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Although John Wesley made several visits to Manchester and other prominent Lancashire towns the map above shows Wesley's presence in the area covered by our Branch.

In May 1747 travelling back from the north he diverged from his usual route and made a detour through Haworth then on to Great Harwood 1, Roughlee, Todmorden Edge 2 and Rossendale. In August 1748 accompanied by William Grimshaw he rode to Roughlee. Here they were attacked by a mob led by the curate of Colne 3, the Rev George White and they escaped to Barrowford 4 and were protected in the home of the Hargreaves family. Wesley described the pursuing mob in these words "When we came to Barrowford, the whole army drew up in battle-array before the house into which I was carried…" A long letter he sent to the Constable at Barrowford on the 26 August 1748 described the incident in great detail.

In 1751 he met the Vicar of Chipping 5, the Rev John Milner and immediately struck up a close friendship. Milner did not become one of Wesley's preachers but had great sympathy with the movement and accompanied him on some of his northern journeys. He defended Wesley and rescued him when his parishioners fiercely opposed Wesley preaching in the village on 26th March 1752.

John Wesley also developed a friendship with James Edmondson, of Brock 6, a small community north of Preston. He stayed at Brock House in 1765. His first visit to Preston 7 was in 1780 and in 1781 he preached in a house in which the Preston Methodists had established their early Society, he made two more visits to the town, the final one in 1784.

In that same year he came to Blackburn 8, where he noted that the Society was developing and growing since his previous visits to the area. In 1786 the numbers were so great there was not a building to contain those who were eager to hear him. He records in his Journal "All were still as night, unless when they sung; then their voices were as the sound of many waters".

Wesley was to visit other places like Garstang 9, Padiham, Burnley 10 and Southfield all of which stimulated the work that had been pioneered by others. The present A6 really marked the boundary of Wesley's itinerancy westwards towards the Fylde coast. This was almost a total rural area with only small communities.