Newton or Newton-in-Bowland is a village and civil parish in the Ribble Valley district, in the county of Lancashire, England, formerly known as Newton-on-Hodder. The civil parish had a population of 237 in 2001, according to the United Kingdom Census, increasing to 315 at the 2011 Census. The township covers almost 6,000 acres of the Forest of Bowland. Historically, the village is part of the West Riding of Yorkshire, but was transferred to Lancashire for administrative purposes on 1 April 1974, under the provisions of the Local Government Act 1972. The village pub – The Parkers Arms – takes its name from the neighbouring Parker family of Browsholme Hall. For many generations, the Parkers have served the Lords of Bowland as Bowbearers of the Forest of Bowland. The Parkers Arms is popular with tourists and locals alike. It serves modern British food and local ales and is renowned for sourcing much of its food from within the Bowland area. History Recorded in Domesday as Neutone and part of the ancient parish of Slaidburn since Saxon times, Newton has been a constituent part of the demesne of the Manor of Slaidburn since the second half of the fourteenth century. A fall in the population resulting from the Black Death (1348–50) as well as the absorption of Bowland into the Duchy of Lancaster had led to wholesale manorial reorganisation during the 1360s. As a result, the Domesday manors of West Bradford and Grindleton - being part of the parish of Mitton - were also annexed into a new Liberty of Slaidburn, with the caput moving from Grindleton to Slaidburn. From the late eleventh century, the Manor of Slaidburn had formed part of the ancient Lordship of Bowland. That Lordship in turn comprised a Royal Forest and a Liberty of ten mesne manors spanning eight townships within four ancient parishes and covered an area of almost on the historic borders of Lancashire and Yorkshire. The manors within the Liberty of Bowland were Slaidburn (including Newton, West Bradford and Grindleton), Knowlmere, Waddington, Easington, Bashall, Mitton, Withgill (Crook), Leagram, Hammerton and Dunnow (Battersby). Two of the mesne manors of the Lords of Bowland remained within the bounds of the township of Newton after the fourteenth century but did not fall within the demesne of Slaidburn: Battersby was held by the eponymous Battersby family until the late sixteenth century. It was acquired and renamed Dunnow by