There is a Blue Plaque Trail in the city
centre which is just under two miles and takes about 40 minutes. It begins on
Fylde Road at The Ferret Pub. In 1796 John Horrocks built Preston’s first
steam-powered cotton mill here. Horrocks was a well known cotton manufacturer
and MP for Preston. His reputation for producing high quality cottons and
muslins was second to none.
Leaving
The Ferret, the trail moves on past Stocks Street and Maudland Rd, up Corporation
Street, passing Kendal Street, St Edwards Street and Marsh Lane. It crosses the Ringway then
passes the Premier Inn and on into Fox Street, to a building that was once St Wilfrid’s Catholic School. Here is a plaque commemorating the Reverend Joseph
'Daddy' Dunn. He led the Catholic Mission for 51 years and was a founder member
of the Preston Library and Philosophical Society. His perhaps main claim to fame
is that he founded the Preston Gaslighting Company leading to Preston being the
first town outside the capital to have gas street lighting.
For blue plaque number three, return down Fox Street onto Lune
Street and continue towards Friargate and on the corner of Orchard Street is the house
where Benjamin Franklin, one of the founders of the United States of America,
stayed when visiting his son-in-law Richard Bache.
For the last of the first four plaques on the trail, one
must walk to Church Street and seek out a plaque which is not on a building but
on a gate. This is on Stoneygate and it is near the site of a building once used
for the unsavoury pastime of cock fighting - The Old Cockpit. It closed as a
cockfighting venue in about 1830 and it was here the social reformer Joseph
Livesey, the great temperance campaigner, drew up the first public pledge of
total abstinence.
There is further to travel and more plaques to see, so I
hope you will join me next time.
Barbara Hothersall
A
popular pastime of mine, when pottering around strange towns and cities studying
the architecture etc, is 'Blue Plaque spotting'. and thus discovering which
notable folk from the past had lived behind the walls on which the plaques were
displayed. They are sometimes attached rather high for someone of small stature
to read, but usually I can make out the name if not the information accompanying
it. Blue plaques began in London in 1866 and were organised by the Royal Society
of Arts who had appointed a committee to "consider how they might promote the
erection of memorials of persons eminent in Arts, Manufacture and Commerce". The
idea was the brainchild of William Gladstone MP in 1863. Originally they were
referred to as 'memorials', the first one erected in London was to Lord Byron.
English Heritage has now taken on the scheme. Preston is, of course, the home of
several blue plaques and over the next few issues of the church magazine I shall
try to cover them all. I am sure readers will supply me with names if any are
omitted.