The name Hameldon is used for two others in the local area, and is possibly the same as
Hambledon Hill in
Dorset. The second element is likely
Old English meaning hill, the first is possibly from meaning to mutilate or maim. The precise meaning in these cases is uncertain, but possibly relates to their appearance. A number of
flint tools thought to date to the
Mesolithic period have been found at the Great Hameldon summit. Located close to the edge of the
plateau to the north, is a small mound called Little Hameldon. It is high and long by wide, and has been proposed as the remains of a
chambered long barrow dating from the early
Neolithic to early
Bronze Age periods.
Huncoat, on the northern slope, is one of the few places mentioned in the brief details of the
Blackburnshire hundred in the
Domesday Book, with
King Edward holding two
carucates of land here. The settlements of Dunnockshaw, Loveclough, Goodshaw and Crawshawbooth along the valley of
Limy Water to the south east, can trace their history to vaccaries (Medieval cattle ranches) in the
Forest of Rossendale. The
Towneley family of Burnley's
Towneley Hall are descendants of the Del la Legh family, several generations of whom, held the position of chief stock master of the vaccaries in Rossendale and the other forests of the
Blackburn Hundred. During the 14th century they would acquire the
manors of Hapton and the now lost Birtwistle, thought to have been located somewhere within Hapton
civil parish.
Sir John Towneley obtained the first of two licenses to create
deer park in
Hapton in 1496-1497 and is thought to have built Hapton Tower within it. After the King's commissioners re-let Rossendale to local farmers in 1507, Towneley in 1514 enlarged his deer park to embrace 1100 Lancashire acres (as much as ) making it the second largest in
historic Lancashire after that of the
Earl of Derby at
Knowsley. Its irregular boundaries covered much of the eastern part of the hill, stretching from the plateau of Great Hill, north to Bentley Wood Green. By 1615 deer were no longer kept in the park, though it was not divided into the present-day farms until the early 18th century. Cupola Colliery mined coal from a number of shafts on the top of the hill, and was already established by the mid-1840s. The colliery was abandoned at the end of 1887 and the site subsequently cleared. The
embankment created for its surface tramway can still be traced. It was superseded by several others on its slopes, including
Hapton Valley Colliery, which survived to be the last deep mine operating on the Burnley Coalfield, closing in 1982. A number of smaller
quarries at Hameldon Scouts had grown by 1886 into the Hameldon Quarries, when Henry Heys and Co took over the operation. It supplied large quantities of flagstones for the construction of mills in
Burnley and
Padiham. At that time tram roads connected the main site to another at Snipe Rake and to a facility at Park Gate Farm. These quarries ceased operation in 1909, but extensive remains still exist. Since the late 19th century, the Accrington area has been known for the production of
Accrington brick. Brick-clay has been extracted from the Huncoat Quarry at Rakehead, which was connected to the Huncoat Plastic Brick and Terracotta Company, and was still being operated by
Ibstock in the early 2000s. The Mitchell's House Reservoirs in the upper valley of Warmden Brook, are two bodies of water separated by an intermediate embankment, forming a single impoundment. Construction of the L-shaped embankment dam of the northern (No 1) reservoir commenced in 1851, but significant issues were encountered in achieving a satisfactory level of water retention. After 1872, the southern (No 2) reservoir was created by extending the western section of the original dam to span the valley, a total distance of . Between 1881 and 1892 major repairs were undertaken, especially to the older dam, before both could be declared watertight. Subsidence problems that have effected the reservoirs have likely been exacerbated by coal-mining underneath it, which did not cease until 1905. During
World War II a network of
Starfish site bombing decoys where constructed in the area designed to protect
Accrington. Two of the sites are on Hameldon, one near Heights Farm on the south-eastern side, and the other on the south-western side overlooking the reservoir. The Heights Farm site is protected as a
Scheduled monument. The
Met Office north west England
weather radar is situated on Hameldon Hill. Commissioned in 1975 this was the first unmanned installation of the 15 that form the national weather radar network. Nearby are a number of communication masts including one that broadcasts
BBC Radio Lancashire. Today the
A56 runs through a large
cutting on the north-western side of Hameldon, effectively separating Accrington's Peel Park from the rest of the hill. This was constructed between February 1984 and July 1985 as part of the Accrington Easterly By-pass scheme, itself the last section of a larger project to create a
dual carriageway route between the
M66 and
M65. Hameldon Hill Wind Farm, located on the northern side of the hill, became operational in 2007. Initially consisting of three
turbines, a further three were added around 2012. ==Geography==