This aerial photograph records a piece of Blackburn’s industrial heritage.

Sadly we don’t have a date for the picture but in the foreground you can see the Star Paper Mill at Feniscowles and behind it the Sun Paper Mill.

The Star Paper Mill opened in 1875, taking over from the Roddlesworth Paper Mill at Abbey Village and would continue for well over a century, closing in 2008, when it was owned by Sappi.

The nearby Sun Paper Mill, originally the Feniscowles Paper Company, was first registered in 1882 and closed in the 1980s.

At one time in the late Nineteenth Century five paper mills took advantage of the ready water supply from the River Roddlesworth and the huge growth in demand for paper both for printing and for wallcoverings