Human settlement in England
Sawley is a village and civil parish in the Borough of Ribble Valley in Lancashire, England. The population of the civil parish was 305 at the 2001 Census,[2] rising to 345 at the 2011 census.[1] It is situated north-east of Clitheroe, on the River Ribble. It was historically part of the West Riding of Yorkshire.
The parish adjoins the Ribble Valley parishes of Bolton-by-Bowland, Paythorne, Gisburn, Rimington, Downham, Chatburn and Grindleton.
History
Historically, Sawley fell under the Earl of Northumberland's Percy fee rather than being part of the powerful neighbouring Lordship of Bowland.[3]
Sawley Abbey, a ruined abbey of Cistercian monks, is in the village. The abbey was founded in 1147 and dissolved in 1536.[4] By the early 17th-century, the manor had come into the possession of James Hay, who in 1615 was created Lord Hay of Sawley, and later 1st Earl of Carlisle.[5]
Governance
Sawley was an extra-parochial area in the Staincliffe Wapentake of the West Riding of Yorkshire. This became a civil parish in 1858, forming part of the Bowland Rural District from 1894 to 1974. The civil parish previously had a detached area on the southern side of Gisburn with a smaller part of that parish on the western side of Sawley. In 1938 these areas were joined with the respective parishes.[6] It has since become part of the Lancashire borough of Ribble Valley.
Sawley shares a parish council with two other parishes, Bolton-by-Bowland and Gisburn Forest.[7]
Along with Waddington, West Bradford and Grindleton, the parish forms the Waddington and West Bradford ward of Ribble Valley Borough Council.
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