a market-town of Lancashire, 28 miles S.S.E. of Lancaster, and 210 miles from London by the North-Western railway. It stands on the Chor and on the Liverpool and Leeds canal. Pop. (1851) 8907. The town is well built, and abundantly supplied with water from a reservoir into which the stream is thrown up by steam machinery. It has an ancient parish church in the Norman style, a handsome Gothic church, a Roman Catholic and other chapels, grammar-school, town-hall, &c. There are also numerous mills for the manufacture of cotton yarn, muslins, jacquets, and fancy goods; with bleachfields, print-works, &c. In the vicinity are coal, lead, and iron mines, and slate and stone quarries.