Early forms of the name include "Habringham", with the third and second elements probably from the
Old English words , meaning home and in this sense meaning "of the". Its first is less certain, possibly with meaning high hill or mountain—perhaps the origin of Horelaw, the name of the hill on which the parish is situated—or alternatively a personal name. The addition Eaves OE could mean "edge of a hill". There is also part of the parish called Oaken Eaves. Habergham Eaves
township historically extended further to the north from
Gawthorpe Hall in the west to
Towneley Hall in the east, the River Calder generally separating it from the neighbouring townships. Now located in an isolated position in Cross Field near the former Bull and Butcher Inn is the base of a cross, thought to be a
butter cross possibly of
late medieval origin. The Towneleys where involved in another legal battle over land rights here in 1568. Local farmers alleged that half a century before
Sir John Towneley had used forged documentation to create an enclosed area that had become known as Horelaw Pasture. A Duchy Special Commission subsequently found this to have been an encroachment and confiscated the approximately area, situated directly south of another enclosure called Hollin Hey. However shortly after
James I came to the English throne, the land was granted to
the 1st Earl of Devonshire, and before 1612 another Richard Towneley, the great-grandson of Sir John, was able to reacquire it. This made Sir John so unpopular with the local people a tradition arose that his ghost wanders the hills calling "Be warned! Lay out! Be warned! Lay out! Around Horelaw and Hollin Hey Clough". In 1861 the
Borough of Burnley was formed, and in 1894 a large part of the township, with a population of over 40,000 and including Rose Grove,
Burnley Wood, Gannow and Habergham, was transferred to the County Borough of Burnley, and taken out of the control of the newly established
Lancashire County Council. The remainder, with the exception of a small area transferred to
Ightenhill, became the civil parish of Habergham Eaves. On 6 May 1941, a string of eight bombs straddled houses around Rossendale Avenue on the southern edge of Burnley, causing only minor damage. On the night of 12 October the Starfish site was targeted by the
Luftwaffe and the control shelter suffered a direct hit.
Aircraftsman L R Harwood was killed whilst Sergeant D A Murphy, Aircraftsman D R Fryatt, Aircraftsman J Owen, and Aircraftsman E A Jones were all injured as a result of enemy action. By the end of the year the sites were upgraded to incorporate Quick Light (QL) decoys, and they continued to operate until spring 1943, and the site was subsequently cleared.
Habergham Hall Although most of the land in the township was held by
copyhold of the
manor of
Ightenhill, a
freehold estate, sometimes described as a manor, called Habergham existed here. The ancient Habergham Hall, of which there are now no remains, stood near the western side of the township, overlooking Habergham Clough, the boundary with
Hapton. A family was already using the surname when the lord of
Clitheroe,
Roger de Lacy, who died in 1211, gave an
oxgang of land here to Matthew de Habergham and his heirs. The estate descended in 1615 to John Habergham, then aged sixteen. After the
English Civil War his descendants sold the estate in parts, George Halsted becoming the owner of the hall in 1689 as the result of the
foreclosure of a mortgage. The present Habergham Hall farmhouse was built on the site in 1754, and later came into the possession of the branch of the Halstead family at Rowley Hall in
Worsthorne-with-Hurstwood, who sold it in the mid-1800s. ==Governance==