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Kirkby

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Another one that strains the definition of "around Preston", Kirkby is a town 6 miles northeast of Liverpool, and 20 southsoutheast of Preston. Until the 1930s, it was a small village, with a railway station and hotel, and a couple of dozen houses. Then World War 2 happened, and a plot of land was selected for a munitions factory - Kirkby Royal Ordinance Factory. The site opened in 1940, and employed over 20,000 people, served by the railway, with its own station to get workers to and from the place. I have read it proved 10% of the ammunition used in the war. After the war, the site was repurposed as an industrial estate, and at the same time the city of Liverpool was looking to build new houses, and the result is a town that now has a population over 40,000. To be honest, the only feature of any great significance is the church of St Chad, the foundations of which date to before the Norman conquest, though the building itself was built 1869-71. It is grade II* listed. The s...
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West Lancashire Railway

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Not to be confused with the West Lancashire Light Railway, a heritage narrow-gauge railway in Tarleton. The West Lancashire Railway was set up to connect Preston and Southport, and had its own termini at each end. It closed in 1964, and very little remains of the route, and this page tries to catalogue what can still be seen. For photos of it when it was still a railway, here  is a good place to start. It started at Fishergate Hill station, at the bottom of Fishergate Hill, Preston. the station opened in 1882, and closed to passengers just 20 years later, when the railway was taken over by Lancashire and Yorkshire Railway, with trains then using the L&Y main station at the top of the hill. It remained as a goods depot until 1965, but has now been demolished, and even the embankment it was on has gone. The south end is not a park, allowing the space where the station was to be made out.  The north end has disappeared under houses and shops. Out of the station, the...
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