Brock bottoms and the surrounding cottages have been a site of industry and leisure for centuries. The river provides a natural boundary for this section of the parish that over the years will have divided the land around it. In the early 1790’s ‘…a Preston firm, Lorimer and Company, built a cotton spinning factory in Brock Bottoms.’ Twenty cottages, the ruins of which can be seen today were also constructed for the workers, that can be seen in the 1890 map. This would have been a very small cotton spinning mill and would have taken on the industrial work the hand looms once provided from the villagers. By 1807 the mill owner John Eamer declared himself bankrupt. With records of Thomas Longworth, of Kirkham, Farrier and Roger Parkinson of Garstang, Gentleman, having Lower Brock Mill in 1812. The mill’s fortunes rose and fell with alarming frequency, a savage fire in 1860 sounding the death knell on its actual cotton spinning. It was rebuilt in 1861 by Richard and William Bond, who reopened the building to the manufacture of rollers for spinning firms. Thirty years later the mill received a further facelift, this time by P Parker who converted the premises into a file-making firm. In 1936 the mill closed as an industrial site and became a cafe and dance room within the year.
The area is picturesque and is family walking spot for local families with a picnics or two having taken place on the pebbly shores.
