Larks of Dean

The Larks of Dean were a society of musicians formed in Rossendale, Lancashire in northern England during the mid-eighteenth to the mid-nineteenth century. They were known in the local dialect as 'Th' Deighn Layrocks'.

Dean is a small community within the east Lancashire valley of Rossendale, near Water between Rawtenstall and Burnley, part of the area in which the textile industry expanded massively during the Industrial Revolution. In 1835 the Scottish writer George Hogarth noted 'In the densely populated manufacturing districts ... music is cultivated among the working classes to an extent unparalleled in any other part of the country', in his Musical History, referring to the industrialised parts of England. Soon after, in 1862 Edwin Waugh describing Manchester in the Cotton Famine mentions 'swarms of strange, shy, sad-looking singers and instrumental performers in the work-worn clothing of factory-operatives'. Making music provided one of the few ways to find relief from the hardship of working in the new mill factories of Lancashire. The Larks of Dean were one notable group of musicians that grew from this situation, as well as from the non-conformist religious background of the area.

Non-conformist religion had been an important feature of working-class northern British life since the evangelical awakening of the first part of the eighteenth century. As in many similar communities chapels were built throughout Rossendale during the following years. Influenced by the preacher John Nuttall a small Baptist chapel was built in 1750 and rebuilt later in Goodshaw in 1760. Nuttall was the minister until his death in 1792. Richard Hudson was another preacher working with Nuttall who was responsible for the religious music that was a feature of the worship. Goodshaw Chapel became a magnet for music. The group who called themselves The Larks of Dean carried their instruments over the rough moorland terrain every Sunday to perform in the Chapel. The tradition flourished for a century until the Chapel closed in 1860.

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