Aighton was mentioned in 1870 in the
Imperial Gazetteer of England and Wales by John Marius Wilson, who wrote: AIGHTON, one of three hamlets forming a township in the parish of Mitton, Lancashire. It lies near Hodder river, under Longridge fell, 3½ miles NNW of Whalley r. station, and 5 WSW of Clitheroe. It contains cotton factories, a workhouse, and the Roman Catholic college of Stonyhurst. The other hamlets of the township are Bailey and Chaighley. Acres in the three, 5,780. Real property, £6,726. Pop., 1,500. Houses, 244. The operator of Chaigley Farms was unsuccessful in a 1996
high court case related to the legal concept of a
retention of title clause. The farms had sold livestock to an abattoir under a contract incorporating such a clause, intended to protect the seller's financial interests until they have been paid by the buyer. The goods were sold as "livestock"; the judge,
Garland J., held that upon slaughter the carcasses were no longer "livestock" and that subsequent treatment, removing the parts which were not to be sold on as butchers' meat, extinguished the farms' title to the property. ==Governance==