OVER DARWEN, a municipal borough of Lancashire, is situated in the vale of the Darwen river, shut in by heath-covered hills, and on the Lancashire and Yorkshire Railway, 3 miles south from Blackburn and 9 north from Bolton. There are four ecclesiastical parishes, each of which has a handsome church; and among the other public buildings are the market-house, the Liberal and Conservative club-houses, a free public library with 10,000 volumes, and the Peel baths, erected in memory of Sir Robert Peel. The town possesses cotton factories, iron and brass foundries, machine works, paper mills, paper-staining works—the first and probably the largest of their kind. In the neighbourhood there are collieries and stone quarries. The population of the municipal borough (area 5918 acres) in 1881 was 29,744. It includes part of Lower Darwen and Eccleshill, with 2118 inhabitants. The postal designation is Darwen.

Over Darwen was at one time included in Walton-le-dale, which was granted by Henry de Lacy to Robert Banastre in the reign of Henry II. In the 4th of Edward II. (1310) it is mentioned along with Livesey and Tockholes, the three containing a carucate of land in fee of the castle of Clitheroe. In 38 Edward III. (1364) a moiety of the manor of Over Darwen was held by Thomas Molyneux, the other moiety being held by the Osbaldeston family. Subsequently the whole manor became the property of the Traffords, of whom it was purchased in 1810 by the present owners the Duckworths. Over Darwen was incorporated as a municipal borough in 1878, and a commission of the peace was granted in 1881.