Preston - The Cenotaph

The northern edge of the Flag Market is dominated by Preston's Cenotaph built to honour the dead of World War One, and unveiled in 1926 by the English Admiral Earl Jellicoe (1859-1935).   A tribute to the dead from World War Two has also since been included.  

'Cenotaph' derives from two Greek words meaning "empty tomb"  indicating the monument is honouring people whose remains are elsewhere.    The top of the monument is made to look like an empty coffin. 

The memorial was designed by the English architect, Sir Giles Gilbert Scott (1880-1960), who also designed the famous, red Jubilee telephone boxes which have become an icon of Britain.  If you look down the street to the left of the memorial you will see a whole line of his phone boxes - almost like a tribute to his talent.  

Other famous creations of his include Battersea Power Station (London), Waterloo Bridge (London) and Liverpool Anglican cathedral.  His very rectangular style is present in much of his work.

The central sculpture of “Victory” is by Henry Alfred Pegram (1862-1937).  His sculptures can be found in London, Norwich, New Zealand,  Birmingham, Cape Town, Cardiff, Liverpool and Shanghai. 

Restoration work on the memorial was carried out between 2013 and 2014 in preparation for the centenary of World War one in 2014.

Incidentally it was Scott's grandfather Sir George Gilbert Scott who designed the glorious Town Hall which once stood on the south side of this market square.

This northern edge of the square once stood beneath a row of houses, and the entrance to Friargate was a lot narrower - making the square a fair bit smaller than it appears today.

Previously on this spot stood a different war memorial.  This was built in memory to the fallen of the Boer War.  The monument was moved to Avenham Park where it still stands.

Preston's recognition of its war dead does not stop here.  Inside the Harris Museum carved in stone are the names of around 2,000 casualties of the first world war.  It is a sobering experience to stand on the stairs in the foyer of the Harris and look at the names of so many snatched away by a horrific war.  

this is an extract from the FREE tour of Preston Flag Market found on www.obelisktours.co.uk

Preston - 33 Market Place

As you look at the modern shops fronts on the west side of Preston's Flag Market it immediately becomes apparent that Thomas Yates the Jewellers is a rare gem squeezed between some rather bland, modern buildings.   Built circa 1580, this timber framed  building has the distinction of being the oldest shop in Preston.

For over four centuries this building has watched the market square transformed.  It is a Grade II listed building which started life as a town mansion, and by the 1690’s was the home for the town’s surgeon, Dr. Wortton.  The mansion used to be much larger including numbers 34 and 35, but when Dr. Wortton left it was split into three properties.    So began four hundred years of housing various traders at number 33 Market Place.  These included Straw Hat Manufacturers, Painters & Glaziers, Fruiterers, Drapers, Grocers, Coffee and Wine Dealers, Engravers & Copper Plate Printers, Basket & Skip Manufacturers, Chemists, Fish, Fowl & Poultry Merchant, Linen & Wool Drapers, Tobacconists and finally a Jewellers.

Thomas Yates the Jewellers

Thomas Yates (1811-1892) opened his own watchmaker’s shop on Friargate in 1840, and traded in Preston through most of Queen Victoria’s reign.  Thomas was famous for inventing the slow beat lever in watches in 1846.

The business has continued since then with various locations and owners, and moved into these premises in 1983.   Thus one of the oldest businesses in Preston is now housed in the oldest shop in Preston.

From the FREE tour of Preston Flag Market on www.obelisktours.co.uk

Preston - bull baiting

Beneath your feet is a little bit of history that often goes unnoticed.  It may look like a poor bodged job of landscaping, but you can see the remnants of an iron ring once used for the cruel sport of baiting.  Many towns and villages would have a baiting ring and it was a popular form of entertainment.   A bull, and sometimes even a bear,  would have a collar placed around its neck and would then be tethered to a stake or iron ring like this one.

Dogs would then be released on the captive animal and attempt to bring it down by grabbing it by the nose which would bring it to the ground.  The struggling, tossing and fighting would often end in death for either the dogs or the bull.   The bull was on its way to the slaughter house anyway, so this was seen not only as a way to have a bit of ‘fun’ and a wager but also as a means of tenderising the meat. 

 This sport was how the Bulldog got his name.  In one aspect they could be ferocious yet they rarely complain and only bark when there is real reason.    A good bulldog would bite on and not let go.  It is no wonder that the Bulldog has been used to symbolise England and Winston Churchill.

A French visitor to England witnessed a bull baiting and reported:

“After a coming Bull-baiting had been advertised, the bull, decorated with flowers or coloured ribbons would be paraded round the streets of the town, and the dog which pulled off the favours in the subsequent baiting would be especially cheered by the spectators.  The parade ended, the bull, with a rope tied round the root of his horns, would be fastened to a stake with an iron ring in it, situated in the centre of the ring.”

The sport was eventually declared illegal by the Cruelty to Animals Act in 1835 which protected the rights of bulls, dogs, bears and sheep and prohibited bear baiting and cockfighting.  

This is an excerpt from the FREE tour Preston Flag Market found on www.obelisktours.co.uk

Preston - Miller Arcade

Welcome to Preston’s skyscraper!

Granted this does not look like a towering New York skyscraper, but the Miller Arcade was built on the same principle with an internal steel frame.   The exterior as described as “Italianate terracotta façade”.

The arcade is named after Nathaniel Miller a Preston dentist and relative of the powerful Thomas Miller family.  Their wealth had been created by the cotton trade

This arcade, opened in 1901, was designed as an exclusive shopping emporium.  In 1957 its new owners renamed it as Arndale House, but in 1972 another set of owners restored it to its original ‘Miller Arcade.’ 

In 1962 the British drama film, A Kind of Loving, used the Arcade as one of its filming locations.   The film starred Alan Bates, and Thora Hird

 

An excerpt from the FREE tour of Preston Flag Market.  Available on www.obelisktours.co.uk 

Preston - Harris Museum and Art Gallery

This majestic Grade 1 listed building (which houses a museum, library, art gallery, café and shop) was officially opened in 1893 as a result of the generosity of Edmund Robert Harris who bequeathed over £300,000 to Preston in memory of his father, Reverend Robert Harris.   

His will stated: "to establish or build and endow a convalescent hospital, or orphanage, or almshouses, or literary or scientific institutions , or free library, or all of them, or any other charitable institution or institution of public utility which the trustees may think fit and proper and which may contribute to perpetuate the remembrance of my father and his family in the town."

Today his gift of  £300,768 would equate to over £29 million.  One third of the sum was allocated to the building and furnishing of the Free Library, Museum and Art Gallery.  The remainder was used to establish the Harris Institute and the Harris Orphanage. 

The “Bequest of Edmund Robert Harris” still benefits the people of Preston today. The endowment funds are controlled, as in the past, by 12 Trustees. There are two funds, one attached to the “Harris Free Library, Museum and Art Gallery” and the other to ”The Harris Orphanage” which is now part of the University’s “Knowledge Park”.

The Harris Museum contains a delightful mixture of art (including  800 + oil paintings), ceramics, glass, and  textiles.  The Museum’s permanent exhibition ‘Story of Preston’ is well worth a visit and includes curiosities ranging from a 13,500 year old Elk to a delightful model of the world’s largest cotton factory.  

The internal decoration includes reminders of antiquity including replicas of significant friezes and sculptures.   Some of the original replicas have since vanished, but there are still plenty to enjoy.  The Victorian Society lauded the Harris as "a remarkably distinguished example of neoclassical architecture and one of the great Victorian public buildings of the North of England."

The aim of the Harris is simple:

“We are proud guardians of our founders’ intention, inscribed on the outside of the building which states that: ‘The mental riches you may here acquire abide with you always.’ “

 The Harris Foundation Stone

The Harris Free Library, Museum and Art Gallery was designed by a local architect, Alderman James Hibbert. The foundation stone was laid, with a Masonic Ceremonial by the Earl of Lathom, during the guild celebrations of 1882. 

The Earl was a second choice as The Duke of Albany was the original celebrity of choice.  The Duke fell ill so all the souvenir  medals bearing his name had to be scrapped and replacement medals with the Earl's details quickly made.

On a rainy Tuesday, 5 September 1882, a procession left the old Guild Hall and went through the streets of central Preston ending here at the future building site.   As the Earl of Lathom arrived he was met by a trumpet fanfare.  During the ceremony coins and an engraved copper plate were placed on a stone before the laying of the foundation stone on top.  There is some uncertainty about where this is located, but seems probable it is in the north west corner of the site where the market place and Harris Street meet.

A ceremonial opening of the completed Harris took place, by Lord Derby, in October 1893, but no part of the building was open to the public until the 1st January 1894 when the Lending Library, Newsroom and Reading Room opened. The Reference Library, Picture and Sculpture galleries opened on the 1st January 1896.

This is an excerpt from the FREE tour of Preston Flag Market found on www.obelisktours.co.uk

Lancashire: Preston Poverty

Many Victorian visitors to Preston were struck by the poverty of the cotton workers.

Religious ministers from Reverends to Mormon missionaries were understandably appalled at the living conditions they encountered.  On their first day in Britain in Liverpool (1837) Heber C. Kimball recorded,

"...wealth and luxury abound, side by side with penury and want. I there met the rich attired in the most costly dresses, and the next minute was saluted with the cries of the poor with scarce covering sufficient to screen them ...

Upon arriving in Preston he witnessed some even more dramatic scenes:

"Such sufferings I never witnessed before. The scenes which I daily beheld were enough to chill the blood in my veins. The streets were crowded with men, women and children who begged from the passengers as they walked along. Numbers of the poor, wretched beings were without shoes or stockings, and scarcely any covering to screen them from the inclemency of the weather; and daily I could discover delicate females walking the streets gathering up the animal refuse, and carrying it to places where they could sell it for a penny or half-penny. And thus they lived through the winter." (Whitney, p. 189)

In a letter to his wife, Orson Hyde observed:

They are extremely poor, most of them not having a change of clothes decent to be baptized in, but they have open hearts and strong faith. We have taught them nothing about the gathering for they have no means to bring them to America, let alone procuring a place…. The brethren will frequently divide the last loaf with us, and will do all in their power for us… They are very kind to us where we are, but their circumstances will not allow them to do much for us without pay. I have frequently seen the tender and delicate females with their old pails or baskets in the streets gathering up fresh horse dung with their naked hands, and then go and sell it and get a penny or two’s worth of bread for themselves and hungary [sic] children… (Barron p. 97)

In January 1840 Wilford Woodruff arrived in Preston and observed:

The streets were crowded with the poor both male and female going to and from the factories with their wooden clog shoes on, which make a great rattling over the pavement. The poor are in as great bondage as the children of Israel in Egypt. (Woodruff, p.405)

So...
the above quotes are the voices of Mormon missionaries. What about the other voices? What were local observations of these same scenes? I'm just going to share one quote with you today for you to compare.

The following comes from the pen of Rev. J. Johns of Liverpool as recorded in Joseph Livesey's paper the Moral Reformer printed in Preston on Jan. 27, 1838:

"Within these few months, I have seen, what, had I not seen it, I could not have imagined.  ...Few could have seen the scenes which have passed under my eyes (especially during the month of the late trying winter) without feeling that the times has indeed arrived, when man should go forth to the relief of his brother.

Mothers, newly become such without a garment on their persons, and with infants nearly as naked, lying upon straws or shavings, under a miserable covering, without fire or food, or the means of precuring them; children taken from their schools, in order to earn by begging...

...mothers of families only able to provide necessities for their children by pawning their little all, or by incurring debts whereever they could be trusted.

...infirm and aged people, who were shivering out the last hours of life in absolute want of everything that could sustain or endear it.

Sobering stuff!!

More quotes and details can be found in the FREE app tour of Preston Flag Market  and, for an in-app purchase, the tour of LDS Preston.  Both tours can be found via www.obelisktours.co.uk

Sources
Barron, Howard H. Orson Hyde: Missionary. Apostle. Colonizer. Horizon Publishers, Bountiful, Utah (1978)
Livesey, Joseph. The Moral Reformer. Preston Jan. 27, 1838 p. 26
Whitney, Orson. Life of Heber C. Kimball. Bookcraft, Salt Lake, Utah (1888)
Woodruff, Wilford, Wilford Woodruff Journals, edited by Scott G. Kenney. Midvale, Utah, Signature Books, 1983.

Lancashire - Preston squalor

Industrial Victorian Britain was an amazing place with staggering output making our tiny island one of the main players on the international trading scene.  However, arm in arm with that impressive production came squalor and poverty.

Preston Lancashire was a cotton town which suffered fiercely from poor conditions.  Following are two lists compiled by a Prestonian called Joseph Livesey. He was a dynamo of a man who helped found the teetotal movement, and had a huge impact on improving the working conditions of the working class of Preston.   I want to share his list of "Things I do not like to see" and another one entitled "I don't like the smell from..." I like these lists because they add a sense of smell and everyday life to the Victorian Preston picture.

Remember these were both written in 1838. My remarks are written in italics:

"Things I do not like to see..."

•  A workhouse funeral almost without attendance.
• an orphan girl tempted to walk the streets for the purpose of prostitution.
• a country overseer putting out a poor woman by her shoulders.
• a poor lad going to the factory very much out of health.
• the bailiffs carrying the bed and chairs of a poor widow to the obelisk, to sell for rent.
•  a street of houses nearly all uninhabited. (many families moved in with others so they could share the rent. This was called 'huddling', but left many homes vacant)
• all the public pumps dry in hot weather.
• a window blind drawn up on one side twelve inches higher than the other. (Right....now you're getting picky :0) 
• orange peels thrown on the footpath (!!)

Joseph Livesey, Moral Reformer, Saturday February 10, 1838, p.45

"I dont' like the smell from..."

• a bedroom where the windows have never been open for days and weeks together (this man obviously never had teenage sons)
• Dirty straw which has laid some time in a damp cellar.
• a cart taking away dung from the privies during the day time.
• wiskets filled with fish upon a coach. (Wisket? I think it is a basket?)
• the dead carcasses of dogs and other animals thrown into pools of stagnant water.
• the effluvia from a person who perspires freely but seldom washes. (Try Lynx)
• a drunkards breath in a morning after a fuddle. (Fuddle = a drinking binge... or so I'm told)
• a cart laden with gas tar. (What's that??)
• a corpse kept too long in hot weather. 

Joseph Livesey, Moral Reformer, March 24, 1838, p. 10

You can experience a FREE app tour of the Preston Flag Market on www.obelisktours.co.uk

Preston - The Age of Pericles

On the pediment of the Harris Museum in Preston is “The Age of Pericles” sculpted by Edwin Roscoe Millins (1848-1907)

Pericles, who is the central figures in this frieze, was an influential General, Statesman, Orator and Patron of the Arts.   The period he led Athens (4651 – 429 BC) is often referred to as the Age of Pericles.   The rest of the sculptures surrounding him are famous figures who all excelled in the fields Pericles promoted.

In order, from left to right, we have:

Historian: Thucydides       

Philosophers: Socrates, Zeno and Parmenides     

The Victor of the Games

Architect:  Ictinus          Famous for the Parthenon

Philosopher: Anaxagoras        

Pericles       “The first citizen of Athens”

Poet:  Pindar              

     

Sculptor, Painter, Architect:  Phidias                  

Chariot Horses

Playwrights: Aeschylus, Sophocles and Euripides 
  

Historian:  Herodotus          

The architecture of the whole building was designed to reflect a similar sentiment.  The architect James Hibbert (1882-1893) described it as “an endeavour to recall, uphold, and carry onward the tradition of Hellenic art.”  The building reflects a merging of ancient influences and modern buildings – a touch of Greece here, a bit of Roman Forum there, a sprinkle of the Berlin National theatre and a dash of Napoleon’s Tomb in Paris.   

Discover more buildings like these in the FREE tour of Preston Flag Market on www.obelisktours.co.uk