No prehistoric or Roman sites have been found in the urban area and Padiham, a name of Anglo-Saxon origin, is not recorded in the Domesday Book.
The first recorded mention of the town, as Padyngham, dates from 1294.
For hundreds of years it was a market town where produce from Pendleside was bought and sold. The town expanded and was substantially redeveloped during the Industrial Revolution and the central area is now a conservation area.
Padiham's population peaked around 1921 at about 14,000 declining to 10,000 in the early 1960s and 8,998 at the time of the 2001 census.
This follows people moving to the south of England in search of work following the decline of the traditional cotton, coal and engineering manufacturing base during that period.
The Queen, together with Prince Philip, first visited Burnley, Nelson and the old Mullard valve factory at Simonstone near Padiham on her post-Coronation tour of Lancashire in 1955.
There are five significant halls in the local area: Huntroyde Hall, dating from 1576, and Simonstone Hall, dating from 1660, in nearby Simonstone, are both privately owned. Gawthorpe Hall was donated to the National Trust in 1970 but is jointly managed with Lancashire County Council, which has a 99-year lease. Gawthorpe is in the Ightenhill district. The Trust also runs an office and a tea room in the courtyard of the property. Gawthorpe was the family home of the Shuttleworth family who occupied Shuttleworth Hall near Hapton from the 12th century. The current building dates from 1639 and is still a working farm. Read Hall and Park is in the nearby village of Read, about 1 mile (1.6 km) west of Padiham on the A671.
St Leonard's Church, the town's parish church, dates from 1866-69 and is a Grade II listed building. It was built on the site of earlier churches dating back to at least 1451. The original churchyard did not extend as far to the north as it does today. In 1802 proposals were made to extend the churchyard and remove "nuisances" on the north side of the church. In 1835 the churchyard was extended northwards and it seems likely that at this time the former premises of Padiham Grammar School were purchased and demolished.
Sherry's Lancashire Cotton Mill is a working 19th-century cotton mill which is open to the public.
Padiham Town Hall on Burnley Road, designed by Bradshaw Gass & Hope and built in 1938, is a Grade II listed building.
Padiham Memorial Park at the top of Church Street, was designed by Thomas Mawson, an influential and prolific landscape designer. It was officially opened in 1921 as a memorial to those from the town who gave their lives in the First World War, but it also records those who gave their lives in the Second World War.
The park covers 12 acres (4.9 ha) on two sites divided by the River Calder. The upper section is mainly formal, dominated by Knight Hill House, currently used as an Age UK (formerly Age Concern) day centre, and has a rose garden, lawns and two memorials. The lower section, off Park Street, has two bowling greens, tennis courts, skate park and Padiham Leisure Centre. The park is a Green Flag award winner. The park still had the remains of some Second World War air raid shelters in 2008.
Padiham War Memorial itself is at the main entrance to the park in Blackburn Road. There is a second memorial at All Saints' with St John the Baptist off the A671, Padiham Road opposite the George IV pub.[35] A local man, Thomas Clayton, funded the park in his will; public subscription provided additional money for the park's many features.
Near the war memorial, the Air Crash Memorial is a memorial to several young people from the town killed on 3 July 1970 when a Dan Air de Havilland Comet deviated from its intended course and crashed into the high ground of the Montseny Range in north-eastern Spain. The aircraft, destroyed on impact and subsequent ground fire, contained three flight crew, four cabin crew and 105 passengers aboard, all of whom suffered fatal injuries. It was the airline's first fatal accident involving fare-paying passengers. The tour operator, Clarkson's, was at the time the largest package holiday company in Britain.
A number of other buildings in the area, less significant than Gawthorpe and others mentioned above, are still of historic interest. Hargrove can be seen from a public footpath off the Padiham by-pass and is just north of the town and the 1950s council housing estate north of Windermere Road. For over 400 years the house was the home of the Webster family of yeoman farmers. The house is probably 17th-century and is part of the Huntroyed estate. Coal from a local outcrop heated the house for many years. Stockbridge House in Victoria Road was occupied by the Holts, a farming family, in 1802 and has a Jacobean chimney. High Whitaker Farm is north-east of Hargrove, also accessible by public footpath from both Higham Road and Grove Lane. The building is 16th- century and said to have been used to hide Catholics during the reign of Henry VIII. Other houses of note are Priddy Bank Farm and Foulds House Farm, both off Sabden Road, and Arbory Lodge on Arbory Drive.
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