Meltdown...! This is a repeat of a Facebook post from about two years ago. At the time, I wasn't entirely sure how we'd come to have two replica cannons in Avenham Park, Preston, and not the real things. It turned out the real ones had disappeared, but earlier than I was thinking... I am frequently flabbergasted by the flagrant disregard for history, and it’s often around this town (Preston in Lancashire). The coming and going of the Obelisk that's not an obelisk, the disappearance of the Canal Basin and the infamous Town Hall, to name but a few. As is often the case, I stumbled across one of my own photos when looking for something else, and I thought that I would try to find out any relevant information about it. The subject of the photograph was one of a pair of replica Sevastopol (Sebastopol) cannons modelled on those used in the Crimean War, which can be seen in Avenham park. I think, that I have always known that they were replicas. However, I a...
John Whitehead and Co. Syke-street, Preston Our Local Industries. No. 18. Published in the Preston Chronicle in November 1884, this article forms part of the newspaper's "Our Local Industries" series, which highlighted the leading manufacturers and businesses of the town. It provides a fascinating contemporary tour of the Albert Works in Syke Street, home of John Whitehead & Co., one of Britain's foremost makers of machinery for the brick, tile and sanitary pipe industries. As well as describing the workshops, foundry and machine shops in remarkable detail, the article reflects the pride Victorians took in engineering achievement, export success and industrial innovation. Like many nineteenth-century newspaper features, it also contains a generous measure of promotional enthusiasm, but it remains an invaluable snapshot of a Preston engineering firm whose machines were being exported throughout the world. ~ OUR LOCAL INDUSTRIES. MESSRS. JOHN. WHITEHEAD AND CO. BRIC...