enhance its historic character, and societies exist to use the surrounding countryside for water-skiing, horse riding and other recreational activities. Littleborough's stone-built town centre is designated as a Conservation Area for its special architectural qualities. History Evidence of human activity in the area, dating to at least the Neolithic period, exists in the form of ancient flint tool and arrowhead discoveries. Rochdale Museum hold an early Iron Age bracelet made of a shale from Kimmeridge in Dorset, which was found in 1929 on Flint Hill, east of Blackstone Edge. A torc (or necklet) with ornamentation of a late-Celtic design was found in the Mawrode area of Littleborough in 1832; and the name Calderbrook is derived from an ancient Celtic language, two factors implying inhabitation by Britons. Littleborough is supposed to have been the site of a small station along the Roman road that is routed from Mamucium (Manchester) to Eboracum (York) which skirts the town. Evidence of Roman occupation in Littleborough comes from finds of coins and pottery, and the right arm of a silver statue of Victory. Following the Roman departure from Britain, the remaining population came under the influence of the Anglo-Saxons. Place names indicate the Anglo-Saxon settlement of the Littleborough area, for example the ‘gate' element in Lydgate and Reddyshore Scout Gate is Old English for ‘road'. The name Littleborough is itself derived from the Old English lȳtel bruh (meaning small fortified place) or else lȳtel bróc (meaning small watercourse). In 1848 the population was chiefly employed in three flannel-mills, four cotton-factories, in bleachworks, six coal-pits, a stone-quarry and in brick-making. Governance Lying within the historic county boundaries of Lancashire since the early 12th century, Littleborough was a chapelry and component area of Hundersfield, an ancient township within the parish of Rochdale and hundred of Salford. Hundersfield later constituted a civil parish encompassing several settlements to the northeast of Rochdale, until its dissolution. Littleborough's first local authority was a Local board of health established in 1870; Littlborough Local Board of Health was a regulatory body responsible for standards of hygiene and sanitation for parts of the then townships of Blatchinworth and Calderbrook, of Wuerdle and Wardle and of Butterworth, with the local board's territory being expanded into further parts of these townships in 1879. Under the Local Government Act 1894, the area of the local board expanded to encompass all of Blatchinworth and Calderbrook and became the