60 large and small Lancashire places, and how they got their names.
Accrington - Farmstead or village where acorns are found or stored. It probably derives from the nearby forest of Rossendale, where pigs ate acorns
Adlington - Associated with someone called Eadwulf or similar Old English name
Aigburth - Oak tree hill
Aintree - A solitary tree
Ashton - Settlement were ash trees grow. There are several Ashtons in Lancashire
Atherton - Farmstead or village of Aethelhere or similar Old English name
Bacup - The valley by a ridge
Bamber Bridge - Origins are uncertain, but it could derive from the bridge of Bimme or similar Old English name
Bardsea - The island of Beorda or similar name
Barrow-in-Furness - Island with a promontory. The town took its name from a nearby island. Furness means headland by the rump-shaped island
Baxenden - Valley where flat stones for baking are found
Bickerstaffe - The river bank or landing place belonging to bee-keepers
Blackburn - Black or dark stream. It takes its name from the River Blackwater
Blackpool - Black or dark pool, unsurprisingly. It refers to the pool that drained Marton Mere
Bolton - Settlement with a special building. It is a common place name in northern England, used to distinguish proper settlements from their surrounding land
Bootle - Special dwelling
Bowland - Area of land in a bow, possibly referring to a bend in a river
Brierfield - Field where briers grow
Broughton - Farmstead or village by a stream. There are several Broughtons across Lancashire
Burnley - Woodland clearing by the River Brun
Burscough - Wood by a fortified place
Bury - Place of a fort or stronghold
Carnforth - The ford of cranes or herons
Cartmel - Sandbank by rocky ground
Chipping - Marketplace
Chorley - Clearing of freemen, derived from the Old English ceorl for the rank of freeman
Clitheroe - Hill of loose stones. Taken from the hill on which the castle stands
Colne - Origins are uncertain, though it was probably derived from a river that once ran here
Coniston - The king’s settlement or manor
Dalton - Estate or enclosure in a valley. Lancashire has several Daltons
Darwen - Takes its name from the river, meaning where oak trees grow
Droylesden - Valley of the dry stream
Eccles - Church, from the Celtic egles
Entwistle - The fork in the river frequented by ducks
Everton - Farmstead or village with pigs or boar
Fleetwood - Named after the town’s founder, Sir Peter Hesketh Fleetwood
Formby - Homestead belonging to Forni or similar Scandinavian name
Garstang - Pole shaped like a spear, probably used to mark a boundary
Goosnargh - The hill-pasture of Gosan or similar name, probably Irish or Scandinavian in origin
Great Harwood - Probably the hares’ wood. The Great was added to differentiate it from other Harwoods
Grizedale - Valley where pigs are kept
Hale - Low-lying nooks of land by a river
Halton - Farmstead or settlement in the bend of a river, in this case the Lune
Haslingden - Valley where hazel trees grow
Hawkshead - Hill pasture of Haukr or similar Scandinavian name
Haydock - The place of wheat and barley
Heaton - Farmstead on high land
Heysham - Homestead or village in the wood
Hornby - Farmstead or village on a horn-shaped piece of land
Hulme - Island or dry ground in the marsh
Ireby - Settlement of the Irish
Kirkby and Kirkham - Village with a church
Lancaster - The Roman fort on the River Lune. Lancashire is derived from Lancastershire, meaning district of Lancaster
Leigh - A place in the woodland clearing
Leyland - Area of fallow land
Liverpool - Pool with thick or muddied water
Lytham - A place on the slopes, probably referring to the sand dunes along the coast
Manchester - The Roman fort at Mamucio, a name possibly derived from the Celtic for breast-shaped hill
Morecambe - Takes its name from the Bay on which it sits, meaning the curved inlet
The rise and fall of the cotton business over the last few hundred years is, in many ways, the story of Lancashire. Certainly no other industry has left so great a mark on the county - for better or for worse.
Prior to the Industrial Revolution, textile production was largely a cottage industry, with families making their own clothes in the home on handlooms and perhaps selling on whatever extra items they were able to turn out. But as demand increased and the means emerged to drive spinning machines, factories began to spring up. Those running them soon discovered that powered production made for massively increased efficiency and output than human labour alone.
Factory manufacture transformed not just cotton production and working habits, but life. Many of those who previously spun for themselves in rural Lancashire now went to work in massive, strictly regimented mills and warehouses in Manchester and the satellite towns around it. Men, women and children alike slaved away for twelve hours a day, six days a week, in stiflingly hot and humid conditions, the air thick with damaging cotton dust and ringing with the deafening sound of rows of unreliable machines that frequently inflicted horrific accidents.
Life wasn’t much better at home. Housing in the cotton towns was thrown up fast and without much care for residents’ comfort, space or sanitation, leading to chronic overcrowding and rife disease. A new industrial working class was created, poor and vulnerable but increasingly unionised and restless. With some honourable exceptions, mill owners ruled them with a rod of iron, though workers’ pressure and parliamentary reform from the middle of the 19th century did slowly start to reduce child labour, shorten working hours and improve housing conditions. While workers toiled in virtual slavery, life for their employers was very different, and the houses they built with the vast wealth earned from cotton can still be seen around Lancashire and beyond.
While across the county borders Yorkshire was making itself the centre for wool production, Lancashire’s mill workers soon established their county as the world capital of cotton. It owed its success partly to its climate, with enough water in the rivers to power the mills and enough dampness in the air to maintain the moisture in fragile cotton yarns; and partly to its steady supply of labour. The industry grew to such an extent that by 1825, raw cotton was the country’s largest import. Entire towns were now dedicated to cotton, with the ‘cottonopolis’ of Manchester the headquarters for its trade. By 1860, Lancashire had more than two thousand mills, employing a third of a million people.
After a century of growth came several years of crisis, when the American Civil War led to a blockade on the shipping of raw cotton from the plantations in the southern states. Coupled with excessive production in the boom years that had reduced demand, the cotton famine put more than half of Lancashire’s mill workers out of work, forcing them to rely on charitable or poor law relief. It wasn’t until 1865 that the industry recovered, and it now grew again, to a peak in the early 1910s when Britain’s output reached 7 or 8 billion square yards of cloth a year. But other countries, notably Japan, were starting to catch up, turning out cheaper and better materials more efficiently, and the First World War tightened the brakes on Lancashire’s production.
After the war, the depression set the cotton mills on a steady but sure decline. By 1958 Britain was a net importer of cotton - an unthinkable situation a few decades earlier - and through the 1960s, Lancashire’s mills closed their gates at the rate of one a week. Though textile production continued - and continues - in the northwest, by the 1980s the cotton industry had gone. Cities like Manchester were by now diversified enough to adjust to life after cotton, but towns like Blackburn, Oldham and Burnley were decimated, their vast empty factories a reminder of past glories.
Most of Lancashire’s mills have now been demolished or renovated, turned into flats or workspaces for new industries. But a few have been preserved or adapted into museums celebrating the county’s era of King Cotton. The best places to find out more include the Helmshore Mills Textile Museum in Rossendale (tel 01706 226459 or visit www.lancashire.gov.uk); the Lewis Museum of Textile Machinery in Blackburn (tel 01254 667130 or visit www.blackburn.gov.uk); the Queen Street Mill Textile Museum (tel 01282 412555 or visit www.Lancashire.gov.uk); and the Park Bridge Industrial Hamlet in Ashton-under-Lyne (tel 0161 330 9613 or visit www.ashton-under-lyne.com).
20 major mill towns of Lancashire
Accrington
Ashton-under-Lyne
Bacup
Blackburn
Bolton
Burnley
Bury
Colne
Darwen
Heywood
Leigh
Nelson
Oldham
Oswaldtwistle
Padiham
Preston
Ramsbottom
Rochdale
Royton
Wigan
Whether or not you give any credence to supernatural theories, Lancashire has certainly had its fair share of reports of ghostly sightings and strange goings-on. Perhaps because of its rich history and abundance of stately homes and other old buildings, this part of the country is rated very highly by ghost hunters and mediums. Here are ten of the most interesting haunted places and their stories.
Chingle Hall, Goosnargh. This manor house, with original 13th-century elements intact, was once claimed to be England’s most haunted house. It was a sanctuary for Catholics in times of persecution and has a long roll call of ghosts including several martyred Saints. It used to run overnight ghost vigils but is now privately owned.
Claife Heights, near Windermere. The wooded slopes of the western shores of Windermere, making up the far fringes of Lancashire, are said to be home to the spirit of a monk from Furness Abbey, sent mad with grief after being rejected by one of the fallen women he rescued. A local priest exorcised him after several sightings and dispatched him to a quarry, marked on Ordnance Survey maps in his honour as Crier of Claife.
Lancaster Castle. The cells and hanging rooms here are supposedly haunted by numerous prisoners of the past, including the Pendle witches. The building is still a court and a prison but good access is available seven days a week; even if you’ve no interest in ghosts, a tour here is an unsettling experience.
Punch Bowl, Hurst Green. This cosy Ribble Valley pub is apparently haunted by Ned King, a feared local highwayman who liked to drink there until he was arrested and hanged on a nearby hill.
Rufford Old Hall, near Ormskirk. The ghost is a woman who pined away here in the 16th century after her soldier lover was killed while away fighting. Visitors to the National Trust-owned property occasionally report sightings and mysterious sounds, smells and sensations.
Samlesbury Hall, near Preston. Advertises itself as one of the country’s most haunted houses in order to promote its regular ghost tours and paranormal investigations. Residents include the White Lady, a woman whose lover was murdered by her own family, and a priest beheaded during the Reformation.
Smithills Hall, Bolton. Features the ghost of preacher George Marsh, tried for heresy during Mary Tudor’s reign then burned at the stake, plus sundry other spirits.
The Sun Inn, Chipping. Lancashire’s self-styled most haunted pub with the ghost of Lizzie Dean, a 19th-century maid who hanged herself after being jilted by a man.
Towneley Hall, Burnley. The several ghosts here include the restless spirit of Sir John Towneley, wracked with guilt after he forced tenants off his land; the soldiers of Oliver Cromwell sent to arrest a Royalist sympathiser; and, of course, the ubiquitous and mysterious White Lady.
Wardley Hall, Worsley. This medieval manor house contains the skull of St Ambrose, a Catholic martyr hung, drawn and quartered in 1641. Strange things apparently happen whenever the skull has been removed in the past, so it is now housed securely behind glass. The hall is the official residence of the Bishop of Salford.
Of Lancashire’s many dialect poets over the centuries, Edwin Waugh is probably the most respected, and this his most famous work. Born in Rochdale in 1817, he worked from the age of 12 as an apprentice to a printer and bookseller and soon became interested in writing. But it wasn’t until publication of ‘Come Who am To Thy Childer An’ Me’ in a Manchester newspaper in 1856 that he became widely known and was able to work full-time as a writer.
The poem begins with a Lancashire woman imploring her husband to return home to his family, and ends happily with the errant man promising to do so. In expressive dialect and full of sentimentality, it was hugely popular in Lancashire at the time, and remains treasured by those, including the Edwin Waugh Dialect Society, who strive to preserve the local dialect.
Aw’ve just mended th’ fire wi’ a cob;
Owd Swaddle has brought thi’ new shoon;
There’s some nice bacon-collops o’th hob
An’ a quart o’ ale posset i’th oon.
Aw’ve brought thi top coat, doesto know
For th’ rain’s comin’ deawn very dree;
An th’ har’stone’s as white as new snow –
Come who am to thy childer an’ me.
When aw put little Sally to bed,
Hoo cried ‘cos her feyther weren’t theer,
So aw kiss’d th’ little thing, an aw said
Thae’d bring her a ribbon fro’ th’ fair;
An’ aw gave her a doll an some rags
An’ a nice little white cotton-bo’
An’ aw kiss’d her again; but hoo said
‘At hoo wanted to kiss thee an’ o’.
An’ Dick, too, aw’d sich wark wi’ him,
Afore aw could get him up stairs;
Thae towd him thae’d bring him a drum,
He said, when he were sayin’ his prayers
Then he looked i’ my face, an’ he said,
“Has th’ boggarts taen houd o’ my dad?”
An’ he cried till his e’en were quite red –
He likes thee some weel, does yon lad!
At th’ lung-length, aw geet ‘em laid still;
An’ aw hearken’d t’ folks’ feet ‘at went by;
So aw iron’t o’ my clooas reet well,
An’ aw hanged ‘em o’ th maiden to dry;
When aw’d mended thy stockins an’ shirts,
Aw sit deawn to knit i’ my cheer,
An’ aw rayley did feel rayther hurt –
Mon, aw’m onely when theaw arrn’t theer.
“Aw’ve a drum an’ a trumpet for Dick;
Aw’ve a yard o’ blue ribbon for Sal;
Aw’ve a book full o’ babs, an’ a stick
An’ some baccy an’ pipes for mysel’;
Aw’ve brought thee some coffee an’ tay;
Iv thae’ll feel i’ my pocket, tha’ll see;
An’ aw’ve bought tho a new cap today –
But Aw al’ays brings summat for thee!
“God bless tho’, my lass; aw’ll go who am,
An’ aw’ll kiss thee an’ th’ childer o’ round;
Thae knows, that wherever aw roam,
Aw’m fain to get back to th’ owd ground;
Aw can do wi’ a crack o’er a glass;
Aw can do wi’ a bit of a spree;
But aw’ve no gradely comfort, my lass,
Except wi’ yon childer and thee.”
Glossary: cob (line 1) means coal; shoon (2) means shoes; collops (3) means slices; oon (4) means oven; dree (6) means continuously; har’stone (7) means hearth stone; cotton-bo’ (14) means cotton ball; o’ (16) means all; boggarts (22) means ghosts or evil spirits; e’en (23) means eyes; lung-length (25) means end; onely (32) means lonely; babs (35) means babies; tay (37) means tea; fain (44) means glad; crack (45) means talk; and gradely (47) means proper.
One of Lancashire’s most frequently repeated folk tales is the story of how King James I came to christen the sirloin steak in the county. The story runs that the King, staying at Hoghton Tower in 1617, spotted an exceptionally large joint of beef on his feast table and, in an uncharacteristic display of wit, rose with his sword and knighted it on the spot with the words ‘Arise Sir Loin’.
Unfortunately, however, the story is almost certainly apocryphal, the word having existed for several hundred years before James made his little joke. Rather, sirloin probably derives from the Old French term sur la longe, meaning ‘above the loin’. The tale was probably invented by a punning writer of James’ time or afterwards, and it has been credited to several other monarchs, too, including those with famously healthy appetites like Henry VIII.
16,000,000 |
estimated annual visits made to Blackpool |
|
545,000,000 |
estimated annual income from the tourist industry |
|
2,000,000 |
estimated number of postcards sent each year |
|
90,636 |
beds for holidaymakers in hotels, B&Bs and other serviced accommodation |
|
1863 |
year Blackpool’s first pier - the North - opened |
|
1879 |
year the first Illuminations were lit |
|
1885 |
year the Tramway opened |
|
1894 |
year both the Tower and Grand Theatre opened |
|
1905 |
year the Promenade opened |
|
518 |
height in feet (158 m) of the Tower |
|
9 |
tons of paint needed to paint the Tower |
|
1 |
inch (2.5 cm) the Tower sways in a wind of 70 miles per hour |
|
11.25 |
length in miles (18 km) of the Tramway line |
|
61 |
stops on the line |
|
220 |
height in feet (67 m) of Blackpool’s Old Big Wheel, in its time the world’s biggest. It closed in 1928 |
|
108 |
height in feet (33 m) of the New Big Wheel on Central Pier |
|
estimated number of coins put into North Pier arcades each year |
||
8 |
arc lamps in the first display of Blackpool’s Illuminations |
|
22 |
weeks it now takes to put up the Illuminations |
|
9 |
weeks it takes to take them down again |
|
6 |
length in miles (10 km) of the Illuminations |
|
66 |
nights for which the Illuminations remain lit each year |
|
711 |
weight in tons of the Illuminations equipment |
|
960,000 |
units of electricity used by the Illuminations each year |
|
1,900,000 |
cost in pounds of the annual display |
|
3,500,000 |
visitors the Illuminations are estimated to draw to Blackpool each year |
|
45 |
staff working full-time on the Illuminations, including electricians, mechanics, engineers and artists |
|
7,800,000 |
visitors to Blackpool Pleasure Beach each year |
|
125 |
rides and attractions at the Beach |
|
236 |
height in feet (72 m) of its biggest rollercoaster, the Pepsi Max Big One |
|
74 |
maximum speed in miles per hour (119 kmh) of the rollercoaster |
|
3 |
duration in minutes of a ride |
|
500,000 |
estimated number of candyflosses sold each year at the beach |
|
47 |
estimated miles (76 km) worth of hotdogs sold each year |
Given its natural and cultural riches, it is perhaps surprising that Lancashire has only one of the UK’s 27 World Heritage Sites, designated by UNESCO as being of particular international significance and worthy of special protection. For its importance in maritime mercantile history, that site is Liverpool - or, more specifically, six areas in the city’s centre and docklands. The honour reognises Liverpool’s history as one of the world’s biggest trading centres in the 18th and 19th centuries, and also its role in advancing technologies and methods in docks and transport systems during that time.
Despite the massive changes to the city since its golden era of trading, Liverpool’s docks and commercial areas have been very well preserved, and will continue to be thanks to their World Heritage status. The six areas recognised by UNESCO are the Pier Head, the Albert Dock and the four conservation areas of the Stanley Dock, Duke Street, the Commercial Quarter around Castle Street and the Cultural Quarter around William Brown Street.
Lancashire has a long and proud tradition of brewing, and while some of the big beer companies that once had headquarters in the county have now ceased production or moved elsewhere, they have been replaced by plenty of small start-ups. There are now around fifty breweries in Lancashire, as measured by its traditional boundaries, ranging from tiny hobby breweries to large brands like Cains in Liverpool and Daniel Thwaites in Blackburn. Some of these breweries offer tours to anyone wanting to find out more about the beer-making process, and some are bottling their beers for sale beyond Lancashire. And encouraged by a renaissance of real ale drinking, more are springing up every year. Here are Lancashire’s breweries:
Allgates Brewery, Wigan
Banktop Brewery, Bolton
Bazens’ Brewery, Salford
Boggart Hole Clough Brewery, Manchester
The Bowland Brewery, Clitheroe
Brysons Brewery, Morecambe
Robert Cain Brewery, Liverpool
Cambrinus Craft Brewery, Prescot
Coach House Brewing Company, Warrington
Coniston Brewing Company, Coniston
Cumbrian Legendary Ales, Hawkshead
Fallons Exquisite Ales, Darwen
Foxfield Brewery, Broughton-in-Furness
Fuzzy Duck Brewery, Poulton-le-Fylde
Garthela Brewhouse, Blackburn
Green Mill Brewery, Rochdale
Hart Brewery, Little Eccleston
Higsons Brewery, Liverpool
Joseph Holt Brewery, Manchester
Hopstar Brewery, Darwen
Hornbeam Brewery, Manchester
Hydes Brewery, Manchester
Kirkby Lonsdale Brewery, Kirkby Lonsdale
Lancaster Brewery, Lancaster
J.W. Lees, Manchester
Leyden Brewing, Bury
Liverpool Organic Brewery, Liverpool
Lytham Brewery, Lytham
Marble Brewery, Manchester
Mayflower Brewery, Wigan
Moonstone Brewery, Burnley
Moorhouses Brewery, Burnley
Outstanding Brewing Company, Bury
Pennine Ale, Haslingden
Phoenix Brewery, Heywood
Pictish Brewery, Rochdale
Prospect Brewery, Wigan
Red Rose Brewery, Great Harwood
Southport Brewery, Southport
Stringers Beer, Ulverston
Abraham Thompson, Barrow
Three B’s Brewery, Blackburn
Daniel Thwaites Brewery, Blackburn
Ulverston Brewing Company, Ulverston
Wapping Brewery, Liverpool
George Wright Brewing Company, Rainford
The cities and countryside of Lancashire have been very popular with TV producers over the years. Long-running series like Coronation Street and Brookside have been set and filmed here, but so too have a rich variety of dramas and sitcoms, making it perhaps TV’s second capital after London. Here are 25 of the best known programmes to have been at least partly filmed here.
Coronation Street (1960 onwards)
Britain’s longest running TV soap, firmly set and filmed in Lancashire, on Granada’s purpose-built Manchester set.
Z-Cars (1962 to 1978)
Long-running police drama set in the fictional town of Newtown but closely based on Kirkby in Merseyside.
Juliet Bravo (1980 to 1985)
Set in the Lancashire town of Hartley, and filmed partly at Bacup police station as well as locations over the border in Yorkshire.
Brookside (1982 to 2003)
Long-running and increasingly implausible TV soap that was filmed in a purpose-built cul-de-sac of houses in Liverpool.
Bread (1986 to 1991)
Popular, sentimental sitcom-soap crossover that was set and filmed in Liverpool, especially in the suburb of Dingle.
Oranges are Not the Only Fruit (1990)
Classic BBC drama filmed in Accrington and Rawtenstall in Lancashire, as well as in Yorkshire.
Cracker (1993 to 2006)
Set in Manchester and largely filmed at locations in and around the city, including Didsbury and Longsight.
Common as Muck (1994 to 1997)
Comedy series about binmen filmed in Oldham.
Moll Flanders (1996)
BBC bodice-ripper with scenes shot at Hoghton Tower near Preston, Astley Hall in Chorley and Rivington Castle on the west Pennine Moors.
Cold Feet (1998 to 2003)
Popular comedy drama set in Manchester and filmed in and around the city and further south into Cheshire.
The Royle Family (1998 to 2008)
Acclaimed comedy set almost entirely in a house in Wythenshawe, where co-creator Caroline Aherne grew up, though filmed in a studio.
Queer as Folk (1999)
Set and shot around Greater Manchester.
Clocking Off (2000 to 2002)
Award-winning drama set and filmed in Manchester.
Linda Green (2001 to 2002)
Set and filmed in Manchester.
Phoenix Nights (2001 to 2002)
Peter Kay comedy located and filmed in his home town of Bolton. The club that features is in the suburb of Farnworth.
Born and Bred (2002 to 2005)
Set in the fictional Lancashire village of Ormston and shot in the real one of Downham, near Clitheroe.
Cutting It (2002 to 2004)
BBC drama set and filmed in Manchester.
Shameless (2003 onwards)
Filmed for several years on location on a West Gorton estate, but now shot on a purpose-built set in Wythenshawe.
Blackpool (2004)
Acclaimed musical-drama, filmed in, well, Blackpool.
North and South (2004)
Mill scenes were set in Lancashire mill museums including Helmshore in Rossendale and Queen Street in Burnley.
Housewife, 49 (2006)
Wartime drama set in Barrow-in-Furness, filmed there and in Grange-over-Sands.
Life on Mars (2006 to 2007)
Various Lancashire locations have included Manchester and Bolton.
This acclaimed Channel 4 drama about Lord Longford was filmed at Wymott and Garth Prisons near Leyland.
The Street (2006 onwards)
Set and filmed on a street in Salford.
Waterloo Road (2006 onwards)
Filmed at a school in Rochdale.
One of the wealth of interesting things to be found in the Lancashire census of 1861 is the list of professions of the time. This top ten shows the working trends of the age, illustrating in particular Lancashire’s dependence on cotton for employment. Most of the ten professions are now either rarely found or altogether obsolete.
1 Cotton weaver
2 Servant
3 House keeper
4 Labourer
5 Coal miner
6 Dress maker
7 Cotton winder
8 Cotton spinner
9 Carter
10 Agricultural labourer
Gracefully winding their way across fields, hills and dales, dry stone walls are one of the great wonders of the British countryside. In Lancashire as in many other rural counties, it is hard to imagine the landscape without them.
The most recent survey of walls estimated that England has some 70,000 miles (112,655 km) of dry stone walls, with Lancashire home to at least 10,000 miles (16,095 km). As the name suggests, they are built without any mortar or cement but are instead held up by the weight of each component stone. That sounds precarious but, properly laid and cared for, a wall can last for centuries, withstanding the worst the weather can throw at it and comfortably outliving rusting fences or cemented walls. They are infinitely preferable to look at too, defining the upland country as surely as the fells or sheep.
Although wall building dates back much further, most of the walls seen today in Lancashire were built in the 18th or 19th centuries to mark the boundaries of common land and protect livestock. Their endurance is testament to the immense skill and labour of the men who built them, and behind every wall of any size lies weeks of backbreaking work, often done in driving rain, howling gales and freezing temperatures.
Although some aspects of wall craft have got easier over the years, the basic techniques have remained the same. Building one is like fitting together a very large, heavy and awkward jigsaw puzzle, in which each and every piece forms an essential part of the whole. Apart from strength and careful assembly, the job involves a large amount of patience, since even the best builder manages no more than a few yards of wall in a day.
A good wall begins with good stone, and builders spend time selecting the best materials - a ton or more of stone for each yard of wall. After that - and the small matter of transporting the stone to an often remote field of hillside - the building starts, and while a few masonry tools and supporting props are used, the job is essentially done by hand. Techniques vary, but most wallers begin by digging out a small trench a few feet wide and a few inches deep, before placing large ‘footing’ stones snugly inside. Rows of large, flat stones are laid on top, with ‘hearting’ - smaller chock stones or gravel - tightly filling any gaps that remain in between. For greater strength, walls are often built in double rows parallel to each other, with occasional ‘through’ stones spanning both to bind them together.
The wall now rises layer by layer, with each stone resting on at least two others below it. Stones must fit together tightly, so that each supports the other and gives the wall strength. For balance, the width tapers as the wall rises, becoming about an inch narrower for each foot it climbs. At the top - usually around 4 or 5 feet high - a row of ‘coping’ stones is sometimes laid perpendicular or flat, giving the wall a distinctive appearance and making it difficult for animals to clamber over. Some walls also incorporate holes for animals to pass through, or stiles for walkers to climb over.
The art of dry stone walling has undoubtedly declined over the years. With landowners finding it quicker and cheaper to put up fences, some existing walls are starting to decay, and agencies like the National Trust are campaigning for greater protection and leading some conservation work themselves. But skilled wallers remain in demand, among private garden owners as well as farmers, and Lancashire has a small but busy branch of the Dry Stone Walling Association, running demonstrations and popular training sessions for novices. Its members also compete in dry stone walling competitions, at which they build a stretch of wall from scratch and are judged on its appearance and sturdiness and the speed with which it is prepared. Country shows including Trawden and Great Eccleston also run competitions, and they are good places to understand this wonderful craft and its importance in Lancashire’s heritage.
Cleans Hair
Alien Crash
Real Chains
An Arch Isle
Reach Snail
Racial Hens
Cars Inhale
Chile Ran As
Clash Are In
Canal Hires
A Clear Shin
Rascal He In
Char Sale In
I Learn Cash
Clan As Hire
Can Heal Sir
He Cans Liar
Heals In Arc
Lean As Rich
Car Has Line
The generations of wealthy merchants and industrialists in 19th-century Lancashire were not, by and large, a philanthropic lot. But there were a handful of businessmen whose concern for the working classes led them to launch lasting social and cultural projects. Sir Henry Tate, the Lancastrian who rose from grocer’s boy to multi-millionaire, was among them.
Born in Chorley in 1819, the son of a Unitarian minister, Tate’s apprenticeship in Liverpool started at the age of 13. It led him to set up his own grocer’s shop at 20, and by 35 he had grown it into a chain of six stores in and around Liverpool. Seeking to expand his interests, he invested in a sugar refining business and took charge of it with his sons when his business partner died in 1869.
‘Sugar houses’ had existed in Liverpool since the late 17th century. The port provided easy access to sugar cane imported across the Atlantic - much of it carried home by ships sailing the slave routes, though the trade had been abolished by Tate’s time - as well as a ready supply of labour. By the mid 19th century the city had a large sugar industry, receiving and refining tens of thousands of tons of cane a year, but Tate advanced it by investing in new techniques - including the patent for sugar cubes - and opening new refineries in Liverpool and London, where he later moved to live. He grew the company into what, after his death and a merger in 1921, became Tate & Lyle, now the largest sugar cane refiner in Europe and a giant multi-national and multi-interest corporation.
Perhaps inspired by his father’s values and the deprivation he saw around him in Lancashire, Tate became a generous benefactor as his fortune piled up. He donated to Liverpool’s university and hospitals as well as libraries and colleges further afield, often doing so anonymously or discreetly. He did not seek public credit for his projects, and nor did he revolutionise his workers’ rights and conditions, but he was said to have expressed genuine concerns for their welfare in private.
Tate’s most significant bequest was made in 1889, when he gave his substantial collection of 19th-century British art to the nation, along with £80,000 for the building of a gallery. The resulting building on the site of the old Millbank Prison in London was opened in 1897, although, befitting his modesty, it only became known as the Tate Gallery in the 1930s, well after his death. It became the country’s principal repository for contemporary British, and then international, art.
Liverpool has several reminders of Henry Tate’s impressive legacy - not least the city’s own Tate Gallery, opened in 1988. Liverpool’s association with the sugar industry is also explored in the city’s excellent museums, including the Merseyside Maritime and International Slavery Museums.
The Lancashire village of Chipping, halfway between Garstang and Clitheroe in the Forest of Bowland, is home to the oldest shop in the country to have been continuously used as such. Opened in 1668 by a local wool merchant, the shop has housed numerous businesses including a butcher’s and an undertaker’s. Now, well into its fourth century of trading, it is home to a village store and the Chipping Craft Centre. The pretty village is a conservation area that also has an endowed school dating back to the 17th century and a church that was originally built in the 13th century, though much altered since.
Of the 829 people to have been awarded a Nobel Prize between 1901 and 2009, around 120 were born in Britain or had citizenship there - and seven of them hail from Lancashire. Four have won Nobel’s Chemistry Prize, two its Physics and one its Physiology or Medicine; and six of the seven were educated at Manchester or Liverpool universities before going on to study or work elsewhere. In the order they received their honours, Lancashire’s seven Nobel laureates are:
J.J. (Joseph John) Thomson (1856–1940; born in Manchester).
Studied in Manchester before conducting most of his research in Cambridge and London. Awarded the Nobel Prize in Physics in 1906 following his discovery of the electron.
Charles Barkla (1877–1944; born in Widnes).
Educated at Liverpool University, he received the Prize in Physics in 1917 for his work on X-ray scattering. He also has a crater on the moon named in his honour.
Arthur Harden (1865–1940; born in Manchester).
Studied and worked for the first half of his life in his home city, before receiving the Prize in Chemistry in 1929 for research into the fermentation of sugar.
Norman Haworth (1883–1950; born in Chorley).
After leaving school at 14 to work in the family business, Haworth later went against his father’s wishes to study at Manchester University. He received the Prize in Chemistry in 1937 for his research into vitamins and carbohydrates.
Richard Synge (1914–94; born in Liverpool).
Synge was a renowned biochemist who was awarded the Prize in Chemistry in 1952 for the invention of partition chromatography - separating and identifying the components of a complex mixture.
Rodney Porter (1917–85; born in Newton-le-Willows).
Studied at Liverpool University before moving on to professorships in London and Cambridge. He received the Prize in Physiology or Medicine in 1972 for his discovery of the chemical structure of antibodies.
Michael Smith (1932–2000; born in Blackpool).
Although he was born in Blackpool and received his PhD at Manchester, Smith did most of his work in Canada. He was awarded the Prize in Chemistry in 1993 for his research into mutations in DNA.
Few foods stir up as much passion in Lancashire as the humble pie. Between producers and towns across the county, competition over who bakes the best is fierce.
Simple to make, cheap and filling, pies have been a staple of Lancashire eating for centuries, though their modern popularity owes much to the Industrial Revolution. Baked in advance and conveniently portable, workers found pies the ideal lunch to take down the mines or into the mills and factories.
Just as it was then, the classic Lancashire pie is a simple mix of meat - usually beef - and potato, bound with gravy and topped with shortcrust pastry. It is commonly served nowadays with chips and smothered in more gravy or ‘pea wet’ - the juice from mushy or marrowfat peas - or, for a carbohydrate-heavy and somewhat messy meal, wedged in a buttered barm cake or between a couple of slices of bread. Endless variations on the pie have developed over the years, though Lancashire loyalists turn their noses up at modern concoctions like the balti pie.
Small bakers and pie shops were once found all over industrial Lancashire, though changing public tastes and competition from the supermarkets mean that many have closed down over the decades. But the pie remains hugely popular, found on smart pub and restaurant menus as well as street corner takeaways like fish and chip shops. Perhaps the best-known brand now is Holland’s, which has been baking in Lancashire for 150 years and is now based at Baxenden near Accrington, from where it supplies supermarkets across the country as well as plenty of local outlets.
Lancashire’s true centre of pie excellence, however, lies 20 miles (32 km) further south in Wigan. You don’t have to walk far to find a pie here, and many of their sellers remain small family businesses rather than the chain bakery companies that dominate other towns’ high streets. Wiganers are often still nicknamed ‘pie eaters’– though this actually refers not to their appetites but to the 1926 General Strike, when workers were forced by hunger to return to their jobs, so eating humble pie. In this town and elsewhere, pies remain especially popular among football fans as a half-time snack.
Wigan is also home to the World Pie Eating Championships, an event that is perhaps not quite as prestigious as its title suggests. Health and safety issues mean that the winner is not now the person who eats the most pies in a set time but the person who eats a single pie the quickest, and pressure from vegetarians means that competitors are now offered meat-free alternatives including the traditional butter pie of onions, potatoes, butter and seasonings. Recent contests have encountered controversies, such as when a baker produced pies for the contest that were measured in inches rather than centimetres and thus too big even for Wigan appetites; and when a local dog scoffed the competition’s stock the night before the championships.
A recipe for meat and potato pie
500 g braising beef (shin or flank is good)
500 g potatoes
2 medium onions
1 litre beef stock
1 tsp thyme leaves
1 egg
1 pack of shortcrust pastry (or make your own)
2 tbsp plain flour
Salt and freshly ground black pepper
Vegetable oil
Dice the beef into small chunks about an inch (2.5 cm) across, and lightly coat in the flour. Peel and chop the potatoes into similar sized pieces. Peel and roughly chop the onions. Heat a little vegetable oil in a large, thick pan and brown the beef on a high heat, in two batches if necessary. Remove and set aside. Turn the heat on the pan down, add a little more oil and fry the onions. After a few minutes add the potatoes and stir, and a few minutes after that the thyme, stock, salt and pepper. Bring to the boil, cover and simmer gently for about an hour.
Roll out the pastry on a floured table to a thickness of about quarter of an inch (0.5 cm). Pour the meat and potato mixture into a pie dish, leaving out some of the stock if there’s too much, and lay the pastry carefully on top. Trim around the edge of the dish, brush all over with the beaten egg, and make a few slits in the top. Bake in a medium oven (200°C / 400°F / gas mark 6) for about forty minutes or until the pastry is golden brown. Serve with mushy peas or pickled red cabbage.
Of the countless railway lines that were built to serve Lancashire’s people and industries in the age of steam, many have fallen out of use. But a small number have been preserved, their tracks and locomotives lovingly brought back to life by the county’s dedicated rail buffs. These four lines are all run by railway preservation societies and provide great days out for families in particular.
East Lancashire Railway. Originally opened in 1846 to connect passengers and freight to the Manchester to Bolton line, dwindling use led to it being wound down in the 1970s. A preservation society took on a 12-mile (19 km) stretch from Heywood to Rawtenstall via Bury and Ramsbottom, and ironically passenger numbers are much higher now - around 120,000 a year - than they ever were in its first life. Trains run every weekend and on weekdays in the summer. Tel 0161 764 7790 or visit www.east-lancs-rly.co.uk.
Lakeside and Haverthwaite Railway. In the northernmost chunk of Lancashire, steam engines run along 3.5 miles (5.5 km) of track between the shores of Windermere and Haverthwaite near Newby Bridge. It’s the last surviving branch line of the Furness Railway, closed in the 1960s. Services run every day from April to October, as well as over Christmas. Tel 015395 31594 or visit www.lakesiderailway.co.uk.
Ribble Steam Railway. The mile and a half of track on Preston Docks was brought back to life by a group of railway enthusiasts in 2005. It puts to use some of their stock of more than 40 rescued and restored locomotives, previously housed at a museum in Southport but moved here to support the new project. There’s a little museum, café and gift shop too; check in advance for train times. Tel 01772 728800 or visit www.ribblesteam.org.uk.
West Lancashire Light Railway. Tiny narrow gauge line around an old clay pit in the village of Hesketh Bank, between Preston and Southport. The quarter of a mile of track has all been laid by the group to run its stock of retired or unwanted locomotives, all painstakingly restored. It carries passengers every Sunday and Bank Holiday Monday from April to October, plus occasional other days. Tel 01772 815881 or visit www.westlancs.org.
Also worth a visit are the Astley Green Colliery Museum near Manchester, which houses some 30 old colliery locomotives and runs demonstrations on a stretch of line though not passenger journeys (visit www.agcm.org.uk); and the Heaton Park Tramway, a nicely restored stretch of the old Manchester Corporation Tramways network (tel 01282 436802 or visit www.heatonparktramway.btik.com).
Golf is a thriving sport across Lancashire, but it is a little known fact that the game’s most prestigious team trophy - the Ryder Cup - has its origins here.
When the Cup was first contested in 1927, it was a Lancastrian who suggested and supplied it. Samuel Ryder, born in Walton-le-Dale near Preston, made his fortune in business by the unlikely method of selling packets of garden seeds by post at a penny a time - far cheaper than any previous retailer and thus making him very popular among the working classes wishing to tend their plots of land. Starting in the garden shed of his home in his adopted town of St Albans, Hertfordshire, Ryder’s headquarters grew into a vast warehouse, with other gardening-related businesses added over the years.
Although cricket was his main sport, Ryder was persuaded to take up golf as a way to relieve the stresses of business and improve his often poor health, and he soon became hooked on it. After sponsoring several tournaments, he contributed a trophy for an exhibition international match in 1926, and later suggested that it should become a regular event for the best professional golfers of the US and Britain (and, later, Europe). He paid for a gold trophy to be made at a cost of £250 - a bargain by modern sponsorship standards, though the event in its early years was intended simply as a friendly, social occasion for its participants. The figure preparing to swing his club on the top of the trophy is Abe Mitchell, a popular golfer of his day and, more to the point, Ryder’s private tutor.
Starting in the US, the tournament has been played every two years since on alternate sides of the Atlantic, except during the Second World War. Ryder saw Britain win his cup on home soil twice before his death in 1936, and, fittingly, it has been contested in Lancashire six times: at the Southport and Ainsdale club in 1933 and 1937; the Royal Lytham and St Annes club in 1961 and 1977; and the Royal Birkdale club in Southport in 1965 and 1969.
As it has all over the country, farming in Lancashire has been beset by difficulties lately - the pressure on prices and the foot and mouth crisis of 2001 among them. The industry has declined dramatically, and the number of people working on farms in Lancashire is around a third lower than it was even a few decades ago. But it nevertheless remains a significant contributor to the county’s economy, and the diversification of many farms - into accommodation, farm shops, farmers’ markets and the like - has helped them to get through the succession of challenges.
These statistics about farming in the region are compiled by the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (DEFRA). Statistics for the various modern-day administrative regions of the county have been combined to give figures for an approximation of Lancashire as defined by its historic boundaries.
9,670 |
total farm holdings (a holding is defined as land farmed in one unit, and farms can have more than one holding) |
|
2,424 |
holdings that are used for grazing lifestock |
|
794 |
dairy farm holdings |
|
313 |
cereal farm holdings |
|
4,505 |
farm holdings that are under 12 acres (5 ha) in size |
|
675 |
farm holdings that are more than 247 acres (100 ha) in size |
|
1,108 |
total square miles (2,870 sq km) of farmed land |
|
4,862 |
full-time farmers and spouses |
|
16,228 |
total farm labour |
|
3,471,430 |
chickens held on farms |
|
774,556 |
sheep |
|
259,440 |
cattle |
|
74,128 |
pigs |
|
27,041 |
ducks |
|
17,528 |
turkeys |
|
15,691 |
horses |
|
5,899 |
geese |
|
2,339 |
goats |
Even the hardiest of Lancastrians would be hard-pushed to deny that it can get a bit chilly in the county at times. And when the wind whips over Lancashire’s exposed fells and moors, the temperature can seem a good deal lower than the weather forecast promised. This is the wind chill - the temperature that is felt on exposed skin rather than the air measurement. Lots of different methods have been used to measure and index wind chill, but the snappy formula currently used by the Met Office is as follows:
Wind Chill = 35.74 + 0.6215T - 35.75(V0.16)+ 0.4275(V0.16)
Where T is the air temperature in ° Fahrenheit and V is the wind speed in miles per hour.
This table shows the wind chill according to the air temperature and wind. With an air temperature of 30°F (-1°C) and wind of 40 mph (64 kph) for instance, the wind chill is 13°F (-10°C). Frostbite can set in in less than 30 minutes if the wind chill falls beneath -18°F (-28°C). So wrap up warm.
Football clubs from Lancashire have won the top tier of England’s football league - the old Division One and now the Premier League - no fewer than 54 times since it was first contested in 1888. On average, therefore, a Lancashire club has taken the honour nearly every other year. Leading the list by some distance are the area’s two footballing giants, Liverpool and Manchester United, with 18 titles apiece. Everton have nine, and the only other Lancashire club to have won the league since the 1960s is Blackburn Rovers, who have three titles in all. Burnley, Manchester City and Preston North End have two each.
England’s other leading football competition, the FA Cup, has gone to Lancashire 44 times since it was first organised in 1872. Manchester United and Liverpool again lead this roll call, and each of Lancashire’s league winners have won this competition too. Other clubs to have claimed the trophy are Bolton Wanderers, Bury, Blackpool and the long defunct Blackburn Olympic. Liverpool and Manchester United have also won Europe’s leading competition - the European Cup and now the Champions League - eight times between them.
That tally of more than one hundred major titles makes Lancashire the centre of footballing excellence in England. Clubs from London and Yorkshire, by comparison, have won the football league just 18 and 11 times respectively.
League champions
18 Liverpool (1901, 1906, 1922, 1923, 1947, 1964, 1966, 1973, 1976, 1977, 1979, 1980, 1982, 1983, 1984, 1986, 1988, 1990)
18 Manchester United (1908, 1911, 1952, 1956, 1957, 1965, 1967, 1993, 1994, 1996, 1997, 1999, 2000, 2001, 2003, 2007, 2008, 2009)
9 Everton (1891, 1915, 1928, 1932, 1939, 1963, 1970, 1985, 1987)
3 Blackburn Rovers (1912, 1914, 1995)
2 Burnley (1921, 1960)
2 Manchester City (1937, 1968)
2 Preston North End (1889, 1890)
FA Cup winners
11 Manchester United (1909, 1948, 1963, 1977, 1983, 1985, 1990, 1994, 1996, 1999, 2004)
7 Liverpool (1965, 1974, 1986, 1989, 1992, 2001, 2006)
6 Blackburn Rovers (1884, 1885, 1886, 1890, 1891, 1928)
5 Everton (1906, 1933, 1966, 1984, 1995)
4 Bolton Wanderers (1923, 1926, 1929, 1958)
4 Manchester City (1904, 1934, 1956, 1969)
2 Bury (1900, 1903)
2 Preston North End (1889, 1938)
1 Blackburn Olympic (1883)
1 Blackpool (1953)
1 Burnley (1914)
European Cup winners
5 Liverpool (1977, 1978, 1981, 1984, 2005)
3 Manchester United (1968, 1999, 2008)
The Lake District has been home and inspiration to dozens of famous poets and novelists down the centuries, but no modern writer is so widely read or revered as Lancashire’s own Alfred Wainwright. Few have walked as extensively across the Lakes as he, and no-one has chronicled the area’s glorious fells, a good number of which are within the county’s original boundaries, half so well.
Wainwright was born in Black burn in 1907, and the contrast between the town’s bleak industrial landscape and the peaceful emptiness of the Lake District was immediately apparent on his first holiday there at the age of 23.‘I was utterly enslaved by all I saw,’ he wrote later. ‘Here were no huge factories, but mountains; no stagnant canals, but sparking crystal-clear rivers; no cinder paths but beckoning tracks that clamber through bracken and heather to the silent fastnesses of the hills. That week changed my life.’
Wainwright settled in Kendal in his thirties, but it wasn’t until the early 1950s that he had the idea of producing pen and ink drawings of the mountains he climbed, together with detailed records of the routes to their tops and the views once there. Having divided what he considered the Lake District’s 214 ‘true’ fells over 1,000 feet (305 m) in height into seven regions, he set himself a 13-year schedule to climb and write about them all. The project was initially done for pleasure, with little idea of writing a book, but having compiled his first set of notes he approached a printer to produce copies of the first of his Pictorial Guides to the Lakeland Fells. The book was immediately popular, and thousands of walkers eagerly anticipated his next installments until the seventh and final volume was published in 1965.
Wainwright’s books were, by his own admission, a labour of love. Having walked all weekend, Wainwright would write up his notes from the fells at home through the following week, adding sketches based on photographs he had taken. Each book was entirely handwritten page by page, immaculately formatted and presented ready for the printer’s press. If he made a mistake on a page, he tore it up and started again. Astonishingly, Wainwright completed all his travels to and from his walks on public transport and without the aid of a car - and all seven Pictorial Guides were written while he held down a full-time job as borough treasurer at Kendal.
Wainwright went on to produce many more books about the peripheries of the Lake District and other areas, as well as various collections of drawings and memoirs. He participated rather reluctantly in a TV series, and created the Coast to Coast walk from St Bees in Cumbria to Robin Hood’s Bay in Yorkshire, now one of the most popular long-distance trails in Britain. But although a small fortune of royalties poured in, he never wrote any of his books for money, instead donating a large proportion of it to Cumbrian animal charities.
Several decades after they were first published, Wainwright’s books remain hugely popular, and have recently been thoroughly updated for another generation of walkers. Because so many hikers by nature relish a good challenge and a list of peaks to bag, emulating Wainwright’s feat has become a popular obsession - a challenge sometimes taken on over a year or even a summer, but more usually over a lifetime. Athletes have battled to complete the summits the quickest - the record of six days and 23 hours was set by legendary fell runner Joss Naylor - while other remarkable rounds have included that of Robin Regan, who had notched up all 214 peaks by the age of just five.
Wainwright is remembered in his home town by a blue plaque on the house in which he grew up, though a more substantial commemoration is to be found at St James’ Church in Buttermere in the northern Lake District, within sight of Haystacks, his favourite fell and the one on which his ashes were scattered after his death in 1991. Blackburn’s Thwaites brewery has an ale named in his honour, while the Wainwright Society was formed in 2002 to celebrate his work and values. The greatest memorials of all, though, are Wainwright ’s exquisite and timeless books that he called his ‘love letters’ to the Lakes.
For coastal holidaymakers in Lancashire, the pier is an essential part of the seaside experience. Of the 55 piers that the National Piers Society records as surviving in the UK, Lancashire has five, all opened within a few decades of one another in the late 19th century. In descending order of length and with their year of opening, they are:
Southport (3,635 feet / 1,108 metres; opened in 1860)
Blackpool North (1,319 feet / 402 metres; opened in 1863)
Blackpool Central (1,119 feet / 341 metres; opened in 1868)
St Annes (600 feet / 183 metres; opened in 1885)
Blackpool South (492 feet / 150 metres; opened in 1893)
As well as being Lancashire’s longest, Southport is also the UK’s second longest pier after Southend, which extends 7,201 feet (2,195 m). Lancashire has four more piers that are now either closed to the public or destroyed altogether: Lytham (closed in 1960), Morecambe West End (1978), Morecambe Central (1992) and Fleetwood (2008).
Perhaps because of its tradition of seaside entertainment, Lancashire has produced a steady stream of comedians, TV and radio personalities and other entertainers over the years. Here are 30 of the best known, with the place of their birth in brackets.
Zoe Ball (Blackpool)
Cilla Black (Liverpool)
Jim Bowen (Accrington)
Tommy Cannon and Bobby Ball (Oldham)
Judith Chalmers (Manchester)
Steve Coogan (Manchester)
Alistair Cooke (Manchester)
John Culshaw (Ormskirk)
Les Dawson (Manchester)
Fred Dibnah (Bolton)
David Dickinson (Manchester)
Ken Dodd (Liverpool)
Chris Evans (Warrington)
Judy Finnegan (Manchester)
Kerry Katona (Warrington)
Peter Kay (Bolton)
Vernon Kay (Bolton)
Matthew Kelly (Urmston)
Stan Laurel (Ulverston)
Lee Mack (Blackburn)
Bernard Manning (Manchester)
Eric Morecambe (Morecambe)
Bill Oddie (Rochdale)
Nick Park (Walner Bridge)
Anne Robinson (Crosby)
Philip Schofield (Oldham)
Dave Spikey (Farnworth)
Eric Sykes (Oldham)
Johnny Vegas (St Helens)
Victoria Wood (Prestwich)
Given the wealth of pubs and breweries in Lancashire these days it is hard to believe that this was, for a while at least, one of the most sober parts of the country.
As cheap alcohol and alcoholism spread across the industrialising towns of the north, Lancashire was one of the first places to react against it. It was in Preston in the 1830s that Britain’s Temperance Movement began, first encouraging moderation in drinking and then soon total abstinence. The movement gradually spread across the densely populated towns of the county, where alcoholism frequently wrecked family life. Temperance was enthusiastically encouraged by both the church - especially Methodists - and mill owners, for whom drunkenness reduced productivity.
To keep people happy as well as sober, and to prove that they could have a good time without recourse to the demon drink, temperance bars began to spring up across Lancashire. Many grew out of herbalist shops and would serve increasingly imaginative soft drinks like ginger beer, dandelion and burdock and sarsaparilla. One of the most popular bars was Fitzpatrick’s, a chain set up by an Irish family of herbalists that at its peak had more than 20 outlets. Those drinking in the bars would often be asked to take a Temperance Pledge, like this one for Fitzpatrick’s:
A pledge we make, no wine to take,
No brandy red that turns the head,
Nor fiery rum that ruins home,
Nor whiskey hot that turns the sot,
Nor brewers beer, for that we fear,
Feel instead Fitzpatrick’s cheer!
Despite their noble intentions, the lure of Lancashire’s alcoholic drinks was obviously too strong. Rising leisure time and incomes, the end of prohibition in the US, the introduction of free medicine and a more balanced attitude towards alcohol all sped the decline, and the bars across Lancashire gradually closed. The last remaining one is Fitzpatrick ’s branch on Bank Street in Rawtenstall, which trades as much on its nostalgic appeal as it does on the range of non-alcoholic drinks it still produces and sells, including cordials, herbal tonics and the original recipe sarsaparilla.
Few British movies evoke such passionate nostalgia as Brief Encounter, and few filming locations attract as many fans as Carnforth Station in northern Lancashire.
When shooting for the film was scheduled in the last months of the Second World War in 1945, the film’s producers initially wanted to use a London station. But realising that blackout regulations and the lingering threat of air raids would make night-time filming impossible, they sought alternatives. Carnforth fitted the bill, partly because it had slopes rather than stairs connecting the platforms - much easier for actors Celia Johnson and Trevor Howard, as well as film crews, to navigate.
At the time of filming Carnforth was a busy junction on the London, Midland and Scottish Railway, providing plenty of opportunities for crowd and train scenes as well as a ready supply of local extras. In the decades after the war, though, the decline of steam, falling passenger numbers and the reorganisation of rail lines all led to the station becoming neglected, and at several times its future was threatened. Brief Encounter may just have saved it, and its film connections certainly provided a strong argument for a much-needed refurbishment in 2000. Many of the period features on the station were tidied up, and the clock featured in the film rediscovered and reinstalled above the platforms.
Although only around a fifth of Brief Encounter was actually shot on location at Carnforth, the station provides many of its most memorable moments, and aside from a few modern additions, the platforms themselves are much as Johnson and Howard found them in 1945. The most famous scenes of all are those staged in the station’s refreshment room, though these were actually shot in a recreated set in a southern film studio. This set, however, was closely based on Carnforth’s actual refreshment room, which has also been very carefully restored to how it looks in the film. It now serves tea and cake to coach loads of dewy-eyed film fans.
The refurbishment also gave the station an excellent visitors’ centre, featuring photos and memorabilia from the filming of Brief Encounter as well as exhibitions on other interesting aspects of its history. The film plays on a loop here, providing a constant reminder of the station’s role in film history. These days it serves only a branch line from Lancashire into Cumbria, but more than 60 years on, the popularity of the film is such that it now gets as many people wanting to linger on its platforms and in its rooms as it does train passengers.
Followers of Lancashire’s county cricket team have spent countless hours arguing about their club’s best ever players. This eleven is based purely on statistics rather than opinions about the relative skills of players, and features Lancashire’s six highest first-class run scorers, the four highest wicket takers and the most prolific wicket-keeper. As such, the line-up is heavily biased towards the eras around the two world wars, when cricketers played many more matches than they do now, and were able to set career totals for runs and wickets that modern-day players can never hope to surpass. The only two to have played any of their cricket after 1950 are batsman Cyril Washbrook and bowler Brian Statham. Four of the eleven began their careers in the 19th century.
Lancashire’s fantasy team features two brothers, Ernest and John Tyldesley, who between them scored more than 66,000 runs for Lancashire, and a third but unrelated Tyldesley, bowler Dick. Other notable players include batsman Harry Makepeace, one of only a handful of men to have played both cricket and football for England; Johnny Briggs, a canny slow bowler who developed a mental illness and died at just 39; and Arthur Mold, a much feared fast bowler whose career was ended when his action was judged unlawful.
1 Ernest Tyldesley (34,222 runs)
2 John Tyldesley (31,949 runs)
3 Cyril Washbrook (27,863 runs)
4 Harry Makepeace (25,207 runs)
5 Frank Watson (22,833 runs)
6 Jack Sharp (22,015 runs)
7 George Duckworth (635 catches and 290 stumpings)
8 Brian Statham (1,816 wickets)
9 Johnny Briggs (1,696 wickets)
10 Arthur Mold (1,541 wickets)
11 Dick Tyldesley (1,449 wickets)
A selection of Lancashire’s best animal attractions offering days out for young and old.
On the site of what was once Blackpool Airport, this is one of the biggest zoos in the northwest with around 1,500 animals. Tel 01253 830830 or visit www.blackpoolzoo.org.uk.
Bowland Wild Boar Park, Chipping.
Family-friendly park in the Forest of Bowland, with deer, llamas and red squirrels as well as packs of wild boar. Tel 01995 61554 or visit www.wildboarpark.co.uk.
The Butterfly House, Lancaster.
Large collection of exotic butterflies in the old palm house at the city’s Williamson Park, which also has animal and bird enclosures. Tel 01524 33318 or visit www.williamsonpark.com.
Easterleigh Animal Sanctuary, St Annes.
Large sanctuary housing hundreds of different animals. Tel 01253 789185 or visit www.easterleigh.org.uk.
Leighton Moss, near Carnforth.
The largest reedbed in the northwest, home to dozens of unusual birds and with trails and hides for spotters. Tel 01524 701601 or visit www.rspb.org.uk/leightonmoss.
Martin Mere, near Ormskirk.
A large wetland habitat, home to more than a hundred species of mammals and birds including some rare and migratory species. Tel 01704 895181 or visit www.wwt.org.uk/martinmere.
Old Holly Farm, near Garstang.
One of a new breed of working farms that have opened up to the public. This one is organic and puts the emphasis on feeding and stroking the animals. Tel 01524 791200 or visit wwww.oldhollyfarm.com.
Penny Farm, near Black pool.
A World Horse Welfare centre that rescues and rehabilitates around 60 horses a year and welcomes visitors at weekends. Tel 01253 766983 or visit www.worldhorsewelfare.org.
Sea Life, Blackpool.
One of the country’s biggest aquariums with more than a thousand different creatures including tropical sharks.
Tel 0871 423 2110 or visit www.sealifeeurope.com/blackpool.
Turbary Woods Owl and Bird of Prey Sanctuary, Whitestake.
Woodland sanctuary and rehabilitation centre with around a hundred birds including eagles, hawks, falcons, buzzards and vultures. Tel 01772 323323 or visit www.turbarywoods.co.uk.
On the face of it, Pendle Hill is a rather unassuming peak - a lonely plateau a few miles east of Clitheroe that reaches a height of 1,828 feet (557 m). But a few remarkable events there in the 17th century mean that it is now perhaps the most famous and climbed hill in Lancashire.
In 1612, the area around Pendle was the focal point of one of the most famous witch-hunts in British history, when eleven women and men were first pursued by suspicious locals and magistrates and then put on trial. Quite why the area harboured so many suspected witches is unclear, but it had certainly developed something of a reputation for religious dissent and unruly behaviour. The accused were probably practising their idea of witch craft - perhaps ‘ treating ’people with spells as a way of making money, but they came to be blamed for several illnesses and deaths as well as sundry other crimes. After cursory trials at Lancaster Assizes - now Lancaster Castle - nine of the accused were hanged on a hill above the town.
The air of superstition and religious persecution meant Pendle’s was far from the only witch trial of the time, and up to 500 ‘witches’ are thought to have been executed in England between the 15th and 18th centuries. But thanks to some assiduous note-taking by the clerk of Lancaster’s court, this is one of the events for which the most documented evidence has been found.
A more uplifting aspect of Pendle’s history is its association with the Quaker movement. It was on top of the hill, 40 years later in 1652, that the movement’s founder, George Fox, claimed to have experienced a vision that became significant in his development of the movement that became known as the Religious Society of Friends. Fox wrote in his memoirs: ‘As we travelled we came near a very great hill, called Pendle Hill, and I was moved of the Lord to go up to the top of it - which I did with difficulty, it was so very steep and high. When I was come to the top, I saw the sea bordering upon Lancashire. From the top of this hill the Lord let me see in what places he had a great people to be gathered.’
Pendle Hill’s history means it continues to be popular with both those interested in witchcraft and Quakers following in Fox’s footsteps. Its slopes are especially busy every Halloween, and ghost hunters claim it is one of the most haunted places in the country. The local council has a 45-mile (72 km) ‘Witches Trail’, leading from Pendle Hill through the Ribble Valley to Lancaster, while a Burnley brewery, Moorhouses, offers a popular ‘Witches Brew’ beer. The hill’s name also lends itself to a major Quaker centre in the US state of Pennsylvania, founded by prominent Quaker William Penn.
In an area of the country that reputedly gets more than its fair share of damp days, the hill is also renowned as a weather predictor. ‘If you can see Pendle then it’s about to rain,’ goes a local saying, ‘And if you can’t then it’s already started.’
Liver pool’s many connections to The Beatles help it to attract thousands of music fans each year. Here are ten places in the city that were significant in the history of the band and where Beatles aficionados can find out more about John, Paul, George and Ringo.
20 Forthlin Road. Paul McCartney grew up in this 1920s terraced house, and the Beatles wrote and rehearsed their early songs here. It is now owned by the National Trust and restored to its 1960s appearance. Visits are by guided tour only.
Mendips. John Lennon’s childhood home on Menlove Avenue, also now owned by the National Trust and evocatively restored to its 1960s state, and only accessible by pre-booked tour (tel 0844 800 4791 or visit www.nationaltrust.org.uk/beatles).
Liverpool Institute for Performing Arts. This was once the Liverpool Institute High School for Boys, the grammar school attended by McCartney and George Harrison from 1953. It was closed in 1985 but with McCartney’s help reopened as an arts and entertainment training centre 11 years later.
St Peter’s Church Hall. This unassuming little hall in Woolton secured its place in music history when John Lennon and Paul McCartney met at a fete here in 1957. The church’s graveyard has the gravestone of Eleanor Rigby.
Casbah Coffee Club. This basement club in the West Derby suburb, run by Pete Best’s mother, is where The Beatles talked and played in their early days. It is open to the public, but only on pre-booked tours (tel 0151 280 3519).
Cavern Club. A cellar club on Mathew Street at which The Beatles played nearly 300 times. It is also where manager Brian Epstein first spotted the band. Now largely rebuilt, it is open to the public every day and hosts music acts most nights, including Beatles tribute bands (tel 0151 236 1965 or visit www.cavernclub.org).
38 Kensington. This small terraced house was once Percy Phillips’ studio, where Beatles members made their first ever recording as The Quarrymen in 1958. A blue plaque now marks its importance.
Penny Lane. The street that inspired the 1967 song is in the Mossley Hill part of the city, near where Lennon and McCartney grew up, and is named after James Penny, an 18th-century slave trader. Street signs here are among the most frequently photographed and stolen in the UK.
Strawberry Field. ‘Strawberry Fields Forever’, the flip side to the ‘Penny Lane’ single, was inspired by Strawberry Field, an estate in Woolton. Owned by the Salvation Army it was a children’s home until 2007, and the heavily-graffitied gates and wall remain.
The Beatles Story. The city’s major attraction for fans making a pilgrimage, it tells an exhaustive story of the band and has some fun interactive elements. It’s at Albert Dock and opens every day bar Christmas (tel 0151 709 1963 or visit www.beatlesstory.com).
Most Lancastrians have healthy appetites, but the biggest of all must belong to the residents of Aughton, a village near the River Lune in the north of the county. Here, in the early 18th century, villagers produced a giant plum pudding as part of celebrations to mark the cropping of local willow that was used by local weavers. The custom was repeated every 21 years until 1886, when a pudding was made weighing 560 kg and incorporating 50 kg of flour, 70 kg of sugar, 135 kg of dried fruit and 900 eggs. Perhaps sensing that it would be difficult to top that, Aughton’s tradition was then suspended for the best part of a century, but revived in the 1970s.
Measured by its traditional rather than modern-day administrative boundaries, Lancashire has ten universities. They are:
University of Bolton
University of Central Lancashire
Edge Hill University (Ormskirk)
Lancaster University
University of Liverpool
Liverpool Hope University
Liverpool John Moores University
University of Manchester
Manchester Metropolitan University
University of Salford
Lancashire is also home to campuses of the University of Cumbria in Lancaster and the University of Huddersfield in Oldham.
Whether you consider it a valuable connection to the country’s royal history or an unjustifiable anachronism, the Duchy of Lancaster is a significant part of Lancashire’s history.
Along with a counterpart in Cornwall, Lancaster is one of the two surviving royal duchies in England. It was created in 1265, when King Henry III granted land to his son, Edmund. Nearly a century later Edmund’s grandson became the first Duke of Lancaster, and he took control of the newly created Lancashire when it was designated as a county palatine with powers independent of the monarch. Then, as now, the Duchy took in territory across the country, and not just in Lancashire. Early acquisitions included estates in London, Leicestershire, Northamptonshire and Staffordshire, and they have been added to over the centuries. Since 1399 the title of Duke of Lancaster has been assumed by the reigning monarch, and the Duchy has been considered his or her personal property rather than part of the Crown Estate.
The current Duchy covers some 46,456 acres (18,800 ha) or 73 square miles (189 sq km) of land in England and Wales, and takes in urban developments, farm land and businesses as well as more traditional estates and historic buildings. Its properties within Lancashire include Lancaster Castle - nowadays leased to the county council - while its appointments include the official Morecambe Bay Guides, whose job it is to lead walkers across the dangerous sands of the Bay. Further afield, it owns or leases Halton, Peveril, Bolingbroke, Tutbury and Knaresborough Castles in Cheshire, Derbyshire, Lincolnshire, Staffordshire and Yorkshire respectively, as well as the Savoy Chapel in London. The portfolio is split into four Rural Surveys - the Lancashire, Yorkshire, Needwood and Crewe and South Surveys - plus one Urban Survey.
The Duchy now operates as a thoroughly modern property management business, providing a substantial income for the Queen that is intended to subsidise the costs of her official commitments. In 2009, its possessions were valued at £323 million, and it returns an annual operating profit of £10 million to £15 million. Many of the traditions of the Duchy have now died out, though some, like the appointment of High Sheriffs for the modern counties of Lancashire, Greater Manchester and Merseyside, continue. The appointment is now largely ceremonial, and is officially made by the Queen by the distinctly archaic method of marking parchments with a bodkin. Another reminder of the Duchy comes in Lancashire’s form of the loyal toast, which is made ‘to the Queen, Duke of Lancaster’.
Lancashire’s canals are now largely sedate, making it hard to imagine that they ever formed a bustling network. But in their heyday in the late 18th and early 19th centuries, inland waterways were vital to the burgeoning industries of the northwest, and linked Lancashire with the rest of the world. Their barges transported coal, limestone, cotton and other important imports and exports along an infrastructure that was itself a massive feat of engineering.
Railways, roads and the decline of industry led to many of Lancashire’s canals falling into disrepair in the 20th century, but they are now a focus of regeneration - their waters and towpaths popular with leisure boaters, walkers and cyclists along their rural stretches, and thronged with retail and café developments beside their urban ones. These are Lancashire’s eleven canals.
Bridgewater Canal. Opened in 1761, this is often considered England’s first ‘proper’ canal, and it inspired the building of many more soon afterwards. It took coal from mines at Worsley to Manchester and was soon extended on to Runcorn, with connections to several other canals along the way. It remains one of the few privately owned canals in the country, and is popular for cruising.
Sankey Canal. Built to transport coal from Lancashire’s coalfields up to Liverpool, it ran 15 miles (24 km) from St Helens to the River Mersey at Widnes and rivals the Bridgewater for the title of the country’s first canal of the Industrial Revolution. It closed in the 1960s, but a restoration society is leading efforts to make it fully navigable again.
Rochdale Canal. Continues on from the Bridgewater Canal to cross the Pennines to Sower by Bridge in Yorkshire. Opened in 1804, it became the major route for commerce between the red and white rose counties, carrying up to 50 barges a day. Declining use meant the canal fell into disrepair in the 20th century, but it has now been fully restored for boating. Its hilly route means there are 92 locks along its 32 miles (51 km) - but great views too.
Leeds and Liverpool Canal. At 127 miles (204 km), this is the longest canal to have been built as a single waterway in Britain, and the second longest of all behind the Grand Union. Built to service cross-Pennine trade and industry, work started in 1770 but the canal took nearly 50 years to complete. With river connections from Leeds out to the sea, it offers a way from coast to coast without ever touching land.
Lancaster Canal. Originally intended to run from Westhoughton near Bolton up to Kendal in the southern Lake District, only the 40-mile (64 km) stretch from Preston to near Carnforth is now navigable, though there are plans to extend it northwards. It’s a contour canal, built to follow the lie of the land and so requiring no locks. Cruises run up and down the scenic canal, taking in the spectacular Lune Aqueduct.
Ashton Canal. A short canal that runs from the Rochdale Canal in Manchester out to the Huddersfield Canal at Ashton-under-Lyne near Lancashire’s Yorkshire border. It opened around 1800 and initially flourished, but use declined over the years and it was effectively closed in the 1960s. Repairs then made it fully navigable again.
Manchester, Bolton and Bury Canal. Opened in 1796 and ran from Salford to Prestolee, where it forked to the two important industrial towns of Bolton and Bury. Declining use and a breach in 1936 caused it to be closed, but a major refurbishment is now underway.
Manchester Ship Canal. A monumental feat of Victorian engineering, this was the world’s biggest navigational canal when it opened in the late 19th century. It was built to connect Manchester to the sea, and turned it for a while into one of Britain’s busiest ports, despite being some 40 miles (64 km) inland. Known locally as the Big Ditch, it remains an important cargo route, carrying around 6 million tons of freight a year.
Huddersfield Narrow Canal. Another trans-Pennine canal, it runs from Huddersfield in Yorkshire to the fringes of Lancashire at Ashton-under-Lyne.
Peak Forest Canal. A narrow, 15-mile (24 km) canal that runs out of Lancashire from Ashton-under-Lyne to Bugsworth in Derbyshire. It was built to bring limestone from the quarries up to Manchester.
Ribble Link. When it was opened in 2002, this was the first canal ever to be built in Britain for leisure use, and the first of any kind in nearly a century. It connects the Lancaster Canal to the River Ribble over a 4-mile (6 km) stretch around Preston, along which boats must book their passage in advance.
Lancashire’s success in the textile industry can mostly be attributed to the labour and skill of its thousands of workers. But more than any other individual, Richard Arkwright can be credited with establishing the county as a cotton powerhouse and, what’s more, the home of mass, powered production.
Arkwright was born in Preston in 1732, the youngest of 13 children in a poor family, and was taught to read and write by his cousin. After starting work as a barber’s apprentice, he made his first forays as an entrepreneur in his twenties by setting up as a wig manufacturer and hair dyer. He had taken an interest in the textile industry on business trips around Lancashire towns, and met John Kay, a Warrington clockmaker who had been working on ways to mechanise the processes of weaving. With Arkwright investing funds and Kay refining the details, the pair produced a new frame that built on the spinning jenny introduced by James Hargreaves, a Lancashire weaver and inventor, and became known as the water frame.
Before Hargreaves, Arkwright and Kay, producing cloth was a slow, fiddly and laborious process. With the new machinery, however, it was a much more efficient process, the new frame able to spin multiple threads fast and continuously with high quality results. Arkwright quickly realised that mass production of textiles was now possible, and in 1771 he opened the world’s first water-powered mill in Cromford, Derbyshire. Others soon followed, in Staffordshire and Scotland as well as Derbyshire and back in his home county, and Arkwright soon had thousands of workers toiling in an empire of mills. The factory system that he created was as tough as most images of Lancashire’s cotton mills suggest, employing children and women as well as men on 13-hour shifts in uncomfortable and often dangerous conditions. Arkwright also pioneered the factory village, a complex of houses and facilities for his workers - though this was inspired less by philanthropic concern than a desire to keep them close at hand and in his debt.
All this makes Arkwright the father of at least Lancashire’s new textile industry, if not much of the wider Industrial Revolution. It also made him exceptionally wealthy, and when he died in 1792, he left a fortune of around half a million pounds - worth perhaps a hundred times that amount in today’s money. But he also made plenty of enemies - not least the hand weavers of Lancashire whom he first put out of jobs with the industrialisation of their work, and then virtually enslaved in his factories when they could find no other employment. Many of the inventors he worked with later became angry at what they regarded as intellectual theft, and other manufacturers faced down attempts made by Arkwright to put them out of business by claiming patents on his machinery. Arkwright was no great inventor or thinker, but like few others in Lancashire before or since, he knew how to make ideas and labour pay.
The Harris Museum in Arkwright’s home town of Preston has material about him and a model of the revolutionary water frame (tel 01772 258248 or visit www.harrismuseum.org.uk). There is more about Arkwright and the cotton industry at the Helmshore Mills Textile Museum in Rossendale (tel 01706 226459 or visit www.lancashire.gov.uk). Cromford Mill is being restored by the Arkwright Society and is now a World Heritage Site in recognition of its importance to the Industrial Revolution.
Lancashire has a rich history of successful small and independent businesses, and boasts more than 150 firms that can trace their histories back more than a century. This list of the 20 longest established firms in the county is headed by a Preston and Lancaster-based solicitors’ practice, Blackhurst, Swainson, Goodier, that has been providing legal services continuously for nearly three centuries. Six more solicitors also feature on the list, along with a host of small shops, service providers and engineering or building related companies.
Of the 17 players to have been inducted into English rugby league’s official hall of fame, three were born in Lancashire. Together with Yorkshire, the county is the English capital of rugby league,and all three players were either born in or played for St Helens, the Mers eyside town that has long been a powerhouse of the sport. Eligibility for the hall of fame is restricted to those who played the sport in England for at least ten years, and have been retired for at least five. Lancashire’s trio of rugby league greats, with their places of birth and clubs, are:
Alex Murphy
(born in St Helens; played for St Helens, Leigh and Warrington)
Vince Karalius
(born in Widnes; played for St Helens and Widnes)
Eric Ashton
(born in St Helens; played for Wigan)
Daniel Defoe is best known for his novels including Robinson Crusoe, but between 1724 and 1727 he undertook perhaps his most significant work of non-fiction: A Tour Through the Whole Island of Great Britain. His survey of the country included a long visit to Lancashire and these observations on its places.
On Liverpool
Liverpool is one of the wonders of Britain… the town was, at my first visiting it, a large, handsome, well built and increasing or thriving town… and I am told that it still visibly increases both in wealth, people, business and buildings. What it may grow to in time, I know not… In a word, there is no town in England, London excepted, that can equal Liverpool for the fineness of the streets, and beauty of the buildings.
On Manchester
Manchester is one of the greatest, if not really the greatest mere village in England. It is neither a walled town, city or corporation; they send no members to Parliament; and the highest magistrate they have is a constable. And yet it has a collegiate church, several parishes, takes up a large space of ground, and, including the suburb, it is said to contain above fifty thousand people.
On Bolton
About eight miles from Manchester, northwest, lies Bolton… We saw nothing remarkable in this town, but that the cotton manufacture reached hither; but the place did not, like Manchester, seem so flourishing and increasing.
On Preston
Preston is a fine town, and tolerably full of people, but not like Liverpool or Manchester; besides, we come now beyond the trading part of the county. Here is no manufacture; the town is full of attorneys, proctors and notaries, the process of law here being of a different nature than they are in other places, it being a duchy and county palatine, and having particular privileges of its own. The people are gay here, though not perhaps the richer for that; but it has by that obtained the name of Proud Preston.
On Lancaster
Lancaster is the county town, and situated near the mouth of the River Lune. The town is ancient; it lies, as it were, in its own ruins, and has little to recommend it but a decayed castle and a more decayed port… the bridge is handsome and strong, but, as before, here is little or no trade, and few people... This part of the country seemed very strange to us… for here we were, as it were, locked in between the hills on one side high as the clouds, and prodigiously higher, and the sea on the other, and the sea itself seemed desolate and wild, for it was a sea without ships, here being no sea port or place of trade.
On the hills of the Furness region
They were, in my thoughts, monstrous high; but in a country all mountainous and full of innumerable high hills, it was not easy for a traveller to judge which was highest. Nor were these hills high and formidable only, but they had a kind of an unhospitable terror in them. Here were no rich pleasant valleys between them, as among the Alps; no lead mines and veins of rich oar, as in the Peak; no coal pits, as in the hills about Halifax, much less gold, as in the Andes, but all barren and wild, of no use or advantage either to man or beast.
Perhaps surprisingly for what is, in many parts, a densely populated county, more than four fifths of Lancashire is green. Of the 800,327 acres (323,881 ha) within the current administrative boundaries of the county, 659,440 (266,866 ha) of them - or 82.4 per cent - are covered by green space. That compares to 88 per cent for England as a whole. The proportion of green space varies enormously across the county - from 29 per cent in Blackpool to 95 per cent in the Ribble Valley.
In addition, 53,585 acres (21,685 ha) of Lancashire (or 6.7 per cent of its total) are covered by water - though much of this is encroaching coastal water rather than lakes or ponds. That leaves less than one acre in ten across the county covered by man-made developments like buildings, paths and roads.
800,327 |
total acres (323,881 ha) in Lancashire |
|
659,440 |
acres (266,866 ha) covered by green space (82.4 per cent of total) |
|
53,585 |
acres (21,685 ha) covered by water (6.7 per cent) |
|
32,716 |
acres (13,240 ha) covered by paths (4.1 per cent) |
|
21,829 |
acres (8,834 ha) covered by non-domestic buildings (2.7 per cent) |
|
11,302 |
acres (4,574 ha) covered by domestic buildings (1.4 per cent) |
|
6,640 |
acres (2,687 ha) covered by domestic gardens (0.8 per cent) |
|
1,146 |
acres (464 ha) covered by roads (0.1 per cent) |
|
1,053 |
acres (426 ha) covered by railways (0.1 per cent) |
|
12,620 |
acres (5,107 ha) covered by other surfaces (1.6 per cent) |
Of the many poignant stories of Lancashire’s role in the First World War, some of the most affecting relate to the county’s ‘Pals Battalions’ - groups of men from local towns and cities who signed up and fought in the war together.
The regiments were the idea of Lord Kitchener, Secretary of State for War, who realised that inviting friends or workmates to join the forces alongside one another would be a more socially and politically expedient recruitment tactic than immediate conscription. It worked, and towns across the country were soon competing to outdo each other in recruits and prove themselves the country’s most patriotic places. The first place in the country to sign up enough men for a Pals Battalion - typically around a thousand - was Liverpool, following an appeal by the Earl of Derby within days of Kitchener issuing his plea. The city went on to contribute three more Battalions, a total matched by Salford and exceeded by Manchester, which raised eight. Perhaps because civic pride was high here - or perhaps because army life seemed to offer an appealing escape from the widespread poverty and misery of life in its industrial towns - Lancashire was particularly fertile ground for the army, and had returned dozens of Pals Battalions by the end of 1914.
Most spent more than a year training for service before being dispatched to the front, where the realities of the war became terrifyingly apparent. Many of the battalions were thrown into the Battle of the Somme and immediately suffered terrible casualties, with some all but wiped out overnight. Because the men of the battalions had, by their nature, all hailed from the same localities, the effect of the losses on their home towns was enormous. Accrington, for instance - the smallest town in the whole country to form a Pals Battalion - had 720 men fighting on the first day of the Somme, and suffered 584 killed or wounded. Of those who survived the battle and others afterwards, many were absorbed into the regular army for the rest of the war. The catastrophic impact on individual communities meant that the Pals Battalions were not repeated during the Second World War.
Memorials to Lancashire’s Pals Battalions can be found in all of the towns and cities that sent them, as well as at many war graves and battle sites in France. Some towns, including Accrington, continue to hold memorial services for their men every year.
Like many of the best Lancashire dialect poets of the 19th century, Ben Brierley was almost entirely self-taught. Born in Failsworth, between Manchester and Oldham, he started working as a bobbin winder for his father while still a young boy, picking up education wherever he could and before long writing sketches and poems in both standard English and dialect for local publications. He later launched his own journal and gave public readings of his work, his fame having spread as far as the US, which he toured twice to the delight of nostalgic Lancashire ex-pats there. Failsworth today has a statue commemorating him.
One of Brierley’s best known poems is ‘The Wayver of Wellbrook’ (a fictional place), which sets up a contrast between Lancashire’s humble handloom weavers and the landed gentry. Its celebration of simple values, self-sufficiency and a contented life would have struck a chord with Lancashire’s working classes, and with a bouncy chorus and simple rhythms it was clearly written to be sung rather than read - perhaps while the singer worked away on his or her loom.
Yo’ gentlemen o with yo’r heaunds an’ yo’r parks –
Yo’ may gamble an’ sport till yo’ dee;
Bo a quiet heause nook, a good wife, an’ a book,
Is mooar to the likins o’ me.
Chorus Wi’ mi pickers an’ pins,
An’ my wellers to th’ shins;
Mi linderins, shuttle and yealdbook;
Mi treddles an’ sticks;
Mi weight-ropes an’ bricks;
What a life! said the wayver o’Wellbrook.
Aw care no’ for titles, nor heauses, nor lond;
Owd Jone’s a name fittin’ for me;
An’ gi’ me a thatch wi’ a wooden dur-latch,
An’ six feet o’ greaund when aw dee.
Wi’ mi pickers etc.
Some folk like t’stuff their owd wallets wi’ mayte,
Till they’re as rount an’ as brawsen as frogs;
But for me, aw’m content, when aw’ve paid deawn mi rent,
Wi’ enoof t’keep me up i’ mi clogs.
Wi’ mi pickers etc.
An’ ther some are too idle to use their own feet,
An’ mun keawer an’ stroddle i’ th’lone;
But when awm wheel’t or carried it’ll be to get burried,
An’ then Dicky-up wi’ owd Jone.
Wi’ mi pickers etc.
Yo’ may turn up yo’r noses at me an’ th’owd dame,
An’ thrutch us like dogs agen th’ wo;
Bo as long as aw can naygur, aw’ll ne’er be a beggar,
So aw care no’ a cuss for yo.
Wi’ mi pickers etc.
Then Margit, turn reaund that owd hum-a-drum wheel,
An’ mi shuttle shall fly like a brid;
An’ when aw no longer con use hont or finger,
They’n say while aw could do aw did.
Wi’ mi pickers etc.
Glossary: o (line 1) means all; heaunds (1) means hounds; heause (3) means house; pickers, pins (5), wellers (6), linderins, shuttle, yealdhook (7), treddles (8) and weight-ropes (9) are all parts or instruments on a loom; wayver (10) means weaver; wallets (15) means stomachs; mayte (15) means meat; brawsen (16) means full; keawer(20) means cower (as in sit in a carriage); stroddle (20) means straddle (a horse); Dicky-up (22) means dead; thrutch (24) means push; wo (24) means wall; naygur (25) means work; hum-a-drum wheel (27) means spinning wheel; brid (28) means bird; hont (29) means hand.
There are some 5,030 miles (8,050 km) of roads in the modern administrative county of Lancashire, excluding chunks of it now classified elsewhere like Manchester and Liver pool. That number is made up of 107 miles (172 km) of motorway ;309 and 189 miles (497 and 304 km) of rural and urban A roads; 2,043 and 2,308 miles (3,288 and 3,714 km) of rural and urban minor roads; and a few more miles of unclassified stretches.
Put end to end, Lancashire’s roads would stretch around the entire coastline of Great Britain. To fill them all, in 2008 there were some 655,000 vehicles registered in Lancashire - made up of 544,000 cars, 25,000 motorcycles, 57,000 light goods vehicles, 13,000 heavy goods vehicles, 3,000 buses and coaches and 13,000 other vehicles. These vehicles traveled an estimated 7,135 million miles (11,483 million km) in 2008. Road casualty figures in Lancashire are slightly higher than the national average at around five people injured in some way per 1,000 population. A total of 929 people were killed or seriously injured on Lancashire’s roads in 2008, and 7,199 people suffered injuries of all severities, including minor ones.
Lancashire boasts a number of firsts and records in road history. It is home to the UK’s first ever motorway - the 8-mile (13 km) Preston bypass that was opened in 1958 and that grew into the M6, now the country’s longest motorway. It has the UK’s highest stretch of motorway - a piece of the M62 near the Lancashire-Yorkshire border that reaches more than 1,200 feet (366 m) above sea level. And it was the first part of the country - and probably the world - to introduce white lines in the middle of roads.
Lancashire’s various mountain rescue teams all keep logs, meticulously recording the details of every call-out they attend. The roll-calls of stranded walkers, all-night searches, broken bones and occasional fatalities make for alarming reading, reminding of the perils of Lancashire ’s wild country. But while each call-out involves the mobilisation of entirely voluntary rescuers, often in the middle of the night and the depths of winter, not all of the incidents turn out to be so serious. Here are ten of the more intriguing entries from the Lancashire log books of the Bowland Pennine, Rossendale and Pendle, Coniston and Kendal mountain rescue teams in the last few years.
7 July 2009. Two young lads reported hearing distress whistles. Turned out to be a peregrine falcon. Coniston Mountain Rescue Team
19 June 2009. The team were asked to assist the Fire Service who had been called to rescue a cow from a stream at Cartmel who had been there all night, unable to move. A local farmer with a tractor with a rear board reversed up the stream and the cow was rolled on to the board and strapped down. The cow was taken to a nearby farm to enable a vet to examine her. Kendal Mountain Search and Rescue Team
6 April 2009. Request to search for a patient missing from a local hospital. Team Incident Controller immediately dispatched to hospital to liaise with Police Search Manager and confirm that a thorough search of the hospital had been undertaken. It was decided to dispatch the team’s trailing dog unit to determine if the person had left the building and ascertain a direction of travel. Team soon stood down when person found locked in a cupboard within the building! Bowland Pennine Mountain Rescue Team
1 April 2009. We were called to help a paraglider reportedly crashed on Pendle Big End. The pilot had gone onto the hillside and spread his canopy, and was awaiting sufficient breeze for take-off. The canopy was seen by a group of walkers who assumed it was a crash and alerted the ambulance. A team member, who was running in the area, introduced himself to the ambulance crew who where gazing toward the summit. He took one of their phones and ran up to the ‘casualty’ site to find the pilot fit and well and enjoying the spectacle below. Rossendale and Pendle Mountain Rescue Team
30 December 2008. Public reported possible orange bivvy bag up a ghyll. Found to be a discarded lilo. Coniston Mountain Rescue Team
16 May 2008. Team leader received request from a Lancashire Police Search Advisor as to the availability of our trailing dog unit. A three-year-old boy had been missing for some hours in Blackburn town centre. Trailing dog unit stood down when the good news came that the lad had been found, safe, having apparently got on a bus and taken a trip to Bolton and back. Bowland Pennine Mountain Rescue Team
23 February 2008. Man walking on Coniston Old Man / Swirl How Man reported missing by friends. Search commenced from Levers Water when notification was received that he had been located enjoying a pint in a pub in Broughton. Coniston Mountain Rescue Team
7 June 2007. Request by Lancashire Fire and Rescue Service to assist with an animal rescue - a sheep on a mill roof! The animal was ‘encouraged’ to move to safety by firefighters and team members. Rossendale and Pendle Mountain Rescue Team
5 May 2007. Team paged by Lancashire Police to urgently attend Brindle Quarry where a 14-year-old girl, somewhat worse for drink, was reported as ‘stuck’. However, the team was immediately stood down as the first police officer on scene had been able to recover the young lady. Bowland Pennine Mountain Rescue Team
21 January 2007. Team received a request from Lancashire Ambulance Service for assistance in moving an overweight person from a house in Skelmersdale for transfer to hospital. As this is not the type of work we normally undertake it was suggested that they contact the Fire and Rescue Service. Bowland Pennine Mountain Rescue Team
There were prisoner of war camps in 11 locations across Lancashire during the Second World War. Most were hurriedly adapted from existing buildings into emergency camps as the Allied forces increased their number of enemy prisoners. They included a couple, in Oldham and Bury, that were modified from cotton mills and weaving sheds, as well as old stately homes, parks, farms and youth hostels. The 11 sites were:
Glen Mill, Oldham
Warth Mills, Bury
Ormskirk
Garswood Park, Ashton-in-Makerfield
Bank Hall, Bretherton, Preston
Melland Camp, Gorton, Manchester
Newton Camp, Newton-with-Scales, Kirkham
Brookmill Camp, Woodlands, Kirkham
Knowsley Park, Prescot
Penketh Hostel, Barrow’s Green,Widnes
Fort Crosby, Hightown
As is the case across the country, few remains of the camps now exist, since most either reverted to their former use or were knocked down after the end of the war. Some decaying buildings and fences can still be seen, notably at Fort Crosby in the village of Hightown on the coast north of Liverpool.
For several centuries, the history of parts of Lancashire like Liverpool was inextricably tied to the fortunes of its ports and the trading opportunities that they opened up.
Although fishing and very small-scale trade was probably conducted from Liverpool right from its foundation, it was the second half of the 17th century that brought it to the fore. The first trans-Atlantic cargo arrived there in 1648, and Liverpool was soon sending goods like textiles back from the county in exchange for imports like sugar. With the arrival of the horrific slave trade, growth was soon exponential, and by 1715 Liverpool had become the world’s first commercial wet dock, at which ships could unload straight to the quay rather than via secondary boats.
The fortunes earned from slavery and trading transformed Liverpool, the population rising from a few thousand at the start of the 18th century to around 80,000 at the end of it. Inspired by its success, other Lancashire towns tried to develop ports and trades of their own, and Lancaster used the slave trade to establish itself as a particularly important centre via satellite ports at places like Glasson, Heysham and Sunderland Point. Associated industries like shipbuilding and repairing flourished too, with Merseyside boasting thriving shipyards.
Liverpool was set back for a while by restrictions on trade caused by the American War of Independence and the abolition of slavery, but the Industrial Revolution saw the city boom again. It was a hub for Lancashire’s cotton industry, and was bolstered still further by the opening of canal and railway links to the rest of the county and beyond. Steamships started up regular liner services across the Atlantic from the 1840s, and attracted by the opportunities for work, immigrants flooded in, notably from Ireland. By the 1890s, Liverpool was Britain’s second biggest port after London, and docks stretched for more than 10 miles (16 km) along the Mersey.
The port inevitably declined through the 20th century, hit by a combination of a global decline in trade, two world wars and competition from rail, road and air transport. But while traffic and job numbers have fallen dramatically from its golden age, the volume of cargo it handles has remained more steady at around 32 million tons a year - about 6 per cent of the UK’s total. Other Lancashire ports like Fleetwood and Heysham have suffered steeper declines, though both still join Liverpool in providing passenger ferry services across to Ireland and the Isle of Man. Shipbuilding has fallen in the face of foreign competition too, though Barrow-in-Furness remains an import a n t centre for the manufacture of military craft.
Lancashire ports including Fleetwood have also been closely associated with fishing over the centuries, and this at one time was the most important long-distance fishing port on the whole of England’s west coast, responsible for between two and three thousand jobs. Nowadays the total numbers of both workers and registered fishing vessels are down to two figures, though Fleetwood remains an important centre for the processing and auctioning of fish caught from other ports. But like many coastal, riverside and canalside towns in Lancashire, any boats found here nowadays are likely to be owned for pleasure trips than for business. Rejuvenation of the county’s ports focuses on marina developments and housing, office, retail and leisure markets rather than fishing or freight transport - a situation that as little as a century ago would have been inconceivable.
Good places to learn more about Lancashire’s seafaring history include the Merseyside Maritime Museum on Albert Dock (tel 0151 478 4499 or visit www.liverpoolmuseums.org.uk) and the Lancaster Maritime Museum on St George’s Quay (tel 01524 382264 or visit www.lancashire.gov.uk), as well as the Fleetwood Museum (tel 01253 876621 or visit www.lancashire.gov.uk) and the Fleetwood Online Archive of Trawlers (neatly abbreviated to FLOAT), a nostalgia-filled library of trawlers that have operated from this and other ports (visit http://float-trawlers.lancashire.gov.uk).
If it doesn’t break them first, seaside rock in Blackpool and other resorts is likely to rot your teeth. But it is also an essential ingredient of the Lancashire seaside holiday - as integral a part of summer on the beach as donkey rides, ice cream and rain.
With sugar cane imported across the Atlantic into ports on the north west coast like Liverpool, Lancashire was a natural home for boiled sweets like rock. (It has also created other sugary treats like jelly babies, made for the first time in Nelson, and Fisherman’s Friend tablets, invented and still made in Fleetwood.) Seaside resorts adopted sweets like rock as they grew in popularity, and it was certainly here, towards the end of the 19th century, that the novelty of lettering in rock was embraced by retailers and holidaymakers. Its pioneers include Ben Bullock, a Lancashire-born sweet-maker who is thought to have been the first to incorporate the words ‘Blackpool Rock’, and Dick Taylor, a Blackpool shop owner who was among the early retailers of the new confection.
While its basic recipe may be simple, the job of running lettering through to create the classic seaside rock is much more fiddly. Rock makers first boil up sugar, glucose syrup and water in large copper pans, and mix in a few flavourings like mint as it cools in slabs to a dough-like consistency. Pulling machines then churn and aerate the mixture, which is divided into batches that will form the inner, outer and lettering components of the rock. Each is usually coloured differently, often in a variety of lurid pinks.
Each letter is hand-formed individually from the coloured mixture in blocks several feet long. They are then arranged together to spell out whatever word is required, each letter carefully separated by spacers of white rock. An outer layer of rock is then wrapped around this core, and water wiped on to bind everything together. The large cylinder of sugar ‘dough’, by now weighing up to 50 kg, is pulled slowly through rollers, gradually reducing its circumference to between half an inch and an inch, and producing a long string of still warm rock. Cut to size - usually around 12 inches or a foot - it is finally left to cool and harden before being wrapped in cellophane. Because of this last rolling and stretching process, makers’ lettering is formed much larger than it appears on the finished rock, but it is nevertheless a skilled job that takes years to master.
Rock’s heyday was probably in the 1950s and 1960s, when the great British seaside resorts like Blackpool boomed and it offered a cheap and easy gift for holidaymakers returning home. Foreign holidays and dental health warnings might have reduced its popularity since, but it can still be found in every other shopfront along the coast at Blackpool and elsewhere, and it is increasingly popular as a corporate promotional gift and wedding favour. Throughout its history, it has remained a curiously British phenomenon, eaten virtually nowhere else in the world.
These days the largest lake in Lancashire is Windermere, which forms the border with Westmorland in the far north of the historic county. Measuring around 10 miles (16 km) from top to bottom and with a surface area of nearly 6 square miles (16 sq km), it is also the largest natural lake in England.
Further south in the county, however, lies the site of a lake that was almost certainly much bigger than Windermere. Martin Mere, on the edge of Burscough near Ormskirk, was formed at the end of the last Ice Age when retreating glaciers left a water-filled depression. Its levels rose and fell over the centuries and records of its surface area vary enormously as a result, but several sources put its size at 8 to 10 square miles (20 to 26 sq km) at various times. Efforts to drain the mere and reclaim its rich peat pastures we re made over the 18th and 19th centuries, and while they were ultimately successful heavy rainfall reclaimed the lake for short periods right up to the 1950s.
Martin Mere is now looked after by the Wildfowl and Wetlands Trust, which ironically now sometimes floods rather than drains the site to maintain its habitats. As in the past, it is home to hundreds of species of plants, mammals and birds, including rare ducks, geese, swans and flamingos. It is open to the public 364 days a year (tel 01704 895181 or visit www.wwt.org.uk/martinmere).
One of the lake’s other claims to fame is that it was the enchanted lake into which King Arthur’s legendary sword Excalibur was thrown. As with most stories associated with Arthur, however, the legend of its location is somewhat vague, and numerous other lakes have been claimed as its home, especially in Wales and southwest England.
Ever since the Industrial Revolution, Lancashire has been one of the leading manufacturing counties of the UK. These figures show the value of manufacturing to the local workforce and economy.
320,000 |
estimated number of people employed in manufacturing in Lancashire at its peak in the early 1910s |
|
280,000 |
estimated number of people employed in manufacturing in the 1950s |
|
102,500 |
estimated number of people employed in manufacturing in 2007 |
|
79,800 |
number of these people who are male |
|
16.5 |
percentage of Lancashire’s total workforce employed in manufacturing |
|
11 |
percentage of England’s total workforce employed in manufacturing |
|
4,293 |
businesses involved in manufacturing in Lancashire |
|
88 |
number of these businesses with more than 200 staff |
|
3,168 |
number of these businesses with ten or fewer staff |
|
13.7 |
total annual turnover in billions of pounds of manufacturing firms |
|
5.1 |
Gross Value Added total in billions of pounds |
|
26,900 |
Average annual salary in pounds in manufacturing in Lancashire |
In 2007, Lancashire’s top ten manufacturing sectors by employee numbers were:
1 Non-motor transport equipment (mostly aerospace; 19,900 staff)
2 Food and drink (13,000)
3 Non-machinery metal products (9,220)
4 Machinery and equipment (8,300)
5= Furniture (7,100)
5= Rubber and plastic (7,100)
7 Chemicals and chemical products (6,200)
8 Publishing and printing (5,600)
9= Textiles (4,600)
9= Motor vehicles (4,600)
Perhaps surprisingly for such a large county, Lancashire has only three racecourses: Aintree in Liverpool, Cartmel in the southern Lake District and Haydock Park near Newton-le-Willows. But while its facilities suffer by comparison with other counties - Yorkshire, for instance, has nine courses - Lancashire can claim to be home to the greatest single race in the sport : the Grand National.
Nowadays the Aintree course draws around 70,000 spectators for Grand National Day, with hundreds of millions more watching on TV and some £80 million staked on the outcome, but the race’s origins are much more humble. It grew out of a popular hare race organised by a Liverpool innkeeper, William Lynn, who moved into horseracing by leasing ground at Aintree from the Earl of Sefton, known locally as Lord Dashalong because of his fondness for the sport. A local event at first, it built a following further afield, aided by the arrival in the town of the railway and the addition to the course of hurdles. The first Aintree Grand National proper - though known then as the Grand Liverpool Steeplechase - was held in 1839 and won - appropriately enough given the amount of luck required by jockeys to complete the course, let alone win it - by a horse called Lottery.
A succession of dramatic races soon established the race as one of the leading jump events in the country, and except during the two world wars, it has been staged at Aintree every year since. That first race featured large stretches of ploughed land and brooks, ditches and a stone wall as jumps, and although things have since been made a little safer it remains a hugely challenging course, run over two laps of a gruelling 16-fence circuit totalling some 4.5 miles (7 km). More than 50 horses have died in Grand Nationals since 1990, and the race is often targeted by animal rights protestors as a result. Other recent controversies have included the 1993 race, declared void after a false start; and a two-day delay to the 1997 edition following a bomb scare at the course.
Some Grand National records |
||
66 |
the most horses starting a race, in 1929 |
|
23 |
the most horses finishing a race, in 1984 |
|
2 |
the fewest horses finishing a race, in 1928 |
|
8 |
the most starts by a horse - Manifesto |
|
3 |
the most wins by a horse - Red Rum |
|
5 |
the most wins by a jockey - George Stevens |
|
4 |
the most wins by a trainer - Fred Rimmell and Ginger McCain |
|
17 |
the age of the youngest winning jockey - Bruce Hobbs |
|
48 |
the age of the oldest winning jockey - Dick Saunders |
|
528 |
the fastest winning time in seconds, by Mr Frisk in 1990 |
|
100–1 |
the longest odds by a winner - achieved five times, most recently by Mon Mome in 2009 |
|
A final guide to words from the Lancashire vocabulary and their meanings, to help make you fluent in the local lingo.
pad path
perish to freeze
pobs or pobbies bread and milk
popped his or her clogs died
pother smoke
pouce a naughty child
powfagged very tired
powse rubbish, useless material
prato potato
puddle to confuse
punce to kick
purrit put it
puttybrains simpleton
rake to scratch
rant a wild time, often involving drink
right misery a very miserable person
rip rap firework; also an excitable child
ripstitch exuberant, reckless person
rive to tear
roach coal pit
ruckle to disturb
sad heavy, solid; as in sad cake
sauce impudence
scrannel of poor quality
scutch to beat
sen self
sennit a week; literally seven nights
shape to do something properly
shift to move
shive slice, usually of bread
shop place; as in ‘all over the shop’
shut to get rid of
sich such
side to clear up, tidy
sithee look you; or a ‘see you’ farewell
sken squint
skrike to cry out
slammock to walk awkwardly
slance to steal
slatt’at drunk
slatterins left-overs
slutch mud
snod smooth
snortch to sneeze
sny crowded
sope a drop
soss to throw down
sossingers sausages
speyk speak
stond stand
strap credit
summat something
t’ the
talkin’ bang speaking standard English
talkin’ broad speaking Lancashire dialect
tally to live in sin
tarra goodbye
tek take
that so; as in ‘it were that cheap’
thee you
threap to fight or argue
thrutch to move restlessly
tiff or
tift quarrel
tollering showing off
up t’stick pregnant
us our
vast very
wamble to shake violently
wark pain
watter water
we’s our
welly well-nigh, nearly
wheer where
whisk tail a woman of ill repute
who am home
whorr what
wi’ with
wick quick, lively
yammer to long for
yer hear, listen
yersel yourself
yon yonder
Lancashire has a rich stock of parish churches. Here are ten of the most interesting.
All Hallow’s Church, Great Mitton
One of the best preserved and interesting medieval churches in
England, let alone Lancashire. Dramatically located close to where the
Rivers Ribble and Hodder meet, its features include a sloping nave and
a chapel built for the Sherburne family.
St Ann’s Church, Manchester
Manchester was a small rural town when this church was consecrated
in 1712, and it has watched the city’s incredible growth all around it
ever since. Built in the neo-classical style from local sandstone, its
interior was added to throughout the 19th century.
Cartmel Priory
The 12th-century priory that was built here by Augustinian canons
dominates the Lake District - but also Lancashire - village of Cartmel.
The nearby gatehouse to the priory is looked after by the National
Trust.
St Helen’s Church, Overton
South of Morecambe near the Lune Estuary, St Helen’s is usually
credited as the oldest church building in Lancashire. It was founded
around 1050, and while it has been added to over the centuries,
original elements like the door and walls survive.
St Helen’s Church, Sefton
The only Grade I listed building in Sefton and one of the oldest
buildings anywhere in Merseyside, this church can trace its history
back to 1170 when it was consecrated as a family chapel, though
most of what is there now dates to the 16th century. It is particularly
renowned for its Tudor woodwork.
St Leonard’s Church, Middleton
There was a wooden Saxon and then a Norman church on this site
before St Leonard’s was restored by Sir Richard Assheton after the
1513 Battle of Flodden Field, by way of thanks to Middleton archers
who had saved his life. It has a stained glass window commemorating
the 17 men.
Situated next to the spectacular ruins of Whalley Abbey, this church is
mentioned in the Domesday Book and has three Anglo-Saxon crosses
in the graveyard. Features include carved bosses in the oak roof,
a 13th-century Priest’s Door and well preserved misericords.
St Michael and All Angels Church, Hawkshead
Lancashire’s northernmost church, this has a picturesque setting
above the village with the Lakeland fells all around. It was built
around 1500, and the bell tower is the oldest surviving element.
St Walburge’s Church, Preston
Gothic-inspired Roman Catholic church near the River Ribble in
Preston, built in the mid-19th century. It is notable for its 300-feet
(91 m) spire, the highest of any parish church in England and the
third highest of all after Salisbury and Norwich cathedrals.
St Wilfrid’s Church, Standish
Rated by the famous architectural scholar Nikolaus Pevsner as one of
Lancashire’s most interesting churches, St Wilfrid’s as it stands was
built in the Gothic and Renaissance styles in the late 16th century,
though churches have existed on this spot since the 12th.
From the night Lancashire’s favourite TV soap opera first screened in December 1960, Coronation Street has rarely been short of dramatic storylines. There have been some 40 births, 70 weddings and 35 divorces over the show’s five decades, but most memorable to many viewers have been the startlingly frequent deaths on the Street - a total of more than 110 at an average of more than two a year.
The first character to go was May Hardman, who died of a brain tumour just three weeks after that first episode. Since then around 30 people have died of perhaps the most dramatic on-screen death, a heart attack or failure, and around a dozen from old age or natural causes. But one of the biggest killers on the soap has been traffic - the cause of nearly 30 deaths since Ida Barlow was hit by a bus in 1961. Accidents involving cars, lorries, trucks, vans and trams have all made Wetherfield Lancashire’s most dangerous town for drivers and pedestrians alike. There have also been more than a dozen murders, five suicides and an array of unfortunate accidents.
Around half of Coronation Street’s deaths have occurred since 1995, since when scriptwriters have developed increasingly imaginative final storylines for major and minor characters. Here are ten of the most unusual and dramatic deaths in Coronation Street’s history.
1971 |
Valerie Barlow. Electrocuted by her hairdryer after trying to fix some dodgy wiring. |
|
1976 |
Ernest Bishop. Accidentally shot dead in a bungled raid on Mike Baldwin’s clothing factory. |
|
1984 |
Stan Ogden. Probably the only character in TV soap history to die of gangrene. |
|
1989 |
Alan Bradley. Knocked down by a tram on Black pool promenade. |
|
1991 |
Amy Burton. Suffered a heart attack while playing bingo. |
|
1992 |
Ted Sullivan. Another heart attack victim, this time suffered while watching Percy Sugden play bowls. |
|
1998 |
Annie Malone. The assistant manager at Firman’s Freezers froze to death after being accidentally locked in a freezer. |
|
1999 |
Judy Mallett. Suffered a pulmonary embolism while pegging out the washing. |
|
2000 |
Dean Sykes. Shot by a police marksman following a siege that began when he tried to hold up a supermarket till. |
|
2005 |
Katy Harris. A diabetic who committed suicide by the ingenious method of eating spoonfuls of sugar. |
When is the best time to visit Lancashire? Based on room occupancy rates across the modern administrative county, the quietest months are the first of the year, when fewer than half all beds are filled; and the busiest are August and October, when two in three are taken. The figures below are from tourist boards’ surveys of room occupancy in serviced accommodation - hotels, B&Bs and guesthouses - and indicate how difficult it is likely to be to find a room for the night at any given time. Occupancy rates in both Liverpool and Manchester are much higher all year round, reflecting the volume of business visits to the cities.
From a fish and chip shop in Rochdale to national superstardom and a damehood, no Lancastrian has followed the rags to riches path quite so spectacularly as Gracie Fields.
She was born Grace Stansfield, in a terraced house above her grandmother’s shop in 1898. Encouraged by a theatrical family, she was appearing on stage by the age of seven, and touring the music halls of Lancashire and beyond by her teens - though like many in Rochdale she also worked for a while in one of the countless local cotton mills. Her early work under her adopted and intentionally more glamorous name included revue shows with her first husband and manager, a comedian called Archie Pitt, and it was when one of these transferred to London’s West End in the early 1920s that her career really took off. Her popularity owed much to her image as a forthright, effervescent Lancastrian, and she played up to this with a variety act that mixed easygoing songs, monologues and jokes. She was adored by the working classes, who recognised her as one of their own and true to her roots.
Playing at sold-out halls around the country brought Fields to the attention of those in the emerging talking pictures or ‘talkies’ industry, and she transferred successfully to film. For much of the 1930s she was Britain’s leading box office star, appearing in more than a dozen films in the UK and US before withdrawing after being diagnosed with cervical cancer in 1939.
Although she recovered - and claimed to have received more than quarter of a million messages of goodwill from the British public as she did so - Fields’ popularity then started to decline. By now living on Capri and married to an Italian-born film director, she left the UK after her husband’s country entered the Second World War, and although she supported the war effort from their new homes in the US and Canada, frequently entertained Allied troops and often returned home to England, she was criticised by some for deserting her country.
Fields continued her musical and stage careers after the war, though she substantially reduced her workload and did not return to films. And while her appearances in England became fewer, she remained hugely popular in Lancashire, the county she did so much to personify. She is particularly well remembered in Rochdale, of which she was awarded the freedom in 1938, and returned there a year before she died in the late 1970s to open its Gracie Fields Theatre.
The rising interest in locally produced food has been a rare bit of good news for farmers in Lancashire, and the trend has led to a huge increase in the number of farmers’ markets across the county. Providing more profit for farmers than selling through the big supermarkets, these local markets also present an opportunity for food producers and shoppers to meet one another face to face - and they are great places to pick up some of the local food of which Lancashire is rightly proud. Here is a selection of 35 of the biggest and best farmers’ markets in Lancashire, typically open from nine or ten in the morning until the early afternoon.
Ashton-under-Lyne - last Sunday of the month at the Market Hall
Bentham - first Saturday of the month at the Town Hall
Bolton - fourth Sunday of the month on Victoria Square
Burscough - second Sunday of the month at the Older People’s Club
Carnforth - fourth Wednesday of the month at the Station
Chorley - third Thursday of every other month on Market Street
Clitheroe - first and third Tuesday of the month on Moor Lane
Colne - third Saturday of the month on Market Street
Fleetwood - third Friday of the month at the Market
Garstang - first Tuesday of the month on the High Street
Great Eccleston - third Wednesday of the month on The Square
Grimsargh - third Saturday of the month at the Village Hall
Heysham - second Friday of the month at St James’ Church
Hoghton - third Sunday of the month at Hoghton Tower
Lancaster - second Saturday of the month on Market Square
Leyburn - fourth Saturday of the month on Market Place
Liverpool - second Saturday of the month at Woolton Village; third Sunday of the month on Hope Street; fourth Saturday of the month on Lark Lane
Manchester - second and fourth Friday and Saturday of the month at Piccadilly Gardens
Mawdesley - first Saturday of the month at Cedar Farm
Oldham - second Sunday of the month at Saddleworth Museum
Penwortham - first Saturday of the month in St Mary’s Church Hall
Poulton-le-Fylde - fourth Saturday of the month on Vicarage Road
Preston - second Saturday of the month at Preston Markets
Ramsbottom - second Saturday of the month on Market Place
Rochdale - first Sunday of the month on Market Place
Rossendale - first Sunday of the month at Helmshore Mills Textile Museum
Samlesbury - last Sunday of the month at Samlesbury Hall
Scarisbrick - second Tuesday of the month at the Village Hall
Southport - last Thursday of the month on King Street
Standish - last Saturday of the month at the Community Centre
St Annes - first Thursday of the month on The Square
Thornton - second Saturday of the month at Marsh Mill
Ulverston - third Saturday of the month at the Market Hall
Whalley - last Sunday of the month at The Swan Inn
Wigan - first Tuesday of the month at the Outdoor Market
Anyone who has walked any distance on the Lancashire fells will have encountered cairns - piles of stones marking the summits or placed as guides along the paths for people walking up or down. When the mist descends and visibility shortens, they can be important markers to anyone struggling to find their way.
Many walkers follow the tradition of adding stones to cairns as they pass them, and some large piles have accumulated on popular routes, especially in the southern Lake District. Most of these are fairly ragged affairs, but occasionally much neater assemblies can be found, purpose-built by dry stone wallers and demonstrating the distinctive art of cairn sculpture. Builders start, as they do when planning a wall, by picking the right position - a firm, fairly flat base - and gathering a large quantity of stones of similar size and shape. The cairn begins with a circular base, the outer ring of which requires the largest stones, with the widest ends of them to the outside. The middle of the base - the ‘heart’ of the cairn - is filled with smaller stones, packed tightly. Now the cairn is built upwards like a cone, stones added neatly and slowly to fit in with the rest and build up its strength. Each layer is kept as flat and tight as possible, with smaller stones used as the cairn rises. The top stone is the neatest and shiniest of them all.
Ormskirk and Carnforth are the least affordable towns in which to live in Lancashire, and Nelson and Bootle the most affordable. These top tens are based on the house prices of postal towns according to the Halifax House Price Index, which monitors the average selling prices of properties across the country, and their relative affordability for key workers like teachers and nurses. So while average house prices in Ormskirk are more than seven times the average salary of a key worker, for instance, in Nelson the multiple is less than three.
Least affordable |
Most affordable |
|
1 Ormskirk |
1 Nelson |
|
2 Carnforth |
2 Bootle |
|
3 Lytham St Annes |
3 Leigh |
|
4 Southport |
4 Accrington |
|
5 Prescot |
5 Blackpool |
|
6 Leyland |
6 Newton le Willows |
|
7 Chorley |
7 Barrow-in-Furness |
|
8 Bury |
8 Blackburn |
|
9 Warrington |
9 Morecambe |
|
10 Preston |
10 Oldham |
By district, Lancashire’s most expensive place to buy property is the Ribble Valley. Average house prices here are more than twice as high as they are in the cheapest district, Burnley.
The industrialisation of Lancashire during the 19th century changed workers’ lives for the worse in many ways, but it also gave rise to a revolutionary new way of doing business - the co-operative movement.
Locally organised and jointly owned shops and mills had existed in Britain since the mid-1700s, but it wasn’t until 28 weavers and other artisans got together in Rochdale in 1844 that the ideals and practices of co-operatives were properly established. When they opened a shop on Toad Lane to sell foodstuffs and a few other home goods, the Rochdale Equitable Pioneers Society also drew up a list of principles by which they would abide: of open membership and a fair voting system; and of putting any profits from their trading towards members’ dividends - ‘the divi’ - and social projects like housing and education.
Although the project launched partly out of necessity - pitiful wages in towns like Rochdale having put even basic goods out of the reach of many - it was also inspired by a whole new take on trade, whereby workers would pull together to mutual benefit. The shop was instantly popular and prompted a spin-off mill to help supply it, and the group’s template also inspired other groups to launch, around Lancashire, the country and the world. The Co-operative Union was formed in 1869, and by the end of the 19th century the country had more than 1,400 separate co-operative societies. These have merged over the years into large units offering a host of services from banking to travel to insurance as well as shopping, and the umbrella Co-operative Group now turns over about £10 billion a year, employs some 90,000 people and has around 2.5 million members. Throughout, it has remained admirably true to its principles of ethical trading, social responsibility and democratic decision-making - all derived from the eight original ‘Rochdale Principles’.
The co-operative movement remains particularly strong in its home county, and Manchester is home to the Co-operative College. The Pioneers’ original building on Toad Lane now houses the Rochdale Pioneers Museum, which has much more about the history of the co-operative movement and the town’s role in its history (tel 01706 524920 or visit http://museum.co-op.ac.uk).
To the uninitiated, Ordnance Survey maps of Lancashire can be somewhat baffling. Filled with strange and wonderful words, many of which are unique to the county or northern England, they are an arcane introduction to the landscape. Here are 50 of the most common words and their meanings.
Barrow - small hill
Beck - mountain stream
Bield - shelter, usually for sheep but sometimes for humans
Breck - slope or hillside
Brook - small stream
Brow - summit of a hill or pass
Burn - small stream
Buttress - projecting part of a hill or mountain, usually a rock face
Cairn - pile of stones marking the top of a hill or the way up to it
Cam - crest of a hill
Carr - marsh or fen
Clough - steep-sided valley
Col - a flat, lower area, usually between two peaks
Combe or coomb - a hollow on the side of a hill
Common - open public land
Cove - sheltered recess in a hill
Crag - steep or rugged rock
Dale - valley
Dyke - either a watercourse or a bank or wall built to prevent flooding
Edge - either a narrow ridge or the outer slope of a range of hills
Fell - northern English term for hill
Fold - a hollow among hills
Force - waterfall
Gill or ghyll - small ravine or a stream that flows down it
Green - common grassy land
Gully - wide, steep cleft in a cliff
Heath - open, uncultivated land, often on sandy soil
Heights - rising ground
How - low hill
Intake - either a place where water is taken in to a channel or reclaimed land
Knoll - small hill or mound
Knott - craggy, rocky hill
Lea - pasture or meadowland
Mere - lake or pond
Moor - open, undeveloped flatland
Moss - flat, marshy area
Nab - promontory of a hill
Pass - passage between mountains or valleys
Pike - sharp and rocky peaked hill or mountain
Rake - a pass through rocks
Ridge or rigg - long, narrow strip with steep drops on either side
Scar - bare, rocky outcrop
Side - vague term for something that has a dividing centre, like a hill
Sike or syke - small stream, often dry in summer
Slack - hollow area between two higher points, sometimes filled with water
Stile - either steps over a fence or wall or steep
Stone or stones - another word for cairn
Tarn - small mountain lake
Wash - sandbank exposed at low tide
Along more than 100 miles (161 km) of coastline, Lancashire has fished for shrimps and cockles for centuries. And around Morecambe Bay in particular - at 120 square miles (311 sq km) Britain’s second largest bay after the Wash - they remain a popular local delicacy and export.
On the bay and further down the coast on the Irish Sea, shrimps are caught in nets that are trawled along the sands in shallow waters. Fishermen waded through the cold waters to cast them by hand at first, before employing horses and then tractors to pull them along. The Lancashire nobby, a distinctive trawler about 30 feet (9 m) in length and fast, agile and shallow enough to fish the low waters, became the craft of choice for fishermen from around the 1840s, and examples of them can sometimes still be seen today. Back on dry land, fishermen quickly boil up the shrimps and peel them - a fiddly job that used to be done by hand in homes but that is now more usually performed by machines in factories. After that, the shrimps are washed, packed or potted and perhaps frozen for transport.
If shrimping is a labour-intensive job, then cockling is back-breaking work. The cockles are buried a centimetre or so beneath the sands of Morecambe Bay, and become exposed once the tide recedes. They are then sucked to the surface using a ‘jumbo’ - essentially a plank of wood that softens the sand - and raked out. It is a tough enough job in fine weather, but when the wind and rain hammers across the bay it’s one for only the hardiest of workers.
Both shrimps and cockles have a market among retailers and restaurants in Lancashire and neighbouring Cumbria, but a large proportion of sales are to Europe, where appreciation of them is far greater and they are used more creatively in cooking. The heavy demand means that cockles in particular can fetch good prices, and stocks have to be tightly controlled by stopping access if they have been over-farmed. On Morecambe Bay, shrimping and cockling are also subject to safety regulations, since the boggy sands and unpredictable, fast-moving tides make it a dangerous place to work. Restrictions were tightened after 23 Chinese immigrant workers drowned when they we reovert a ken by water while cockling on the bay in 2004, though there are concerns that inexperienced cocklers and shrimpers are still putting themselves at risk there.
A recipe for potted shrimps
250 g cooked Morecambe Bay shrimps
150 g butter
Good pinches of salt, cayenne pepper and nutmeg
Gently melt the butter. Stir in the shrimps and coat well. Add the salt, cayenne pepper and nutmeg and simmer on a low heat for five minutes, stirring often. Tip the mixture into pots and melt a little more butter in the hot pan to pour over the top of each pot to seal. Leave to cool and set. Serve either straight from the pot or gently warmed with brown bread or toast and a cup of tea for a snack, or mix the shrimps with other ingredients for a more substantial meal. They are particularly good tossed into pasta, stirred into a risotto or scattered over grilled or baked fish.
The Lancashire Cup was a rugby league trophy contested by the county’s leading clubs for more than 80 years. Alongside the Yorkshire Cup, it was formed after the great rugby schism of 1895 that separated the sport into the two codes of league and union, and soon became one of the most fiercely contested trophies among local rivals. Interrupted only by the two world wars, the Lancashire Cup was staged between 1905 and 1993, when leading clubs complained about the number of games they were having to play in all competitions and it was abandoned.
The 13 different clubs to have won the Lancashire Cup are:
Wigan (winners 21 times)
St Helens (11)
Warrington (9)
Oldham (8)
Widnes (7)
Salford (5)
Leigh (4)
Rochdale (4)
Swinton (4)
Barrow (2)
Broughton Rangers (2)
St Helens Recs (2)
Workington (1)
The origins of 60 more Lancashire place names.
Nelson - Takes its name from the Lord Nelson Inn, around which the town grew in the 19th century
Newbiggin - New building. Lancashire has several Newbiggins
Newton - New farmstead or village. Newton is another common Lancashire place name
Oldham - Old promontory. The town grew on the slopes of a sandstone ridge
Ormskirk - The church of Orm or similar name, Scandinavian in origin
Oswaldtwistle - Tongue of land in the fork of a river belonging to Oswald
Parbold - Building where pears grow
Peel Island - Takes its name from a peel castle built by the monks of Furness Abbey
Pendle - An Old English word for hill. Pendle Hill is therefore a tautology
Pennington - Farmstead paying a penny’s rent
Plumpton - Farmstead where plum trees grow
Poulton - Farmstead or village by a pool. Lancashire has several Poultons
Prescot - Priests’ cottage
Preston– Farmstead of the priests. Preston is a common English place name
Radcliffe - Red cliff
Ramsbottom - Probably the valley of the ram, though it could also refer to the valley where wild garlic grows
Rawtenstall - Farmstead on rough ground
Ribbleton - Farmstead or village on the River Ribble, which means rushing or tearing river
Ribchester - The Roman fort by the River Ribble
Rishton - Farmstead where rushes grow
Rochdale - Valley of the River Roch
Rossall - Nook or land where horses graze
Rossendale - Valley in the moor
Rusholme - Place at the rushes
St Annes - Takes its name from the 19th-century church of St Anne, the first building in the new town here
St Helens - Takes its name from a medieval chapel dedicated to St Helen
Salford - Ford by the willow trees
Samlesbury - Fortified place on a shelf of land
Sawrey - Muddy places
Scorton - Farmstead or village by a ravine or ditch
Sefton - Farmstead where rushes grow
Silverdale - Silver valley, probably from the grey limestone crags around the village
Skelmersdale - The valley of Skelmer or similar Scandinavian name
Southport - A modern town that was named in the late 18th century, possibly to position it in relation to ports further north in Lancashire
Stainton - Farmstead or village where there are stones
Standish - Stony pasture
Sutton - Farmstead or village in the south, in this case relative to St Helens. A common English place name
Swarthmoor - Black moor
Swinton - Farmstead where pigs are kept
Thornley - Clearing among or near thorns
Tottington - Farmstead of Totta or similar name
Trafford - Ford on a (Roman) road
Twiston - Farmstead or village at the fork of a river
Ulverston - Farmstead of Ulfr or similar Scandinavian name
Urswick - Farmstead or village by the bison lake
Vickerstown - A model town for workers in Barrow-in-Furness, built by the Vickers company
Walney Island - Island of quicksands
Walton - Farmstead or village of serfs. Walton is incorporated into several Lancashire place names
Warrington - Farmstead or village by a river dam
Warton - Look-out farmstead or village
Waterloo - Takes its name from Liverpool’s Royal Waterloo Hotel, which in turn was named after the 1815 battle
Wavertree - Waving or swaying tree
Westhoughton - Farmstead in a nook of land. The west was added later to distinguish it from other Houghtons
Whalley - Woodland clearing near a round hill
Widnes - Wide promontory
Wigan - Probably derived from a longer Celtic name meaning Wigan’s farmstead
Windermere –Takes its name from the adjacent lake, meaning the lake of Vinand or similar Scandinavian name
Woolton - Farmstead of Wulfa or similar name
Wrea Green - Corner or nook of land. Green was added later
Yealand - High land. Yealand is incorporated into several Lancashire place names
From no-holds-barred violence to an Olympic sport - wrestling in Lancashire has come a long way, and it is still a respected part of the county’s sporting tradition.
Organised wrestling dates back thousands of years, and its fans claim it as the oldest and purest sport known to man. Subtly different forms of it have endured all over the world, and English versions are still popular in areas of the north like the Lake District and Northumberland, where it was probably introduced by the Romans and later influenced by the Vikings. Many centuries later, Lancashire’s wrestling advanced with the hugely popular traveling fairs or circuses, at which champion wrestlers would take on local challengers for money. Lancashire men began to be known as some of the toughest wrestlers going, a reputation that increased alongside the industry of coal mining. Grappling for fun or cash after long days in the pits, the county’s best wrestlers were fearsomely strong, fit and wiry men.
Lancashire’s wrestlers developed their own distinctive style, often called ‘catch as catch can’ or simply ‘catch’. It involved players trying to catch hold of their opponent whichever way they could, using an array of ingenious and eye-watering grappling techniques. Victories were usually achieved via submission, when opponents conceded that they could take no more. While wrestling elsewhere started to introduce rules to minimise injuries, Lancashire’s remained a much more primitive and violent sport, with bans on such alarming practices as eye gouging and choking only gradually introduced after overcoming protests from wrestling traditionalists.
‘A Lancashire wrestling match is an ugly sight,’ wrote one late 19th-century observer of the sport. ‘The fierce animal passions of the men which mark the struggles of maddened bulls or wild beasts, the savage yelling of their partisans and the wrangling... are simply appalling.’ Such criticism belied the dexterity, fitness and technique required to succeed, but there is little doubt that it was one of the most savage of organised sports. Lancashire’s catch wrestling has, thankfully, evolved considerably since then. It is known more widely now as freestyle wrestling, an Olympic event that allows participants freedom of technique but with rules and time limits in place to stop things getting too painful.
The rising popularity of TV wrestling from both Britain and America, full of showmanship, glitz and staged manoeuvres, has drawn many young people away from the more traditional forms of the sport, but a handful of dedicated wrestling clubs remain in Lancashire, promoting it as a fun, friendly pastime for youngsters that improves strength, agility and confidence. Perhaps the most famous surviving club is Aspull Olympic in Wigan, set up by legendary Lancashire wrestler Billy Riley in the 1940s and once known rather ominously as ‘the snakepit’. Bolton and Manchester also have centres that welcome newcomers.
English Heritage looks after seven properties in Lancashire, including some of the most important ruins of religious properties in the county. All open to the public, they are:
Furness Abbey, near Barrow-in-Furness Sizeable sandstone ruins of an abbey founded in 1123 and at one time among the largest and most powerful in the country. Nearby is
Bow Bridge, a 15th-century stone bridge on a packhorse route to the abbey, also owned by English Heritage.
Goodshaw Chapel, near Rawtenstall An interesting Baptist chapel built in 1760, with many original fittings and furnishings.
Piel Castle, near Barrow-in-Furness Ruins of a 14th-century castle perched on Piel Island, built to defend Barrow against raiders. Visible from the mainland and accessible via a local ferry service, dependent on tides.
Sawley Abbey, near Clitheroe A ruined 12th-century Cistercian abbey that was abandoned in the Dissolution. Dramatically located on the River Ribble.
Stott Park Bobbin Mill, near Newby Bridge Former workers lead tours of this mill, opened in 1835 to produce the bobbins that kept Lancashire’s spinning and weaving industries moving.
Warton Old Rectory Upstanding ruins of a medieval limestone house, with the great hall particularly well preserved.
Whalley Abbey Gatehouse A 14th-century gatehouse to a Cistercian abbey beside the River Calder.
Lancashire has some 3,700 miles (5,955 km) of public rights of way - enough to stretch the entire length of Britain more than four times. The county’s countryside offers many great walks, including some of Britain’s most popular long distance trails. Here are ten waymarked routes, long and short, that are either entirely within Lancashire’s boundaries or just pass through.
Brontë Way. Although the Brontë sisters are more commonly associated with Yorkshire, this 44-mile (71 km) route also takes in many of their Lancashire locations, including the starting point of Gawthorpe Hall, where Charlotte often stayed, and Wycoller Hall, the inspiration for Ferndean Manor in her novel Jane Eyre. Across in Yorkshire, it takes in the sisters’ birthplace, house and other inspirations.
Cumbria Coastal Way. Despite its name, this 150-mile (242 km) route takes in a large slice of ‘proper’ Lancashire’s coastline, starting in Silverdale and passing around Morecambe Bay before leaving the county near Broughton-in-Furness. The way continues up to Gretna on the Scottish border.
Lancashire Coastal Way. Traces the county’s coastline from Freckleton on the Ribble Estuary past Lytham St Annes, Blackpool and the Fylde coast, diverting inland to Lancaster then out again to Morecambe. The 137-mile (221 km) route ends at Silverdale where the Cumbria Coastal Way takes over (see above) - though Lancashire itself continues.
Lancashire Trail. A 70-mile (113 km) amble through some of the county’s industrial and rural aspects, starting at St Helens and finishing at Thornton-le-Craven on the Yorkshire border.
Lancaster Canal. The towpath along the canal provides an easy to follow trail though north Lancashire, stretching 57 miles (92 km) from near Preston to Kendal in the Lake District.
Lune Valley Ramble. A pleasant lowland walk across north Lancashire, from Lancaster to Kirkby Lonsdale. At 17 miles (27 km), it can be done in a long day’s walking.
Pendle Way. A 45-mile (72 km) circular trail starting and finishing at the Pendle Heritage Centre at Barrowford, and taking in the area made famous by Quaker George Fox and the Pendle Witches controversy. Follow the witch and broomstick logos on the signposts.
Ribble Way. Lovely 70-mile (113 km) walk tracing the route of the River Ribble, starting at its mouth near Preston and following its winding route past Clitheroe and other towns and villages up to its source, over the border at Yorkshire’s Ribblehead.
Rossendale Way. A 45-mile (72 km) circular walk starting and finishing in Sharneyford, and taking in much of Rossendale’s industrial heritage and old mill towns as well as its countryside.
Trans Pennine Trail. An alternative cross-country route, starting in Merseyside and mixing rural and urban trails as it passes Manchester before leaving the county for Yorkshire. The distance varies according to the spurs of the trail taken.
Lancashire has produced hundreds of outstanding sportspeople over the years, including dozens of football, cricket and rugby internationals and Olympic athletes. Here is a selection of 30 of them and their birthplaces.
Jimmy Armfield (Blackpool)
Michael Atherton (Manchester)
Bill Beaumont (Preston)
June Croft (Wigan)
William Webb Ellis (Salford)
Tom Finney (Preston)
Andrew Flintoff (Preston)
Carl Fogarty (Blackburn)
Bill Foulkes (St Helens)
Steven Gerrard (Whiston)
Ron Greenwood (Worsthorne)
Reg Harris (Bury)
Ron Hill (Accrington)
Emlyn Hughes (Barrow-in-Furness)
Geoff Hurst (Ashton-under-Lyne)
Amir Khan (Bolton)
Nat Lofthouse (Bolton)
David Lloyd (Accrington)
Mary Peters (Halewood)
Jason Queally (Chorley)
Wayne Rooney (Liverpool)
Nigel Short (Leigh)
Tommy Smith (Liverpool)
Brian Statham (Manchester)
Nobby Stiles (Manchester)
Frank Swift (Blackpool)
Phil Thompson (Liverpool)
Ernest Tyldesley (Worsley)
Frank Tyson (Bolton)
Cyril Washbrook (Clitheroe)
As the Empire and British people spread around the world, some familiar Lancashire place names began to appear in far-flung corners of the world. America, Australia, New Zealand and other Commonwealth countries all have a sprinkling of villages, towns and counties named after Lancashire; here are some of the most interesting locations.
Blackburn
Hastings, New Zealand
KwaZulu-Natal, South Africa
Missouri, US
Oklahoma, US
Bolton
Victoria, Australia
Ontario, Canada
Saint Ann, Jamaica
Davao del Sur, Philippines
Massachusetts, US
Mississippi, US
North Carolina, US
Harare, Zimbabwe
Burnley
Victoria, Australia
Eastern Cape, South Africa
Lancaster
Victoria, Australia
Saint James, Barbados
Ontario, Canada
Upper Demerara-Berbice,
Guyana
Trelawny, Jamaica
California, US
Kentucky, US
Nebraska, US
Pennsylvania, US
South Carolina, US
Texas, US
Bulawayo, Zimbabwe
Leigh
New South Wales,
Australia
Auckland, New Zealand
Nebraska, US
Liverpool
New South Wales,
Australia
Nova Scotia, Canada
Illinois, US
New York, US
Pennsylvania, US
Texas, US
Manchester
South Jamaica
Georgia, US
Iowa, US
Kentucky, US
Missouri, US
New Hampshire, US
Tennessee, US
Washington, US
Preston
Victoria, Australia
Ontario, Canada
Georgia, US
Idaho, US
Iowa, US
Maryland, US
Minnesota, US
West Virginia, US
Queensland, Australia
Newfoundland, Canada
KwaZulu-Natal, South Africa
New York, US
North Carolina, US
Warrington
Kilkenny, Ireland
Dunedin, New Zealand
Florida, US
If Coronation Street has always been Lancashire’s top TV show then Brookside, throughout the 1980s and much of the 1990s, was its second favourite - an edgy young upstart to the comfortable familiarity of the long-running soap opera.
The programme was created for Channel 4 and was first broadcast on the station’s opening night in November 1982. It was designed by creator Phil Redmond as Liverpool’s answer to Manchester’s Corrie - a story of life in the modern city suburbs rather than Lancashire’s old terraces. At a time when competition for ratings among the various channels’ soaps was fierce, Brookside soon tried to distinguish itself with a reputation for topical, controversial and taboo storylines. That led it to tackle some serious issues, at times handled with sensitivity and typical Liverpudlian humour. Over time, though, it led the show into more convoluted and outlandish plots, and prompted in particular a death rate that exceeded even the sky-high ones of Coronation Street and Yorkshire’s Emmerdale. Over 2,915 episodes, Brookside killed off a total of 74 characters and sundry pets via in genious and increasingly gruesome means including murders, suicides, drug overdoses, car accidents, gas explosions, firebombs and helicopter crashes.
There were plenty of births and weddings too, but Brookside became known as a somewhat depressing and violent soap opera as well as a socially aware one. From a peak of around 8 million viewers and three episodes a week in the early 1990s, ratings had tumbled to fewer than a million and a single weekend show by the end of the decade, thanks to a combination of the outlandish plots, unpopular characters, poor scheduling and competition from other soaps and programmes. It struggled on to its 21st anniversary in 2003 but was pulled soon afterwards, its residents moved out to make way for a waste incinerator. Tucked away in a late-night TV slot, the show went out in a blaze of swearing, a lynching of a local drug dealer and a knowing script that saw the last man out daub a ‘d’ on the street sign to read ‘Brookside Closed’.
Brookside got much of its realism from the custom-built set on which it was filmed - a cul-de-sac of houses in the West Derby suburb of Liverpool. Some of the houses were used for other TV productions after the soap ended, though they were later sold off to property developers. That, however, has not stopped intermittent campaigns for the show to be revived.
Although they were not generally noted for their reformist tendencies, a handful of men among Lancashire’s generation of mill owners did at least attempt to temper their pursuit of vast wealth with sympathies for the people who toiled for them. And nowhere was the dichotomy more striking than in Friedrich Engels, whose years in Lancashire were to shape his hugely influential thinking and writing.
Engels travelled to Manchester from Germany in his early twenties, dispatched by his mill owner father to look after the family’s interests in the town. The intention was to distract Engels from his radical politics, but the move only advanced his communist doctrines by making him aware of the dreadful living and working conditions of the men, women and children who slaved in Manchester’s mills. During the working day Engels looked after the family business, but at other times he explored Manchester’s appalling slums, gathering material for what was to become his classic social document: The Condition of the Working Class in England. ‘Everywhere are half or wholly ruined buildings,’ he wrote. ‘Everywhere heaps of debris, refuse and offal; standing pools and gutters; and a stench which alone would make it impossible for a human being in any degree civilised to live in such a district.’ The book was not translated into English for more than 40 years, though Engels’ sympathies for the working class and contempt for the exploitative bourgeoisie of Lancashire and beyond had already excited fellow radicals by then.
Engels’ experiences in Manchester also helped to bolster his association with Karl Marx, and they published their landmark Manifesto of the Communist Party together in 1848. Engels returned to Manchester after several years in various European cities, and worked again in the family business to fund his and Marx’s campaigns. The irony that he was trying to advance the cause of the working classes while running one of the very businesses that kept them in poverty was not lost on him. Engels later moved to London to be nearer Marx, and died there in 1895.
No fixtures in England’s county cricket are more fiercely contested than those between Lancashire and Yorkshire. The white rose county won the inaugural first-class Roses match between the two sides in 1849 and, to Lancastrians’ great frustration, have held the upper hand ever since, with substantially more wins and the vast majority of the fixture’s team and individual records. Here are the leading achievements from a century and a half of cross-Pennine competition, correct to the start of the 2010 season.
261 |
total first-class Roses fixtures played |
|
52 |
matches won by Lancashire |
|
80 |
matches won by Yorkshire |
|
129 |
matches drawn |
|
3,006 |
most runs in Roses matches, by Herbert Sutcliffe (Yorkshire) |
|
590 |
highest team score, by Yorkshire in 1887 |
|
252 |
highest individual score, by Darren Lehmann (Yorkshire) in 2001 |
|
10 |
most centuries in Roses matches, by Geoff Boycott (Yorkshire) |
|
237 |
most wickets in Roses matches, by Wilfred Rhodes (Yorkshire) |
|
9 for 23 |
best bowling in an innings, by George Hirst (Yorkshire) in 1910 |
|
17 for 91 |
best bowling in a match, by Harry Dean (Lancashire) in 1913 |
|
101 |
most wicket-keeping victims in Roses matches, by David Bairstow (Yorkshire) |
|
65 |
most catches in Roses matches by a fielder, by John Tunnicliffe (Yorkshire) |
Since Lord Derby first did the honours in 1934, the switching-on of the Blackpool Illuminations has been a big annual event in the town. And as the reputation of the spectacular display of lights spread over the years, so the town began to attract some popular celebrities, both local and international, to flick the switch each summer. The roll call of celebs takes in actors, TV and radio stars, sportspeople and even a famous racecourse and puppets. Here are 20 of the best known names to have turned on the lights since the Second World War.
Stanley Matthews (1951)
George Formby (1953)
Jayne Mansfield (1959)
Gracie Fields (1964)
Ken Dodd (1966)
Matt Busby (1968)
The cast of Dad’s Army (1971)
Gordon Banks (1973)
Red Rum (1977)
Kermit the Frog and the Muppets (1979)
The cast of Coronation Street (1983)
Les Dawson (1986)
Frank Bruno (1989)
Shirley Bassey (1994)
The Bee Gees (1995)
Gary Barlow (1999)
Ronan Keating (2002)
Geri Halliwell (2004)
Chris Evans (2005)
David Tennant (2007)
Several Lancastrians have achieved more in sporting terms, but few have embodied the county’s virtues of gutsy determination and hard but fair play quite so well as cricketer Andrew Flintoff.
Flintoff was born in Preston in 1977 and played his early cricket on the Lancashire coast for St Annes, where new tiles on the roofs of several houses around the club’s ground are evidence of his thunderous shots. Progressing to Lancashire’s county team at 17, he moved through England’s youth ranks and into the Test side for the first time in 1997. He soon became known as a powerful all-rounder - an aggressive hitter, intimidating fast bowler and reliable fielder - but his early performances for his country were mixed.
It wasn’t until 2005 that Flintoff established himself as England’s best and best-loved cricketer since Ian Botham. In a tense and thrilling series against Australia, Flintoff’s batting, bowling and sheer will to win helped England to win the Ashes for the first time in 18 years. Revered by fans and respected and feared by opponents, over the course of one glorious summer he became a cricketing superstar.
Like all good folk heroes, Flintoff’s career has not been without its blemishes. He admitted to being over weight in his early playing days, and he has run into occasional drink-related controversies, celebrating the 2005 Ashes in somewhat enthusiastic style and drowning his sorrows on England’s disastrous tour of Australia in 2006–7 as he captained the side to a 5–0 defeat. He has always been susceptible to injuries, and after a succession of setbacks and rehabilitations, he announced his intention to retire from Test match cricket after the 2009 series against Australia. Typically, he went on to make crucial contributions in a final hurrah as England regained the Ashes once more.
Flintoff’s honours have included an MBE, the BBC’s Sports Personality of the Year award - of which he remains, with Mary Peters, one of only two Lancashire-born winners - and, not least, the freedom of his home city of Preston. His final Test match averages of 32 with the bat and 33 with the ball are a little way off the benchmarks for top players, but they do not reveal his talismanic qualities nor his ability to conjure up great performances at the most important times. Through all the ups and downs he has remained loyal to Lancashire and true to its values - and his highest ever score remains the 232 not out he clobbered for St Annes as a 14-year-old.
Agricultural shows have long been a way for rural Lancashire to get together and celebrate its achievements, and for more than two centuries the Royal Lancashire Show has been the most important date in the calendar.
The show claims to be able to trace its roots back to 1767, making it one of the oldest shows of its kind in the country. For most of its history it has rotated through venues across Lancashire, before settling for many years in Blackpool’s Stanley Park. Over three days each July, the show celebrated the achievements of farmers, breeders and others, mixing agricultural and life stock competition with family entertainment. Dozens of animal classes would draw hundreds of entries from the northwest and beyond, while thousands of visitors enjoyed countryside crafts, equestrian events, exhibitions and food and beer tents.
But while the show’s history is long and proud, the last few decades of it have been less glorious. Financial problems led its parent company to cancel the show for several years in the late 1970s, before it was reconvened at various venues including Blackburn, Chorley and Ribchester. Traffic issues, disagreements with local councils and landowners and criticisms that the show had lost touch with its farming roots all increased the problems, which were capped off when terrible weather forced organisers to cancel the show at short notice in both 2007 and 2008. The huge financial losses incurred as a result have led to subsequent events being pulled too, though if a new venue and sponsors can be found it may be revived in the future.
Of the 70 or so men in football’s hall of fame, a good proportion - eleven - were born in Lancashire. That is very appropriate, as the hall of fame was created at the National Football Museum in Preston, the Lancastrian city often regarded as the cradle if not the exact birthplace of the game.
Members of the hall of fame are chosen by a panel of experts, and sometimes by a public vote. To qualify, players must be aged over 30 and have played in England for at least five years. With a goalkeeper, a couple of defenders and midfielders and five renowned strikers among them, Lancashire’s eleven Hall of Famers make for a formidable and attack-minded line-up. The eleven, together with their places of birth, are:
Jimmy Armfield (Denton)
Alan Ball (Farnworth)
Tom Finney (Preston)
Emlyn Hughes (Barrow-in-Furness)
Roger Hunt (Golborne)
Geoff Hurst (Ashton-under-Lyne)
Tommy Lawton (Farnworth)
Nat Lofthouse (Bolton)
Paul Scholes (Salford)
Nobby Stiles (Manchester)
Frank Swift (Blackpool)
Two more Lancastrians - Ron Greenwood (born in Worstorne), and Walter Winterbottom (Oldham), are featured in the managers’ section of the football hall of fame. Two sides from the county - the Manchester United team of 1968 and Liverpool’s of 1978 - are also included.
At their peak they criss-crossed Lancashire, and at their lowest point they were all but obliterated. Now, more than a century after they first ran, tramways are again becoming an integral part of the county’s transport infrastructure.
Trams have carried the British public since Swansea opened the world’s first passenger-carrying line in 1807. But their golden era can be traced to Blackpool, which created the country’s inaugural electric street line when it opened in 1885. It was an instant hit with locals and holidaymakers, and was soon extended to the Pleasure Beach in one direction and Fleetwood in the other, eventually spanning more than 11 miles (18 km) and 61 stops. Inspired by Blackpool’s success, other towns put up their own tramways. Accrington, Blackburn, Bolton, Burnley, Lancaster, Liverpool, Morecambe, Preston, Rochdale, St Helens and Wigan - all these places and many more at one time had large or small systems of their own, at first pulled by horses and then powered by electricity or, sometimes, by steam. At its peak the network was so large that passengers could traverse much of the county via interlinking services.
Much as the railways had expanded far beyond the market for them, so it soon became apparent that many of the tramways could not pay their way. They fell out of favour as the 20th century wore on, shunted off the roads by the increasing number of cars. Many of the smaller towns’ tram companies folded in the 1930s, though networks survived in Manchester and Liverpool until 1949 and 1957 respectively. From that first wave of tram building in the 19th century, Blackpool’s is the only urban line to survive today.
But whereas trams’ dominance of the road was once seen as an inconvenience, now it is heralded an advantage and an opportunity to get motorists out of their cars and into environmentally friendlier public transport. Manchester became the first city to restore trams to the streets when it opened its Metrolink network in 1992, and it was soon followed by others including Sheffield and Birmingham. It now carries around 20 million people a year and has invested heavily in an expansion that will bring its number of stops to around 100. Blackpool has recently poured £100m into new vehicles and line improvements for the 7 million passengers it serves annually. And more than half a century after it closed, Liverpool has plans for a brand new tramway of its own, though these have already been much delayed.
The best place to find out more about the history of trams in Lancashire is the Museum of Transport in Manchester, which holds a large collection of restored vehicles (tel 0161 205 2122 or visit www.gmts.co.uk).
Lancashire has more than its fair share of sporting, cultural and scientific high achievers, but it has plenty of record holders in less distinguished disciplines, too. Here are ten of the strangest - and perhaps most pointless - world records set in the county, all verified by Guinness.
Largest cup of tea
Measuring 4 feet (1.22 m) in diameter and height, and with a volume of 400 litres, this was made as a publicity stunt by Lancashire Tea at Asda’s Preston store in 2008.
Blackpool’s Golden Mile was the appropriate setting for this world record, which saw well over 100 stretch limousines from all over the country drive in convoy in 2008. Money was raised for charity from passengers paying to be part of the record.
Biggest Christmas Pudding
At the most recent Aughton Pudding Feast in 1992, the village turned out a Christmas Pudding that weighed in at around 3.3 tons. It took a week to produce and required an industrial concrete mixer to stir up its ingredients.
Highest stack of poppadoms
Achieved by the staff of the Indian Ocean Restaurant in Ashton-under-Lyne in 2007, when they built a pile 4.85 feet (1.48 m) high.
Biggest pancake
Another food record - this one set in Rochdale in 1994 with a 3-ton, 49-feet (15 m) diameter pancake.
Most netball goals scored in one hour
257 - set by local players in Manchester’s Piccadilly Gardens in 2009.
Longest rollercoaster ride
Another Blackpool record - this time achieved by New Yorker Richard Rodriguez who rode the Big One at Blackpool Pleasure Beach for 401 hours in July and August 2007. He completed nearly 8,000 rides and covered around 6,300 miles (10,139 km).
Fastest window cleaner
The record for the fastest cleaning of three windows - 9.14 seconds by Terry Burrows - was set in Blackpool in 2009.
Most car tyres balanced on head
Ten - achieved by John Evans at the Burnley Balloon Festival in 2008.
Biggest Hot Pot
Made at Garstang in 2007, this weighed in at 209 kg and used 35 kg of Bowland lamb, 35 kg of onions and 100 kg of potatoes. Given that this is Lancashire’s leading dish, it will be an embarrassment to the county if the record is ever beaten anywhere else.
Lancashire County Cricket Club has played first-class fixtures at a dozen different grounds up and down the county since its first match in 1865. As attendances dwindled from the club’s heyday and the cost of putting on games outside of the club’s headquarters rose, so the number of venues has declined over the years. Two popular outposts - Southport and Lytham St Annes - were dropped from the first-class fixture list in the late 1990s, and nowadays only three - in Manchester, Liverpool and Blackpool - are in active use, but the list of former grounds is a nostalgic reminder of how Lancashire’s cricketers were once revered across the county. Together with the year in which first-class games were last hosted there, Lancashire’s dozen grounds are:
Wavertree Road, Liverpool (1866)
Station Road, Whalley (1867)
Castleton, Rochdale (1876)
Lune Road, Lancaster (1914)
Alexandra Meadows, Blackburn (1935)
Seed Hill, Nelson (1938)
West Cliff, Preston (1952)
Church Road, Lytham St Annes (1998)
Trafalgar Road, Southport (1999)
Aigburth, Liverpool (to present)
Old Trafford, Manchester (to present)
Stanley Park, Blackpool (to present)
The decline of cotton, coal and other industries has hit Lancashire hard over the years, but the county remains one of Britain’s great manufacturing powerhouses. Even though numbers are perhaps a third of what they were at their peak before and after the First World War, around 100,000 workers are still employed in manufacturing here - equivalent to one in six of Lancashire ’s total work force, compared to just one in nine nationwide. And nearly a quarter of those manufacturing employees rely for their work on the aerospace industry.
Lancashire’s role in the industry goes back more than a century, to the earliest days of flight. In 1909, many of the country’s pioneering aviators demonstrated their skills at the Blackpool Aviation Week, Britain’s first ever air show. A year earlier, Salford-born Alliott Verdon Roe had become the first Englishman to complete a powered flight, and in 1910 he launched the world’s first manufacturing firm dedicated solely to aircraft. His company, later abbreviated to Avro, lasted until the 1960s and was responsible for numerous landmark aircraft like the Lancaster and Vulcan Bombers along the way.
Roe’s firm and the others in Lancashire that soon followed it were among the few to benefit from the First World War, turning out several thousand aircraft for the government. Afterwards, the industry refined its aircraft and developed innovations like flying boats, many of them produced by the newly formed English Electric Company at Preston, which also helped build the country’s rail and tram networks. But it was the government’s rearmament programme ahead of the Second World War that sent Lancashire’s industry into overdrive. Because the textile and other industries had established a strong engineering and labour base in the county, and because it was less likely than southern centres to face German bombing, Lancashire was perfectly placed to meet the rush of aircraft orders. In the early 1940s, some 50,000 people across the county worked flat out to support the war effort, turning out around 30,000 aircraft in the decade or so before, during and after the hostilities - nearly one in four of Britain’s total planes in that time.
Lancashire’s manufacturing capacity inevitably declined after the war, but it adjusted well to new demands by designing and producing civilian aircraft and an increasingly sophisticated range of jet fighters. Nowadays it remains a highly skilled and internationally respected centre of excellence for the air, space and defence industries, responsible for perhaps a fifth of the UK’s aerospace output. The county’s order book also includes projects for governments and air companies across the world, and production has brought with it plenty of spin-off industries and sub-contractors - for engines, parts, missiles, ground support equipment, testing and, at Barrow-in-Furness in particular, airships. Well over 100 companies in Lancashire are now directly or indirectly linked to aircraft and defence manufacture, including giants like BAE Systems in Preston, Aircelle in Burnley and Rolls Royce in Barnoldswick as well as dozens of highly specialised smaller firms. In all, Lancashire has probably produced at least 50,000 civilian and military aircraft since 1910, as well as important elements for tens of thousands more.
Lancashire has much modern music of which it can be proud - but not too many operas. The most famous to be connected to the county is Emilia di Liverpool, written by the prolific Italian composer Gaetano Donizetti at the age of 27, though based on an existing libretto, and premiered in Naples in 1824.
Liverpool owes its role in the opera to a Romantic fascination with Britain on the continent, and its importance as a port would have meant it was fairly well known in Italy at the time as a glamorous, far-off place. The opera, partly serious but with plenty of humour, relates the story of Emilia, courted and then deserted by a suitor, and the consequent emotional turmoil including the death of her ashamed mother before things are tied up in a satisfactorily happy ending.
The opera was not a critical success, and despite several reworkings by Donizetti, it soon fell into obscurity. It has been revived twice in Liverpool - in 1957 to help mark the 750th anniversary of the city’s royal charter, and again in 2008 as part of its programme as the European Capital of Culture. Emilia’s popularity among audiences on both occasions was not diminished by its somewhat sketchy impressions of Liverpool, which placed the town among forests and mountains not far north of London.
Samuel Bamford was one of the most radical of all Lancashire poets. He was born in 1788 in Middleton, near Oldham and Rochdale, and, like many of his contemporaries, started work as a weaver before discovering poetry. He sympathised with the downtrodden working classes and became even angrier at their treatment after Manchester’s ‘Peterloo Massacre’ of 1819, when the government’s forces broke up a peaceful gathering of workers campaigning for reform and universal suffrage, killing at least 15. Bamford, who had led a march to the site of the massacre, was imprisoned for a year. On his release, he wrote widely on the tribulations of the working classes and, after a spell of employment in London, returned to Lancashire and the job of weaving. His forthright, radical views alienated some, but his popularity was such that thousands turned out for his funeral in 1872.
Bamford was especially good at chronicling the experiences of Lancashire weavers and other workers who had seen their old ways of life overturned by the Industrial Revolution. This extract from ‘God Help The Poor’ is typical of his heartfelt if somewhat sentimental radicalism.
God help the poor, who on this wintry morn
Come forth of alleys dim, and courts obscure!
God help yon poor pale girl, who droops forlorn,
And meekly her affliction doth endure!
God help the outcast lamb! She trembling stands,
All wan her lips, and frozen rod her hands;
Her mournful eyes are modestly down cast,
Her night-black hair streams on the fitful blast;
Her bosom, passing fair, is half reveal’d,
And, oh! so cold, the snow lies there congeal’d;
Her feet benumb’d, her shoes all rent and worn:
God help thee, outcast lamb, who stand’st forlorn! God help the poor!
God help the poor! Another have I found,
A bow’d and venerable man is he;
His slouched hat with faded crape is bound;
His coat is grey, and thread-bare too, I see,
The rude winds seem to mock his hoary hair;
His shirtless bosom to the blast is bare.
Anon he turns, and casts a wistful eye,
And with scant napkin wipes the blinding spray;
And looks again, as if he fain would spy
Friends he hath feasted in his better day:
Ah! some are dead, and some have long forborne
To know the poor; and he is left forlorn! God help the poor!
God help the poor, who in lone valleys dwell,
Or by far hills, where whin and heather grow!
Theirs is a story sad indeed to tell;
Yet little cares the world, nor seeks to know
The toil and want poor weavers undergo.
The irksome loom must have them up at morn;
They work till worn-out nature will have sleep;
They taste, but are not fed. Cold snow drifts deep
Around the fireless cot, and blocks the door;
The night-storm howls a dirge o’er moss and moor.
And shall they perish thus, oppress’d and lorn?
Shall toil and famine hopeless, still be borne?
No! God will yet arise and help the poor!
Most of the rivers in Lancashire derive their names from Celtic words associated with water. Here are some of the major rivers and their meanings, together with a few of Lancashire’s canals and lakes.
Asland - Ash tree river. It is also known as the Douglas, meaning black or dark river
Blakewater - Black river. It gives its name to Blackburn
Brathay - Broad river
Bridgewater Canal - From the Dukes of Bridgewater, who planned and funded the canal
Brun - Brown river. The town of Burnley takes its name from it
Calder - ‘Hard’ stream, probably meaning rocky in this context
Chor - Unusual in that the river takes its name from the town it flows through, rather than the other way round
Cocker and Conder - Crooked river
Coniston Water - Named after the village of Coniston, meaning king’s settlement
Crake - Rocky river
Croal - Winding stream
Darwen - River where oak trees grow
Duddon - The origins of this river are uncertain, though it and the Duddon Valley could be named after a man called Dudda or similar
Esthwaite Water - Lake by the ash tree clearing
Greta - Stony stream
Hindburn - Hind’s stream
Hodder - Might take its name from the Celtic for boundary; it is the traditional border between Lancashire and the West Riding of Yorkshire
Irk - Possibly derived from the word for roebuck, indicating a fast-running river
Irwell - Winding stream
Kent - Holy river
Leven - Smooth-flowing river
Lune - Pure, health-giving river
Martin Mere - Settlement by the lake
Mersey - Boundary river
Ribble - Rushing or tearing river
Roch - Takes its name from the word meaning place with a homestead or hall
Roddlesworth - Probably derived from the homestead of Hrothwulf or similar name
Roeburn - River of the female roe deer
Sankey Canal - Named after the valley of the Sankey Brook down which it runs
Tame - Probably dark river, though its origins, like those of the Thames and other similarly named rivers, are the subject of debate
Wenning - Dark river
Windermere - The lake of Vinand or similar Scandinavian name
Winster - River on the left
Wyre - Winding river
Yarrow - Rough river
Rising from a grocer’s apprentice to a global business tycoon, the story of William Lever is remarkable enough in business terms alone. But Lever is also remembered as a man who revolutionised Victorian workers’ conditions and rights and - along perhaps with Henry Tate - as the greatest philanthropist in Lancashire’s history.
Lever was born in 1851 in Bolton and, in common with many of Lancashire’s great entrepreneurs, started work young, having left school at 15. Having joined his father’s modest grocery business, he stumbled upon the simple product that was to make his fortune - soap. Previously manufactured in huge slabs from which smaller pieces were cut as and when they were needed, Lever’s great idea was to package and sell individual bars to the public. His products - launched with the intention ‘to make cleanliness commonplace; to lessen work for women; to foster health and contribute to personal attractiveness’ - quite literally cleaned up Victorian Britain.
Lever’s brands like Sunlight Soap were soon hugely popular, and having joined forces with his brother, James, he opened a factory in Warrington to make his own, higher quality soap. Lever Brothers grew rapidly, and by the early 19th century had taken its products into more than 100 countries worldwide, established its own palm oil plantation in Africa, and diversified into countless other products. Lever became, successively, a baronet, lord and viscount and, not least, High Sheriff of Lancashire and Mayor of Bolton. His name lives on in the vast consumer goods empire of Unilever, and at the turn of the millennium he was voted fourth in a BBC poll to find Britain’s greatest ever business leader.
Perhaps remembering the squalid conditions of working class areas of Bolton, and inspired by strong religious beliefs, Lever’s philanthropy became evident as soon as he started to make money. Having opened new soap factories on the Wirral, he created Port Sunlight - a brand new ‘model’ village for his workers with spacious housing and facilities like schools and libraries. Lever’s companies’ pay and conditions were better than average, too, and he campaigned for workers’ rights after getting elected as an MP for the Wirral. He wasn’t the only businessman of his generation to think in this altruistic way - and his complicit role in forced labour at his African plantation indicates that his philanthropy had limits - but he was among the first and most determined of those who put their ideals of greater social equality into practice.
Lever also had a lasting impact on the village of Rivington, where he lived for many years and opened a park, tower, zoo, replica of the ruined Liverpool Castle and several other buildings for the benefit of local citizens. In nearby Bolton he funded schools and churches, and bought for the town Hall i’th Wood, the manor house of Samuel Crompton. He also bought the island of Lewis and Harris in the western Scottish isles, where the town of Leverburgh is named after him, and set up the Leverhulme Trust, which continues as a research and education charity today.
While traditional Lancashire delicacies like hot pot and black pudding have enjoyed something of a renaissance lately, tripe is a dish that, for younger generations at least, is largely consigned to history. Worse, it has become a cliché of unappealing food in northern England for those who have never been there. But before so many people became squeamish or patronising about it, cuts of offal like tripe were hugely popular across Lancashire as cheap, filling and nutritious alternatives to expensive prime fillets.
Tripe is the stomach lining of an animal - sometimes sheep, pigs or goats, but most often a cow. Beef tripe comes in several forms, depending on the chamber of the stomach from which it is taken, and can be flat or honeycombed in texture as a result. Lancashire once had hundreds of tripe shops and stalls specialising purely in this and other cheap cuts, serving mill and factory workers in the industrial towns and, in wartime, helping people overcome meat rationing. Changing tastes and bad memories associated with poorly cooked tripe mean these retailers have all but died out now, and these days you are much more likely to find it on the menus of restaurants in Italy or France than in Lancashire.
Good butchers, though, should still be able to sell you tripe, and they and its producers have tried to increase its appeal, by thoroughly cleaning and boiling it before sale to remove unpleasant odours, and treating it in citric solutions to bleach the colour white from its natural sludgy brown. Even after that, tripe requires another good cleaning before cooking, and prolonged boiling to soften it for eating. It is sometimes served simply with salt and vinegar or incorporated into stews or casseroles, but the classic Lancashire way has always been to pair it with lashings of onions in a creamy sauce.
A recipe for tripe and onions
500 g tripe, thoroughly washed and cleaned
3 medium onions
30 g butter
2 tbsp plain flour
1 tsp mustard
600 ml chicken stock
40 ml double cream
Salt and freshly ground black pepper
Cut the tripe into large pieces about 2 inches (5 cm) across, and thickly slice the onions. Melt the butter in a large pan and fry the onions over a low heat until softened. Add the flour and mustard and stir well, and then add the tripe pieces. After stirring again, pour in the stock, season with salt and pepper and boil for between one and two hours, or until the tripe is tender - cooking times can vary widely. Keep an eye on the consistency of the sauce towards the end of the cooking time, adding a little more stock or water if it’s too thick and letting a little out if it’s too thin. Just before serving, pour in the double cream and season again if required. Serve with mashed potato.
Lancashire’s towns, cities and countryside have inspired hundreds of writers over the centuries. From all-time classics to romantic sagas to contemporary literary fiction, this is a selection of ten books set in the county.
The Lancashire Witches by William Harrison Ainsworth An undervalued Victorian novel that blends the Gothic supernatural, romance and the political context of the Pendle witch hunts.
A Kind of Loving by Stan Barstow Lancashire town life forms the backdrop to a melancholy romance in this popular novel of the 1960s. It was turned into a film a couple of years after it was published and, along with its sequels, into a TV series in the 1980s. It is often bracketed in the social realist or ‘kitchen sink’ genres of fiction and drama.
Hard Times by Charles Dickens The town of Coketown in which this classic novel of industrial misery is set is fictional, but it was firmly inspired by Dickens’ visit to Preston in 1854 and his concern for the welfare of the men, women and children living and working there.
North and South by Elizabeth Gaskell A classic novel contrasting the poor industrial urban north of the working classes with the more affluent rural south. The northern town is called Milton in the novel, but is closely based on Manchester, where Gaskell lived for a while. The book was recently adapted for a popular BBC TV series. Gaskell’s Mary Barton was also set in Manchester.
Love on the Dole by Walter Greenwood Written in the early 1930s and set during a period of economic crisis in a poverty-stricken area of Salford where Greenwood grew up, this novel tells of the effects of unemployment on a single family. It was acclaimed for highlighting both the deprivation in northern England and the stoicism with which it was tackled, and was later adapted into a film, play and TV series.
Farewell to Lancashire by Anna Jacobs Just one of the many historical and romantic sagas set in the county by this prolific author. This one is told against the backdrop of Lancashire’s ‘cotton famine’ when the American Civil War hit the import of cotton into the county’s mills.
The Road to Wigan Pier by George Orwell Classic documentary of life in economically depressed Lancashire and other parts of northern England, published a few years before the Second World War. Orwell spent time in Wigan and nearby coal mines to research the book. He intended his title to be ironic, though the area around part of the canal running through the town is now known as Wigan Pier.
The Tales of Peter Rabbit by Beatrix Potter Most of Potter’s books for children were inspired by the creatures, people and places of the area around her home of Hill Top at Near Sawrey, just inside Lancashire’s borders in the far north of the county.
Mr Wroe’s Virgins by Jane Rogers The story of seven female disciples of John Wroe, a prophet of an apocalyptic church with its headquarters in Lancashire in the 1820s.
Oranges Are Not the Only Fruit by Jeanette Winterson Born in Manchester and brought up in Accrington in a heavily religious family, Winterson’s book is partly the story of her own complicated Lancashire childhood.
As chosen by the county’s leading magazine, Lancashire Life.
Liverpool Anglican Cathedral
Manchester Town Hall
Pendle Hill
St Walburge’s Church, Preston
Blackpool Tower
The Ashton Memorial, Lancaster
The Old Man of Coniston
