Cribden Hill, Rossendale, lies between Haslingden and Rawtenstall rising up quite steeply to over 400 metres. Most of the moorland fields are enclosed by drystone walls made of small flat pieces of Rossendale Flag, a Carboniferous sandstone. They can be beautifully constructed.
However, there are one or two boundaries on the Haslingden side of the hill made of large cut flags set on end, sometimes called pigstones.
It must have taken considerable effort to cut these large flags and bring them up the slopes of the hill and one wonders why they were sometimes chosen over drystone walls. Perhaps when a Georgian farmer needed to subdivide an existing field very quickly, this was the way to do it.
The walls pre-date the 1840s six inch OS maps but they have iron fittings which suggest they are late 1700s or early 1800s in date.
