Turners Fold


Although I still regard myself as a Yorkshireman, it was an easy decision to set the Jack Garrett novels in Lancashire. The countryside has charm, the people are friendly,and the towns are crammed with character.The old cotton towns in the part of Lancashire in which I live and work might have lost their cotton, but they have retained the look from those times, from the millstone-grit mill buildings and strips of terraced housing to the cobbled streets and grand civic designs.

The town of Turners Fold, the setting for Fallen Idols is a mix of many small Lancashire towns, such as Rawtenstall and Burnley, but is borrowed most heavily from Great Harwood, a small town just a few miles from Blackburn. The name comes from William Turner, who was a mill owner in Helmshore in the 19th century,whose family were responsible for most of the mill-buildings in that town.

Thoughts of returning to Yorkshire play frequently on my mind, but I married a Lancashire girl who won't leave and now have three Lancastrian children. I suppose I have lost my own War of the Roses.


Burnley WharfBurnleyBurnleyLeeds-Liverpool canal, BurnleySwan Inn, Burnley

Burnley WharfBurnleyBurnleySwan Inn, BurnleyGreat Harwood

Great HarwoodMemorial Park, Great HarwoodMemorial park, Great Harwoodburnt-out aviary, Memorial Park, Great HarwoodMemorial Park, Great Harwood


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