My Lancashire - My accounts of the local area

Leonora Carrington Lancashire's Brilliant Surrealist Painter Mary Leonora Carrington OBE (6th April 1917 – 25th May 2011) was a Lancashire-born, naturalized Mexican artist, surrealist painter and novelist. She lived most of her adult life in Mexico City and was one of the last surviving participants in the surrealist movement of the 1930s. Carrington was also a founding member of the women's liberation movement in Mexico during the 1970s. Leonora Carrington's birthplace in Clayton-le-Woods , near Chorley in Lancashire, is now commemorated by an information board placed on the site of her former home and birthplace, Westwood House.  Crookhey Hall Until recently, I had not previously heard of Leonora Carrington.  It is possible that I have previously seen some of her work, but I did not know that she was the artist.  I was sent on the trail after one of my Historic England Listed Building searching walks took me north of Garstang towards Cockerham. I got as far as Forton, bu

Preston's Lost Soap Making Industry Joshua Margerison & Co of Preston White Windsor soap works A Facebook post by The Harris (Harris Museum & Art Gallery) last week, sent me on the trail of the history of the House of Margerison, which was once on Leighton Street in Preston. Joshua Margerison & Co, White Windsor soap works, Leighton Street in Preston I'll be honest, I hadn't previously heard of this famous business. From what I can see, they were very well known in their day. The post by The Harris was about a painting of one of the daughters of wealthy Preston soap manufacturer, Joshua Margerison. It was titled "The White Piano", and was painted in 1897. It is thought to be of Mary Jane, the youngest, who would have been about 28 at the time. The artist was Arthur Melville (1855–1904). He was one of the Glasgow Boys group of painters who used an Impressionist style. By the 1890s, Melville followed the French Nabis artists who emphasised colour and sim

My Uncles (The Easter Egg) I was going to post this on Easter Monday, when I discovered it.  However, I refrained from doing that, as I thought people might take it for an 'April Fools' post. I have always liked looking at maps from planning bike rides, walks, road trips, holidays, etc. to just looking at them out of sheer curiosity. More recently the Internet opened up even more opportunities with things like freely available satellite images and street views.  It is only a few years ago when someone made me aware of old maps that had been digitised and published online. It's been a real 'virtual' adventure looking at them. Particularly the early Ordnance Survey Maps from 1848 and (around) 1910. The ability to view them and compare them to modern maps and satellite image really helps bring the history to life. So far, I have tended to focus around Lancashire and Preston specifically, being a local and all that.  I thought I had spotted most things of interest alrea

What Will Preston look like in 1992? A slideshow from 1972 Preston Guild predicting what Preston would be like in 1992 No, it's not the first of the 'Forward to the Past' trilogy. This is a bit like watching an old Sci-Fi film predicting the future 50 years after it has been made. No, we're still not buzzing around in flying cars, thankfully. View West from Ladywell, towards the Docks and Penwortham Power Station This short film, which is  is effectively a forerunner of a PowerPoint presentation before personal computers had been conceived, let alone Microsoft software (...am I allowed to advertise on here? Other reputable software providers are also available, etc.), didn't quite make it to 3 minutes before they were getting it wrong.  Do you think that we will get a University? The car: It's a good servant, but the more concessions we make to its use, the more it becomes our master. Hmmm. we still haven't cracked that nut. The proposal for the River Rib

Who was Todd of Todd Hall? No, I am not mistyping or misspelling a reference to a Kenneth Grahame character.  'Who was Todd of Todd Hall?' is a question about the origins of the name that an old house that is local to me in an area south of Preston in Lancashire, which is currently known as South Ribble.  My previous post called ' Todd Hall a Listed Building Dating Back to 1630 ' is about the same topic, although it only briefly mentions my curiosity about the origins of the name.   I had been speculating the the name Todd doesn't really have anything to do with the origins of the house, and perhaps refers to a later owner.  The name has left a mark though, as the road that runs nearby (we'll come back to this point) had been called 'Todd Lane' since at least the mid eighteenth century.  It is shown as this on the first Ordnance Survey maps of the area dating back to 1848.  Another road that joins it, to the south, at a junction of 'Four-Lane-Ends

The Delph in the River Ribble by Avenham Park Over the years, I have always been slightly confused when people mention the the necessity of 'divers' when investigating things in the River Ribble by Avenham Park, adjacent to the Old Tram Road bridge.  However, after being momentarily perplexed by it, my train of thought often moved onto something else.  More recently, when researching the history of the Lancaster Canal, I was led to an account of divers (again) fishing something out of the River Ribble in the same location.  This time, I decided to figure out why they would be needed. The answer is that there is a significantly deep 'Delph' in the River Ribble.  Strangely, whilst I thought that word was generally part of everyone's vocabulary, it turn out not to be.  I didn't pop up in online dictionaries when I did a web search.  Relatively locally, I have had conversations with people about 'Eccy Delph' (Eccleston Delph).  It turns out that Delph  comes