Historic landfill sites in Darwen, Blackburn with Darwen
The Environment Agency records 25 historic landfill sites in and around Darwen, Blackburn with Darwen. covering roughly 77 hectares in total. The largest is Sough Road at 15.31 ha. Recorded waste ranges up to special (hazardous) waste. Data: October 2025 revision.
Recorded landfill boundaries around Darwen (indicative, digitised at 1:10,000).
All recorded sites, largest first
| Site | Area | Last input | Waste types |
|---|---|---|---|
| Sough Road | 15.31 ha | — | Inert |
| Bent Hall Farm | 14.58 ha | 1984 | SpecialIndustrialCommercialInert |
| Bull Hill | 8.63 ha | 1979 | IndustrialHouseholdCommercialInert |
| Spring Farm | 7.98 ha | 1998 | Inert |
| Yew Tree Farm | 5.79 ha | 1997 | Inert |
| Spout House Farm | 5.27 ha | 1997 | Inert |
| Prospect Farm | 4.39 ha | 1993 | IndustrialInert |
| Shaws Of Darwen | 2.99 ha | — | IndustrialInert |
| Hollins Paper Mill | 1.85 ha | 1991 | IndustrialInert |
| Bent Hall Farm | 1.84 ha | 1984 | IndustrialInert |
| Bent Hall Farm | 1.53 ha | 1982 | IndustrialInert |
| Heightside Farm | 1.46 ha | 1994 | SpecialLiquid / sludgeIndustrialInert |
| Thorny Height Quarry | 1.23 ha | — | Special |
| Milking Lane | 0.79 ha | 1980 | Inert |
| Bull Hill Quarry | 0.57 ha | — | Industrial |
| Wolstenholme Bronze Powders | 0.5 ha | — | IndustrialCommercialInert |
| Lower Darwen Paper Mill | 0.49 ha | 1994 | Liquid / sludgeIndustrialInert |
| Lower Barn Farm | 0.48 ha | — | SpecialInert |
| Belmont Bleaching and Dye Company Limited | 0.4 ha | — | IndustrialInert |
| Shaw Fold Farm | 0.26 ha | 1982 | Inert |
| Close House Wood | 0.26 ha | — | IndustrialCommercialInert |
| Anchor Road | 0.2 ha | — | Waste types not recorded |
| Ex Pipe Works off Queen Street Hoddlesden | 0.2 ha | — | Waste types not recorded |
| Dingle Farm | 0.13 ha | — | Inert |
| New Waterside Paper Mill | 0.04 ha | 1994 | Inert |
What this data does — and doesn't — cover
- Licensed-era records only. Waste licensing began in 1974. Older tips — especially small pre-war ones — are incompletely recorded, so absence from this data does not mean no landfill ever existed here.
- Not the contaminated-land register. Councils hold a separate register of land determined as contaminated. A historic landfill entry is not a contamination determination, and vice versa.
- Boundaries are indicative. Digitised at 1:10,000 scale; some are buffers around a point rather than surveyed edges.
- Not a substitute for a formal environmental search. If you're buying, your conveyancer's environmental search checks this and several other sources.
EA Historic Landfill dataset, October 2025 revision. More on the methodology page.
Common questions
- How many former landfill sites are there in Darwen?
- 25 historic (closed) landfill sites are recorded within about 15km of Darwen town centre in the Environment Agency's Historic Landfill dataset (October 2025 revision). Pre-1974 sites are incompletely recorded, so the true historical number is likely higher.
- How do I check a specific address in Darwen?
- Search the postcode on Landfill Check — you'll see every recorded site within 1km, with distance, direction and waste types, measured to the site boundary.
Nearby areas
Worth reading: buying a house near a former landfill and what the waste types mean.