‘We’ve always been at the end of the line,’ says Sara Swann, blowing out her ruddy cheeks in the car park outside Trawden’s library and shop. ‘This is East Lancashire’s final frontier.’ A Union flag on a pole hangs sodden in the dependable Pennine rain. Mobile coverage here is patchy at best, and until the late 1960s, watching TV meant paying a weekly subscription to a bold local engineer who rigged up an enormous aerial in the recreation ground, trailing cables from it through the steep, narrow streets.

If the outside world has generally seemed happy to leave Trawden well alone, then the feeling appears mutual. Now 71, Swann has lived in Trawden for 45 years and raised a family in the village, yet cheerily accepts that she will forever be considered an ‘off comed’un’ or outsider. Eight miles north-east of Burnley, by the Yorkshire border, this is an outpost that seems content in splendid isolation, defiantly proud that its claims to fame have been so few and modest: Roger Bannister’s dad grew up here, and Charlotte Brontë lived nearby, borrowing Wycoller Hall, in the next valley, as the template for Mr Rochester and Jane’s house in Jane Eyre.

Yet despite its best efforts, or rather because of them, this unassuming, overlooked village now finds itself a celebrity, the poster child for a movement that might change rural life forever. The library, the shop, the community centre beside it and the four-square Victorian pub over the road are now owned and run by the 1,919 people who call Trawden home, a model for cooperative local living that offers inspiration and hope to declining settlements across the world.

Steven Wilcock, the 67-year-old founding father of this extraordinary initiative, remembers the village as a thriving fabric-mill community. ‘I used to take trays of sandwiches from my father’s grocery shop to the workers at lunchtime,’ he says, over a latte in the library. ‘The noise from the machinery was deafening. I can still hear it now.’ Before the war, Trawden was home to 70 local businesses, among them four groceries, a haberdasher’s and three clog makers. Until the mid-1930s, when the village’s population peaked at 3,000, a tramline connected Trawden to Burnley, terminating outside the pub on a cobbled track-bed whose wet stones still arc away up the hill behind.

There were 10 shops in business when Swann moved to Trawden in the mid-1970s, just as the last mills were closing: ‘A butcher, a baker, a grocer, a sweetshop, a post office, all along the main road. Then, one by one, they closed down. It was really grim.’ Four of Trawden’s five chapels and churches – hitherto the village’s social bedrock – shut their doors for good. When three streets of smutted back-to-back terraces opposite the pub were demolished to make way for a community centre and library, the local authorities billed it as a show of faith in Trawden.

But the sad little flat-roofed 1970s prefabs soon began to decay, and in 2014 Pendle Borough Council announced an intention to close down the community centre. The library next door, run by Lancashire County Council, had buckets to catch the drips and saw its opening times slashed to four hours a week. The sole surviving shop, a small convenience store, shut down and the Trawden Arms – last of the three pubs standing – was put up for sale, seemingly destined, like the others, for residential conversion.

An ageing population, local-authority neglect and regional underfunding: Trawden’s decline followed a pattern repeated in rural communities across the country and around the world. Helpless resignation is a default response. You give up the ghost and get in the car, driving out to bigger towns for supermarket shopping and entertainment. Unless you’re a Trawdener. ‘Vision without action is merely a dream,’ reads a neatly hand-painted slogan behind the community shop’s till.

‘We’ve always been a proper working village,’ says Swann. She cocks a jaunty thumb at the vast, bleak hill that looms over the village. ‘Not like one of those twee Yorkshire places on the other side of that.’ When the shops and mills closed, villagers retrained and found themselves local work, tapping into the resourceful self-sufficiency that has forever defined Trawden. ‘You can get everything fixed or built in this place,’ says Wilcock who, as a schoolboy, went from door to door collecting those 2/6 weekly TV subs. ‘Plumbers, joiners, electricians – every trade you can think of, even a chimney sweep. We’ve very little unemployment.’

Wilcock is the embodiment of Trawden’s quiet determination. His family goes back three generations here; he and his wife Jane live in one of the old terraces built for mill workers. When he was a boy, his parents were always popping into the community centre – ‘tea dances, whist drives, the luncheon club’ – and, in 2014, when the local authority offered it to the villagers for £1, he swiftly secured the approval of his fellow parish councillors. ‘Pendle borough just wanted shot of it,’ he says. ‘But we felt this was a line in the sand – something had to be done or our community spirit might never recover.’

Two years of renovation work were financed by fundraising events and Trawden’s inaugural foray into the arcane realm of rural support grants. Today, inside swish automatic doors, the community centre is home to all manner of meetings, classes and events: tai chi, the ‘knit and natter’ club, Scouts, Guides, humanist funerals. The success of this first community-owned venture was an inspirational landmark. But as a precedent that made it all seem like plain sailing, it was horribly misleading.

Phase two, the villagers’ acquisition of the erstwhile part-time library and a conjoined mother-and-baby centre that had long since closed its doors, stretched into a Kafka-esque ordeal. Three years of meetings with intransigent Lancashire County Council officials, 30 miles away in Preston, drove Wilcock to the brink of despair. ‘I remember one lady, the head of asset management, telling me, “We’re not simply handing over the family silver for you to do what you like with.”’ It moved him to a rare display of fury. ‘I couldn’t believe what I was hearing. I said, “How dare you speak to us like that? I guarantee we will bring more footfall into that building in the next 12 months than you’ve had in the last 30 years.” It was a brave thing to say, but I was right.’ The local suspicion is that the council had been hoping to sell the land for redevelopment. The council agreed to lease the property to Wilcock’s village trust as a ‘community asset transfer’, with no money changing hands. When handover day came, they couldn’t even find the keys.

That was in 2017, and several years on, the entirely rebuilt, communally run library has solar panels on the roof and a ground-source heat pump: the fruits of a £350,000 renovation programme largely funded by shrewd grant applications. The former health centre beside it is now the compact but astoundingly well-provisioned village store.

‘I think this place had to be different,’ says Jane Rushton, 65, in the community shop’s Filling Station – where locals top up their own jars, bottles and bags with everything from mung beans to toilet cleaner. ‘We couldn’t just make it a convenience store because we’d had one before and it went under.’

Rushton, one of the 120-odd volunteers who staff the shop and community centre, is halfway through her two-hour shift. Her colleague Petrea Hyde, 65, epitomises the relentless work ethic that is another civic trait. Hyde took voluntary redundancy after working for 48 years at a nearby bank, but her retirement lasted two days. ‘I just thought, “What am I going to do with myself?” I came in here to do a shift and loved it. I’ve lived in Trawden 30 years but I’m now meeting people I’ve never met.’ Swann says the oldest volunteer is 87. ‘We had one incredibly doddery couple. They always needed someone to watch over them, but they loved coming in. They told me: “It gives us something to talk about that isn’t our ailments.”’

Most customers, says Hyde, nip in for ‘pop, crisps and sweets’, but the shop’s extraordinary array of goods – 30-odd craft ales, hand-knitted dishcloths, artisan chia-seed bread – now draws customers from far afield. On the face of it, this eclectic range seems an unexpected fit for an ageing rural demographic. But Swann, driving force behind the community store, says, ‘I think the local aspect won people round. The bread, the beer, meat, milk, eggs – so much of what we sell is produced in the area.’

Rushton, whose husband Paul Harper manages the shop’s imaginative wine selection, says older customers adapted more smoothly to the sustainable ethos than one might imagine. ‘Just buying exactly what you need to bake a Christmas cake, weighing things out, bringing your milk bottles in for the 5p deposit – for a lot of people, that’s what shopping used to be like.’ Wilcock says that two of his closest friends had expressed deep scepticism when they first heard what was planned for the shop. ‘They said, “We don’t know why you’re bothering – nobody will use a place like that.”’ He smiles broadly. ‘They’re now among our best customers.’

It’s a quirky retail spectrum, but it works. In fact, it really works. The community shop is already a half-million-pound-a-year business, so relentlessly profitable it had to be separated from the charitable trust. And the umbrella community committee now has two paid employees: Swann’s 47-year-old daughter Molly Ralphson, who administers the volunteer rota, and a community-support officer who does her rounds in the electric van, delivering meals to the village’s needy and taking them on outings.

It’s Monday, and that means a four-hour visit from community postman Mike Pace, 66. He sets up shop in a corner of the library, paying out pensions and weighing parcels. ‘To be honest, a lot of people just come in to chat,’ he says. All the same, in one morning he’s sold 2,000 stamps. The shop and library seem relentlessly abuzz: 10 hours a day, Monday to Saturday, with a half-day on Sunday.

If the successful launch of these initiatives pays tribute to a determined few, what sets Trawden apart is the village’s dedication to keep them going. Molly Ralphson says she’s never once failed to fill a shift at the shop. ‘Trawdeners always help each other out,’ runs a local platitude, but the village’s history suggests a regional tradition of mutual civic effort. Steven Wilcock says that the grocery shop his father started work at was one of three cooperatively run stores in the village. More boldly, in 1880, Trawden’s schoolmaster organised subscriptions to build Black Carr, a communally owned weaving mill. ‘We do have that tradition,’ agrees Wilcock. ‘We’re off the beaten track and have always had to look after ourselves.’

Lockdown may have thrown a spanner in the works, but Ralphson contends that it came with a silver lining. ‘People looked at these community initiatives through new eyes. They spent more time appreciating what they offered and wondering how they could help. We had all sorts of new people turning up: students who’d been sent home, younger workers on furlough.’

But the commercial tribulations of lockdown would also present Trawden’s community-ownership movement with its crowning challenge. In May 2021, the couple who owned and ran the Trawden Arms announced they were selling up. The village had already registered their last pub as an ‘asset of community value’, which gave them the opportunity to buy it as a communal venture. But doing so would, for the first time, require Trawdeners – by their own admission a parsimonious breed – to dig deep into their own pockets. ‘We had to raise £450,000 by the end of October,’ says Jack Holland, at 29 the youngest member of the steering committee that masterminded the effort. ‘If I’m honest, none of us thought we’d manage it.’

If there’s a lesson to be learnt from Project Trawden, it’s that forensic due diligence and technical expertise are at least as important as spirited civic dedication. The steering committee was thrown together by 53-year-old Dave Webber: ‘I was between jobs and it felt like something that had to be done. I just started flagging people down.’ Mick Horne remembers Webber pulling up in his car as he walked along the road. ‘He just said, “Can you do me a favour? We’re going to buy the pub and I want you on the committee. I thought, “Oh no.”’ But somehow Trawden’s meagre population was able to provide Webber with a team of experienced specialists, who met via Zoom every week for four months. Horne, an IT professional, put together a website and online survey to deduce exactly what Trawdeners wanted their community pub to be, and how much they might contribute. Ralphson, a former fundraiser and events manager at a local hospice, stepped in as communications officer.

The financial-planning remit was handed to Peter Catlow, who had worked in the motor industry for 40 years. (‘There’s a can- do spirit round here that is so infectious,’ he says.) Holland’s job in writing bids for government aid made him an especially valued member. ‘We all understood how important this was,’ says Ralphson. ‘Just walking past the pub in lockdown with all its lights off was sad enough, but imagining them never coming back on was unbearable. There’d have been nowhere in the village to eat out or meet up over a drink.’ For Holland, an ‘off comed’un’ from down south who’d been attracted to the village by its rare roster of civic amenities – and in particular the pub – this was a crusade.

Invaluable guidance, as well as £60,000 in grants and loans, was provided by the Plunkett Foundation, a charity that assists community-run schemes across the country. The ‘Plunkett model’ decrees that locals buy shares in a community business, with every shareholder accorded equal voting rights, regardless of the size of their holding. ‘We were very keen on that aspect from the start,’ says Holland. Trawden’s renaissance had already begun to attract young families but many were on low incomes. The committee set £500 as the minimum shareholding (‘any lower and we’d never have made it’), but accepted contributions of any size. A couple of wealthier villagers stumped up low five-figure sums.

In time-honoured Blue Peter fashion, the fund’s progress was recorded on a thermometer-style chart outside the pub. A former Trawden publican, now aged 95 and living in Florida, posted $200 in cash. A chap with no connection to the village came up from London in a camper van and handed over an envelope with £150 in it. ‘It just seemed to chime with so many people,’ says Catlow. Sentiment for the plight of local pubs was heightened by Covid: a study suggests that around 6,000 licensed premises permanently closed in 2020.

The target was hit with just days to spare, courtesy of a final push. ‘It wasn’t blackmail,’ says Webber, ‘but we came close. “Remember – if this pub shuts, the value of your house is going down.” That sort of thing.’

Among the local businesses whose fate was tied up with the pub’s are more than half a dozen bed-and-breakfasts, whose guests would have nowhere else to eat or drink. Encouraging precedent may also have played a part. Of the 150 UK community pubs the Plunkett Foundation has so far helped to set up, just one has failed.

‘All the same, I don’t think many places could have managed this,’ says Holland, as he slumps on a library sofa after a run up the fells. ‘There are around 600 households in Trawden, and 400 of them put in at least £500. We made it plain that this wasn’t an investment. Our intention is to start paying dividends to shareholders after a few years, but there’s no guarantee you’ll get a return. It’s just an extraordinary commitment.’

With its lofty ceilings and big, warm rooms, the Trawden Arms retains the ambience of the Victorian station pub it was built to be when the tram terminated outside. The new tenant landlords, Adam Young and Jo Stafford, are getting things ready for the afternoon activity: a willow-weaving class, with a folk-music night to follow. ‘[The locals] didn’t just want this to be a pub,’ says Stafford. ‘It didn’t break even when it was.’ The couple, who moved from Leeds after many years behind the bar at pubs and festivals, won through several rounds of steering-committee interviews by dint of their inclusive, imaginative approach.

‘I guess we bought into the whole community idea, new ways of getting people in.’ Young has gone the extra mile by taking in a group of aimless local teenagers who’d been hanging about in the car park, getting up to occasional mischief. ‘We’ve had them in collecting glasses and clearing up, and they’re good as gold now.’

It’s early days, but the couple have been overwhelmed by the community’s urge to pile through their doors. None more so than during Storm Arwen in November, when the village lost its power, phone lines and water and the pub was full of families sheltering.

‘We’re only into week four, but our projected turnover is more than twice what anyone expected.’ The couple pay the committee a lease fee that is linked to their takings, retaining the balance. ‘There are probably going to be issues with splitting maintenance costs and so on,’ says Young. ‘We’re all making it up as we go along, really.’

Stafford struggles to recall any negativity, beyond the occasional grumble from local livestock farmers when she puts a new vegan option on the menu. ‘I was expecting a bit of a divide between those who bought shares and those who didn’t, but so far the mood just seems to be: anyone who comes in and buys a pint is a supporter.’

Nobody in Trawden is eager to extend their initiative any further just yet, though there are suggestions that a community-run brewery to supply both pub and shop might be a good fit. ‘I think we’ve enough on our plate right now,’ says Steven Wilcock. But as a shining example to other rural communities that feel themselves on the brink of self-sufficient survival, Trawden’s mission is already complete. The Plunkett Foundation notes that two Scottish locations have been inspired by the Lancastrians’ success: Gartmore recently added a community pub to its shop and village hall, and Dunbar now boasts a community bakery, grocer’s and a swathe of woodland. Many more settlements have made contact with the foundation, with lockdown a catalyst. Community-pub applications have doubled over the last year, with more than 200 villages now involved.

Jack Holland rises from his seat in the library. ‘Twelve months ago, if someone had said to me I’d be running up massive hills for fun, I’d have laughed in their face.’ Through the windows behind him, the lights of the Trawden Arms beckon invitingly. ‘But you come here and see all these people of all ages giving it a right old go and think, “You know what, maybe I should have a crack.”’