the shelf of land at the back of the Tor, building shippons and other animal housing. The is area became known as The Exe. Musbury township The old township was divided into three portions: Musbury Park, Musden Head (to the southwest), and the Trippet of Ogden (in the northwest). Although it remained part of Bury's ancient parish (in Salford Hundred), it had become part of the Hundred of Blackburn by the 1500s. Musbury became a civil parish in 1866. In 1894 it became part of the Municipal borough of Haslingden. WWII During the war most of the remaining farms around the Tor farmed dairy cows and poultry. By early 1943 Great House had converted from milking their cows by hand to using electricity. During World War II a Home Guard unit of just four men armed with a single old rifle and six rounds of ammunition climbed each evening to the top of the Tor to man a tiny observation post, often stumbling into bogs and old quarry workings. Headquarters were in Musbury School, in Helmshore village and should there have been an invasion, the only way to have alerted anyone was to race on foot from the top of Tor to into the village. American GIs also practised paratroop drops, and field exercises with live ammunition, before D-Day, setting up tents and a cookhouse by Great House on the Tor. Post-war Oliver Porritt had sold most of his property to Porritts and Spencer Ltd in 1932, and they in turn sold it to the Ministry of Agriculture in 1951. In 1952 the Great House Experimental Farm in Helmshore was established by the Ministry on the flat top and southern slopes of Musbury Tor. The 350-acre site was an ideal acquisition for trialling high-level farming techniques, including many on grain planting and animal husbandry. Analyses of the effects of acidity in rain were carried out, air quality was measured, and even the effect of sonic bangs on livestock was monitored. The offices and accommodation were sited in Tor Side House, and the farm eventually employed over 30 personnel. Great House Experimental Farm was closed in 1982, broken up and sold off to private farmers and others. References External links British Film Institute Amateur footage of the Alden Valley and hay-making at the Great House Experimental Farm (1960). Mountains and hills of Lancashire Geography of the Borough of Rossendale