A 'NUISANCE book' from Victorian times has given a fascinating insight into life in East Lancashire 150 years ago.

It has gone on display at Great Harwood Library as part of Community History Month.

The nuisance book comes from a time before the area had a formal council and a group made up of well-to-do individuals - such as Lord of the Manor James Lomax - were requested to solve issues.

And the document reveals grim details about a plague which gripped Great Harwood.

According to the huge volume containing handwritten snippets from the town's "nuisance committee", Great Harwood was gripped by a "malignant fever" in 1859.

It reveals the fever followed years of people tipping chamber pots into the open streets, and blood from slaughterhouses, mingling with discarded animal remains in cess pools next to houses.

Other entries tell how many houses, where residents struggled to keep themselves and their households clean without running water, were overcrowded and suffering fatal illnesses.

An Accrington doctor, Dr A Arkwright, who was called in to explain the cause of fever, blamed open sewers, a lack of running water and said slaughterhouses next to homes should be shut and moved.

One account of a small, overcrowded house at the back of Queen Street, belonging to a Jos Haydock, told how these conditions led to a young girl's death.

Inside the house, two families were living in one small room.

Two were down with the fever and the third, a young girl, was close to death when Dr James Dearden visited the house.

He said the families of Mrs Shaw and Mrs Gilfal must move out immediately for their own safety and said breathing the "foul atmosphere" was to blame for the sickness.

He said it was particularly important the unnamed young girl, suffering from "fever and effects of Cancrum Oris" (gangrene of the face) was moved before her condition worsened.

Unfortunately she died before her family could take this advice.

A cess pool of slaughterhouse remains and human waste was said to be soaking into the foundations of many houses, such as the house of James Pickup, at 2 Cross Gate.

Delph Road was a particularly bad spot as many entries describe how waste from William Harrison's butcher's made a stench.

An exhibition at the library will display sections of the nuisance book during Community History Month.

The book is available to see on request.