Around Preston

Chorley is the next town of any size heading south from Preston on the A6. It is maybe a fifth the size of Preston in terms of population, and to be honest does not have much to recommend it in the town centre from an architectural point of view. Market Street is the main shopping road, running south to north. This would have been the A6 at one time, but the A6 now runs east of the centre, besides the railway, over a string of roundabouts. There is a River Chor, but the river takes its name from the town, rather than the other way around. The principle river in the Yarrow, which skirts the south of the town, and I never actually saw it. I suspect it is very much reduced, with most of its water going to Anglezark reservoir , and hence to Wigan. So this is the south end of Market Street, and the White Bull pub. And a bit further up in the Lamplighter. The brickwork looks brand new, but apparently one of Chorley's oldest pubs. On the other side is Pearsons. Beyond this the road is sem...

 Bolton is comparable to Preston in size, a population of 139k rather than 156k. Its proximity to Manchester makes it less important in an administrative sense - it is only a town, while Preston is a city - but as part of Greater Manchester there is a sense of it being a part of something bigger. It is notably bigger than the other towns I have visited recently. That said, like all the others, it is a mill town at heart. It was served by two stations. Great Moor Street Station was built by the Bolton & Leigh Railway in 1831, connecting Bolton to the Manchester & Liverpool Railway. It passed into the hands of the LNWR, who moved it a little northwards, in 1871. It was only ever a terminus and it closed to passengers in 1954. Nothing now remains of it, it lies under Morrisons. The second station, Trinity Street was built by the L&Y just to the east of Great Moor Street, in 1838, and was rather more successful, as it extended northwest to Preston, and northeast to Bla...