanes from Colne to get to one of the two main village car parks.

And for those more local to the area, there are regular bus services from Burnley/Colne to Laneshawbridge or Trawden.