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Darwen is a small market town in Lancashire, which extends onto the West Pennine Moors. Darwen is part of the Blackburn with Darwen borough, which has been a unitary authority since 1998.

The town is spread along the route of the A666 road, which joins Darwen to its bigger neighbours, Blackburn to the north, and Bolton to the south. Darwen is on Junction 4 of the M65 motorway, and so has a lot of passers through. Much of the heavy traffic passes through the town itself along the A666 causing an air pollution issue which the local council have recently attempted to address adding a new one way road system to the town centre. Darwen is on the Ribble Valley Line for trains and its stop is Darwen railway station where you can catch one train an hour between Clitheroe and Manchester. Darwens bus terminal (Darwen Circus) has recently been improved and regular services head to Blackburn, a limited service also heads to Bolton/Clitheroe but the Bolton service terminates at 7pm.

The River Darwen passes through the town, subsequently joining the River Ribble, one of the longest rivers in north-west England. Most authorities trace the name 'Darwen' to the Brythonic derw, oak. ^{[1] [2]}, which is supported by the older name Derewent, though it has been claimed that the name Darwen stems from Dwrgwyn, from Old Welsh dwr or "water" and gwyn Brythonic for "white" or "clear". Thus the name may mean "clear water", which is ironic as there has been a number of major pollution incidents over the years.[1].

The Romans once inhabited Lancashire. A Roman road is visible on the Ordnance Survey map of the area. The area Darwen currently occupies has been habited since the early bronze age and the remains of a barrow from approximately 2000 BC have been partially restored at the Ashleigh site [2] in Whitehall, Artefacts including a bronze dagger and urns containing human ashes were found and a small number of the less important finds are now on display at Darwen library theatre.

Like many towns in Lancashire, Darwen was a centre for the production of textiles during the industrial revolution. The most important textile building in Darwen is India Mill. This was built by Eccles Shorrock & Company but the company was ruined by the effects of the cotton famine of the 1860s. The building is now home to many companies including Brookhouse (producers of aeroplane parts) and Capita who runs TV licensing. Since the 1860s, the textile industry has strongly declined in the region, although many of the factories and other industrial buildings from the period survive and are now used for other purposes. India Mill and its famous chimney have been sold in a £12million deal.

Overlooking the town from the moors to the west is Darwen Tower (officially 'Jubilee Tower'). Built in celebration of both Queen Victoria's Diamond Jubilee in 1897 and of the successful campaign the same year by the people of Darwen for free public access to Darwen Moors, it stands at an altitude of 1225 feet and is 86 feet tall.

In Lancashire dialect, the name Darwen is pronounced Darren, and the locals refer to themselves as Darreners. They are generally resistant to any attempts at submerging the identity of the town within Blackburn [3]. Junction 4 of the M65 motorway lies within the town and the services here were originally named "Blackburn Services". Following local protests [4] they have been renamed "Blackburn with Darwen Services".

Darwen was incorporated as a municipal borough in 1878. The population of the town declined from 40,000 in the 1911 census to 30,000 in the 1971 census.[5] In 1974, under the Local Government Act 1972, the town became part of the Lancashire non-metropolitan district of Blackburn, which was renamed Blackburn with Darwen in 1997, shortly before it became a unitary authority.

The town is also the home of Darwen Football Club, the Darwen Library Theatre (an extension to the library), and the TV show Hetty Wainthropp Investigates. It also has a large ethnic community including many Italians.

One of Darwen's biggest claims to fame is that it hosted a visit from Mahatma Gandhi in 1931. He had accepted the invitation from Corder Catchpool, owner of the Greenfield Mill, to come and see the effects of India's boycott of cotton goods. The unemployed cotton factory workers greeted the man with great affection despite it being his fault they were out of work in the first place!

Margaret Chapman: UK artist b. 1940

John Harwood: UK Mayor of Accrington 1912-1915; raised the "Accrington Pals" (11 Battalion East Lancashire Regiment) b. c.1849

• Darwen Library Theatre

1. ^ John Field Placenames of Britain and Ireland p 58
2. ^ Kenneth Cameron English Placenames p 38