Not quite the standard of question one hears in the Round Britain Quiz on Radio 4 but I hope you agree it is worthy of your attention.

I will reveal the connection in the present article but let me start by saying where we are. You may be able to see the street name-plate on the extreme right. It advises us we are in Coal Clough Lane and I have further information indicating the photo was taken in 1895.

I am reminded, quite often, that I rarely stray into the Coal Clough area. This is largely because I have only a few photos of this part of town.

However, there is another reason and that is that Coal Clough was not historically within the Township of Burnley. It was in Habergham Eaves and even when Burnley's influence was defined by the Police Circle of 1819 much of Coal Clough was beyond that boundary too.

The importance of this is that most of the institutions that make up the history of our town are associated with Burnley, not Habergham Eaves. These include St Peter's, the grammar school, the ancient corn mill and the market – places many people from a wide area had to visit.

By contrast Habergham Eaves, for much of its history, though it was larger territorially than Burnley, was given over to farming at best but was often waste. There was no centre of population in Habergham Eaves save those parts of the township which bordered on Burnley. The oldest of these was the Bottom o' the Town area where what is now St James's Street merges into what is now Westgate.

So what was the Coal Clough area like in the past? As recently as 1841 there were the cottages shown in the picture. There was, of course, Coal Clough House, which was several hundred years old by 1841, and, between the cottages and the house there were no more than three properties, all cottages.

At the junction of Coal Clough Lane and what is now Burnham Gate there was a small quarry known as Piccop Delf and, associated with the Delf, there were Delf Cottages. Opposite them there was Kitfield, a farmhouse and perhaps two cottages.

If the walker made his way west beyond Coal Clough House the lane was tree-lined and it must have been very pleasant. There were one or two cottages before the Four Lane Ends was reached. We now associate this area with the Gretna (the inn now sadly closed and the site about to be developed for housing) but the crossroads was once a very important meeting place for travellers.

Local people often do not realise how recent is much of our local highway system. In the past, the way to Manchester from Burnley was not by the present Manchester Road as much of this road was not constructed until an Act of Parliament of 1795, granting permission for the road, was passed. Surprisingly, the way to get to Manchester, before this date, was to use Sandygate, which then linked Bottom o' th' Town to the Angel on what is now Accrington Road, and then, at the Coal Clough Lane junction, divert into the latter, heading for Cog Lane, the other highway at Four Lane Ends.

In other words, Coal Clough Lane was once a significant highway. There was, also, another road in the locality which was of some importance.

In the Coal Clough Lane area it was known as Blind Lane and it ran from the far end of the cottages (i.e. to the left in today's picture) in the direction of what is now Manchester Road.

The two roads, together, were the reason for Coal Clough's importance. Handloom weavers' cottages were established at the junction of the roads and this is what our cottages were. Constructed of local stone and built in four stages (three groups of two and a single cottage) they are typical of such buildings in the Burnley area.

Notice the window shutters on some of the buildings. These were intended to keep out the rain and draughts but were also useful as security against house-breakers. Living at a time when many of us think that crime is as high as it has ever been, we tend to forget just how concerned about crime were our ancestors.

When these cottages were built they were, it is true, some distance from a centre of population, but as we have observed, they were on a significant road and attractive to a number of criminals. House-breakers were robbers who broke into remote properties stealing whatever was of value inside. Then there were footpads who waited for the mail boys on remote highways, such as this, holding them up for the contents of their mailbags.

Now to answer the conundrum I posed at the start of this article. There were a number of wells in Coal Clough Lane in the past but whether any of them was a holy well, I do not know.

However, it is possible it was believed one of them might have had at least restorative powers. This is more likely than you might think because, at one time, it was believed waters in Burnley had restorative properties and the town could, in different circumstances have become a rival to Buxton or Harrogate.

What do you think a holy well contained? Holy water, you might think and you would be right. The name of these cottages might be associated with "holy water" as the phrase is derived from an Old English word which means just that. The word is tra'cl and it is from that we get treacle.

The cottages in the picture were called Treacle Row. Mind you, I should admit the name might also derive from the muddy nature of the land hereabouts!

The remaining parts of the conundrum refer to uncrystalised syrup (treacle) and the Sabden Treacle Miners!