Around Preston

 Lostock Hall is about 3 miles south of Preston, just west of Bamber Bridge. The centre, where the shops are, was called Tardy Gate at one time, but the name is slowly disappearing, and most people consider it all to be Lostock Hall. According to Wiki, it was established by James de Lostock who in 1212 built Lostock's Hall. It gives its name to the River Lostock, which flows past the south of the town, having passed through Cuerden Valley Park and past Bamber Bridge, on its way to the Ribble, via the Yarrow and Douglas. The hall that gives the town its name still exists - though was rebuilt in 1764, following a fire. It was donated to Preston Royal Infirmary in WW1, and became St Catherine's Hospice in the mid-eighties. Unfortunately, this makes it hard to get photos. There were three mills. Just west of the centre, Tardy Gate Mill was built in 1908, and still exists, its chimney visible for miles around. It is actually quite an attractive building, unfortunately rather obscure...

Meadow Street starts at North Road (the A6) just north of the bus station and heads north east to Deepdale Lane. I only recently discovered the road, and have never ventured inside any of the pubs. It is a little community of shops I was unaware of, and looks to be doing well, even if most of the pubs are not. To the north of the western end is the Syro-Malabar Cathedral of St Alphonsa.  This seems to be a sect of the Catholic church based in India. The building was, until 2016, St. Ignatius Church. On the opposite side, and just slightly to the east, is what used to be the Clover . I am guess it has not been closed long. Looks like it is now accommodation. Nearby was the Meadow Arms , later Mister Pickwicks , and now accommodation (this will be a repeated story). [sorry no photo, but you can see it here ] A bit further down, this was the Fleece , and only closed in 2019 (and may have been the New fleece Inn ). Slightly off Meadow Street, previously at the north end of Egan St...

At one time the Ribble, after passing under Penwortham New Bridge, continued some way north, to about where the BMW showrooms are, before heading west through Morrison's car park. There was a quay on the bend, later known as Old Quay, and a small tidal dock (about 100 m long), with a ship yard just slightly further down river, and the Ship Inn across the road from that. The road is now called Watery Lane. The Ship Inn was replace by the New Ship Inn, which is now Ignite.  This area was known as Marsh End, and was where the Moor Brook (also known as the Swansea Gutter downstream from around the Wheatsheaf)  joined the Ribble. A new quay,  original called New Quay, but soon renamed Victoria Quay, was built, in 1825, a  little way upriver, at the bottom of Marsh Lane, together with a warehouse, Victoria Warehouse, and an inn, New Quay Inn. The facilities, which included three "tipping machines" (I guess for unloading railway wagons of coal into ships) extended...

 For the purposes of this, I consider the city centre to be north of Fishergate and south of the ringroad. I appreciate Fishergate is pretty central, but it will probably gets a page on its own. We will start on a high! The Black Horse is an excellent, old-fashioned pub that I thoroughly recommend to any visitor to Preston. It is an attractive pub inside and out, with good beer too. Built (or rebuilt) in 1898. The Farms Arms Hotel , more recently the Jolly Farmer was an impressive building in Market Street, A image from ca. 1980 here . It looks like this building replaced an earlier structure seen here . The Market Tavern is another good pub that is still open. Just north of the Jolly Farmer, on Market Street, but because of how Market Street got bisected for the ring road, it is now rather tucked away and easy to miss.  Definitely worth a visit though! Still on Market Street, and in fact the other end of the building to the Jolly Farmer was the George Hotel . You can see w...

This is a walk I took the first weekend on March 2020. I actually did it in two parts, just because I did not know where I was going and happened to be in the area both days, but I will describe as though it was a single continuous journey. It is not long; perhaps 40 minutes end to end. Some of it was very muddy, and bits are not suitable for pushchairs or wheel chairs. It is fairly flat. I started from the mini-roundabout at the east end of St Vincents Road, when it meets Sharoe Green Lane, and walked along Fairways, and a very short way along The Paddocks, where there is a gate on the left. A footpath leads down to a small stream. Not sure if the stream has a name. but it seems to rise within North Preston Employment Area. It heads more-or-less south, and the path follows it on the east side, to meet the Savick Brook. The downstream end of the Savick Brook has become part of the Lancaster Canal, and was discussed on another page . Upstream, the Savick Brook passes though Preston Golf...

 I had a look at the real south end of the Lancaster Canal, where it originally ended when it was built. The canal was built to transport coal north from the Wigan coalfields, so it starts there, at a place now called Top Lock, a couple of miles northeast of Wigan town centre. Within a few years of the Lancaster Canal being built, the Leeds Liverpool Canal (LLC) connected to it, and after a while that section was leased and later purchased by the Leeds Liverpool, and so today it is known by that name, but it was originally part of the Lancaster Canal. History The engineer of the Lancaster Canal clearly disliked locks, which is very reasonably, given they require maintenance and water, plus they are a bottleneck. As far as I can see there were none on the southern section, and I do not think there were any on the northern section either as originally built (the Glasson dock branch has several). I wonder if the southern section is at the same height as the northern section, to ensure...