By 1886 it was claimed that Burnley was producing a greater length of cotton cloth than any other town in the world. To mark the Millennium, the Forest of Burnley was planted with a million trees.
Her Majesty The Queen 2012; I am delighted to be in Burnley at the start of this Jubilee tour of the North-West of England. And I am particularly pleased to be here in Slater Terrace at the Weavers’ Triangle, whose buildings form one of the finest surviving Victorian industrial landscapes in the country.

A Song for Sandygate
 
Down Ashfield Road the weavers strode To labour at the mill
Though they are gone we think upon The lives they led here still
 
Boats laden down came to the town To unload cotton there
Before they go with calico For all the world to wear
 
Not long ago we used to sew And weave with our own hands
My winter shirt your summer skirt Now come from distant lands
 
The noise of looms filled dismal rooms Where weavers toiled all day
And breathe they must the cotton dust That steals their lives away

With coal to burn and steam to turn The great mill engine round
The chimney tall would cast a pall Of smoke that choked the town
 
We see the mill standing so still We breathe the air that’s clean
A million trees unfurl their leaves As Burnley turns to green