{"id":694693,"date":"2026-07-16T11:20:10","date_gmt":"2026-07-16T11:20:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/694693\/"},"modified":"2026-07-16T11:20:10","modified_gmt":"2026-07-16T11:20:10","slug":"where-tourists-seldom-tread-part-21-two-northern-powerhouses-on-the-rise-once-more-england-holidays","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/694693\/","title":{"rendered":"Where tourists seldom tread, part 21: two northern powerhouses on the rise once more | England holidays"},"content":{"rendered":"

This double act of \u201cLancashire\u201d locations is my final celebration of Britain\u2019s bypassed towns. My native county has dominated my life of late<\/a>, and one key question asked in these columns has been: can you holiday right at home?<\/p>\n

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The French author Xavier de Maistre believed you could fit a journey inside a single room<\/a>. And in Instructions on How to Climb a Staircase the Argentine-French writer Julio Cort\u00e1zar turned a walk upstairs into a quest. An entire county offers enough adventures to fill a life.<\/p>\n

Touring seldom-trod places, I\u2019ve witnessed a lot of regeneration and redevelopment, demolition and disappearance. Preston, my closest city, has a \u00a345m leisure complex<\/a>, a revamped museum and a new bridge over the River Ribble, with lots more planned. St Helens, my childhood town \u2013 proudly in historic Lancashire, but administered as Merseyside, and now part of the Liverpool city region \u2013 looks and feels like a drawing board at the moment. But both are changing for the better, if you look beyond the frayed fabric of their townscapes.<\/p>\n

PrestonSt Walburge\u2019s church, Preston. Photograph: Paul Melling\/Alamy<\/p>\n

At first, I was struck by the city\u2019s low-slung eastern edges, as if land had been cleared. It was simply that areas have been Americanised \u2013 all squat, boxed retail, yawning carparks, and ring roads. It left me feeling flat. But Preston began to grow on me the minute I stood beneath the extraordinary hypodermic spire of St Walburge\u2019s church<\/a> \u2013 the tallest parish church in the UK, designed by Joseph Hansom (of cab fame), and a testament to the strong Roman Catholic presence in \u201cPriest\u2019s Town\u201d. Looking up signifies hope; doing it is primitive cognitive therapy.<\/p>\n

Then I discovered the imposing Harris museum and gallery<\/a>, which reopened after a \u00a319m<\/a> refurbishment last September. It\u2019s become the place to go for art, local history, textiles, fashion, ceramics, coffee, library books \u2013 the ultimate rainy-day or, indeed, heatwave refuge. It\u2019s a regional treasure (and perhaps the Ashmolean and British Museum might like to return the complete Cuerdale hoard<\/a>, the largest Viking hoard found in England, unearthed beside the River Ribble).<\/p>\n

I used the Harris a lot while doing jury service at the crown court and turned my walks to town from the park-and-ride into sightseeing tours. Highlights include the brutalist bus station<\/a> and Guild Hall, built for an unrealised new town<\/a>; the monument to the 1842 martyrs<\/a> gunned down by infantry and coppers during the General Strike; the Victorian market hall and court and Miller Arcade; Winckley Square with its park and Georgian terraces; St Wilfrid\u2019s, St John\u2019s Minster, the Saint Alphonsa Syro-Malabar Cathedral.<\/p>\n

Preston\u2019s brutalist bus station. Photograph: Radharc Images\/Alamy<\/p>\n

Made a city in 2002, Preston has long been a place of power and influence. It\u2019s where the cotton-town trail through east Lancashire<\/a> begins, geographically and chronologically. Richard Arkwright, father of the factory system and co-creator of the water-powered spinning frame, was born here in 1732. Centenary Mill was built for the empire-spanning textile firm Horrockses, Crewdson & Co<\/a> \u2013 its magnificent chimney was mammon\u2019s shameless challenge to the churches; an annexe off the yard contains a magical emporium of antiques, and fixtures and fittings culled from mouldering mansions.<\/p>\n

double quotation markI respect the temperance movement that started in Preston, but love the Black Horse \u2013 to me, Preston\u2019s most beautiful old pub<\/p>\n

Industry, one way or another, led to many of Preston\u2019s other inventions. Temperance and teetotalism, spearheaded by the nearby Walton-le-Dale\u2019s Joseph Livesey<\/a>, son of a clothier, were partly reactions to urban \u201cimmorality\u201d. Professional football was what professional workers wanted on Saturdays. Preston North End was a founder member of the English Football League. Deepdale, on the same site since 1875, is one of England\u2019s oldest grounds. Dick, Kerr Ladies<\/a>, founded in 1917, was one of the first women\u2019s teams.<\/p>\n

In fine fettle \u2026 the interior of the Black Horse pub. Photograph: Kevin Walsh\/Alamy<\/p>\n

I respect the temperance movement, but love the Black Horse <\/a>\u2013 to me, Preston\u2019s most beautiful old pub, with etched windows, fixed snug-like seating, gorgeous tiling and a rare ceramic bar. Trad spaces have been complemented by new food venues, with the cool Korean restaurant Kimji<\/a>, authentic Spanish dishes at Pintxos<\/a> and modern British at Aven<\/a>.<\/p>\n

When they hacked up counties in the 1974 local government overhaul, they accidentally made Preston a future \u201ccapital\u201d of sorts. It\u2019s beginning to live up to the billing.<\/p>\n

A little bird (an old pigeon outside the Harris, actually) tells me Manchesterism<\/a> is misnamed. The big central idea, of local authorities exerting control and investing in a place, comes from Preston \u2013 with local living standards rising fast<\/a> as a result. Manchester\u2019s former mayor Andy Burnham has acknowledged this<\/a>. Prestonism may yet change Britain and the world, all over again.
Things to see and do: walk or cycle the 21-mile Guild Wheel<\/a>, Tram Bridge<\/a>, Preston England Temple<\/a> and the Devil\u2019s House<\/a> on St Wilfrid Street, Ribble Steam Railway and Museum<\/a><\/p>\n

St HelensReflection Court on Canal Street, St Helens. Photograph: Radharc Images\/Alamy<\/p>\n

Till now, I had never been inside St Helens Minster<\/a>, though I was born nearby. In my defence, it was just the parish church till May of this year, when the name was changed<\/a> to reflect its role as mother-church of the whole community.<\/p>\n

The town began here, with four ancient rural manors ranged around a chapel of ease where wayfarers could rest and pray. Windle, Parr, Sutton, Eccleston; old names that contain even prettier-sounding villages: Clinkham Wood, Thatto Heath, Nutgrove. St Helens was once fields. Then it was shops, pits and workplaces. Now it\u2019s something else.<\/p>\n

double quotation markThere were originally nine bottle shops \u2013 factories \u2013 making up the largest glass bottle production site in the world<\/p>\n

Two big things are unfolding to that end. One looks small on a map but is mightily symbolic. Conservation work is progressing at No 7 Cannington Shaw Bottle Shop<\/a>. Built in 1886, there were originally nine such shops \u2013 factories \u2013 making up the largest glass bottle production site in the world. This lovely redbrick circular building, with a classic conical roof, is the sole survivor, occupying a rare patch of rough land beside a big Tesco and Saints\u2019 flashy rugby league arena<\/a>. Once tons of molten glass were heated here, with glassblowers scooping up gobs to skilfully inflate, shape and place in a mould to create bottles.<\/p>\n

On the first Saturday of every month, No 7 Cannington Shaw Bottle Shop now hosts artisan craft markets, with a bar and food stalls. After serving as an air raid shelter and storage depot, the site was abandoned and was only spared demolition by happy accident. John Tabern, director of the project, says: \u201cAs an ex-glassman, it\u2019s extremely important to me. I\u2019m proud of St Helens and want people to know its story. But we must monetise it with gigs and markets and all those things.\u201d<\/p>\n

No 7 Cannington Shaw Bottle Shop. Photograph: Liam Bluck\/Alamy<\/p>\n

The other thing is large on the map, equally important, if less evocative. Following blitz-level demolition, a large area east and south of the town hall is being given a new bus station, homes, offices, a hotel, green spaces, piazzas and \u201crevitalised retail spaces\u201d.<\/p>\n

They\u2019re always knocking things down here. But the Gamble building will soon house a smart new library, youth space and offices<\/a>. This and the town hall are solid examples of redbrick Victoriana. The Beecham\u2019s building<\/a>, built in 1887, cost a fortune at the time and is topped by a coquettish clock tower. Its founder, Thomas Beecham, began selling laxatives to costive Wiganers; St Helens, like a crucible, allowed his business to flourish. The smart St Helens college faces the former HQ and the marriage of old and new works well.<\/p>\n

Reflection Court, the old Pilkington\u2019s headquarters on Canal Street, has a streamlined brick facade, influenced by the architecture of the Dutch modernist Willem Marinus Dudok. The former Pilkington\u2019s complex at Alexandra Park on the edge of town was built by modernist architects Jane Drew and Maxwell Fry \u2013 who collaborated with Walter Gropius and Le Corbusier. Everything seems to be earmarked for apartment conversions.<\/p>\n

I leave town via the Book Stop<\/a> community bookstore, which I have \u201cshares\u201d in and where I gave a talk on my recent Lancashire book earlier this year. With no prompting from me, the manager titled it \u201cDon\u2019t Call Us Merseyside\u201d. The newer \u201cLiverpool City Region\u201d is equally unpopular. I pass a church that, as a child, I thought was huge and ominous. Renowned architectural historian Nikolaus Pevsner wasn\u2019t overly keen on St Mary\u2019s Lowe House<\/a> Catholic church, but I like the competing Byzantine dome and gothic tower. It\u2019s as if the architect couldn\u2019t make up his mind. The brickwork is black \u2013 the patina of two centuries of factory fumes. I pass the Turks Head pub, routinely lauded by Camra<\/a>, and FC St Helens, where the rugby league team played in the 1880s.<\/p>\n

The Camra-lauded Turks Head pub. Photograph: PSC-Photography\/Alamy<\/p>\n

Finally, I come to St Helens cemetery and crematorium. I have been here too often this past couple of decades. St Helens was built on furnaces; this one is still busy. I head to an area beyond the neat ranks of modern gravestones, walking on a path that, from the sky, is heart-shaped. In the wooded corner stands St Helens most ancient structure: Windleshaw Chantry<\/a>, dating from 1415, when this was open countryside.<\/p>\n

Beneath it is a large tomb, with a flat tablet full of abbreviated words. Spelled out, they say, \u201cHere lie the remains of Jean Baptiste Fran\u00e7ois Graux de la Bruyere \u2013 He was the first Who brought to Perfection A Work of very considerable Magnitude And Importance To the Commercial Interest of the British Nation.\u201d This immigrant from Picardy, who died in 1787, aged 48, is thought to be the hero who brought glass-making to St Helens. I\u2019m sure he\u2019d be pleased that the town is at last celebrating his legacy.
Things to see and do: World of Glass<\/a>, The Book Stop<\/a>, North West Museum of Road Transport<\/a>, the Dream sculpture<\/a>, Caf\u00e9 Laziz<\/a><\/p>\n

Where Tourists Seldom Tread: Postcards from Bypassed Towns by Chris Moss is published by Guardian Faber (\u00a320). To support the Guardian, order your copy for \u00a316 at guardianbookshop.com<\/a>. Delivery charges may apply. Chris Moss will be talking about the book at the Harris in Preston on 30 July<\/a><\/p>\n