19th October 2006, 11:07 AM
Thanks for the information. 'Flash' as vulpes points out is used for 'pond' in the south of Lancashire and Cheshire particularly for the water filled depressions caused by subsidence into old mine workings (for coal or salt). Flax was probably fairly widespread as a crop in the past and worked on a small scale for domestic use - the Ribble Valley in lancashire has a number of sites where there is evidence for medieval larger scale flax retting although the industry seems to have declined in the 18th C with a lot of imported flax from Ireland. The conditions for spinning and weaving flax and cotton were similar however and cotton eventually supplanted linen almost totally in Lancashire.