My Lancashire - My accounts of the local area

Preston's Windmills Part 1 I have always been interested in windmills.  We are fortunate to have a number of surviving examples dotted around Lancashire, and some of them are in a state of good repair.  The ones on the Flyde Coast including Marsh Mill at Thornton-Cleveleys, Little Marton Windmill and Lytham Windmill are all well known.  I can't recall having been inside any of these buildings, but I might have done in the past.  The last working example I had the pleasure of viewing the inner workings of was on the outskirts of York.  This was Holgate Windmill, which is York's last surviving windmill and apparently the oldest five-sailed windmill in the country.  That's certainly worth a visit.  It's also quite unique, in the sense that it is on an island in a street, surrounded by houses. I have only really recently become aware of the history of Preston's windmills.  Something led me to Craggs Row Windmill several years ago, whilst on one o...

Doctor Syntax A Pub named after a horse that was named after a cartoon character Penwortham Holme is an area that many local people will associate with recreation, whether it be football or horticulture. However, in earlier times, there was a completely different form of entertainment happening. Penwortham Holme Pavilion The following is some history relating to Horse Racing that took place on Penwortham Holme before the new bridge, built in 1912, effectively cut the area in half. The 1912 bridge was built because the earlier bridge further upstream, built in 1759, could no longer cope with the volume of traffic. The River Ribble in this area is very different now, compared to how it was in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. Some of the changes were related to the creation of Preston Docks in 1892. However, at that point there was still an island formed by a narrow water course that was once a larger channel of the River Ribble. The area Penwortham Holme gets its name fro...