New Discount Store has Shoe Museum

Date published: 13/04/2008

A NEW discount store has opened in Rawtenstall and is the first in the country to feature a footwear museum.

The Big Label, which sells fashion clothing and homeware, opened at the Greenbridge Mill in Fall Barn Road - the former Old Lambert Howarth outlet, with a £100,000 refit.

The footwear museum was originally set up and opened at Gaghills Mill, Waterfoot, in May 1991 to celebrate Rossendale's shoe-making history.

It moved to the current site seven years later but when Lambert Howarth went into liquidation, Brian Warburton, who originally had the idea to set the museum up, wanted it it be safeguarded.

The museum celebrates life in the Rossendale shoe works over the past 100 years and includes exhibits of shoes, slippers, photographs and machinery.

It has a collection of designs and displays from the industry's past, from cardboard shoes to 1970s platforms, outlandish Victorian slippers to the fashions of the present day. Now Big Label has announced will retain the museum. It is currently being refurbished and incorporated in the new store.