Preston's story is written in cotton. The water frame that changed the world was tested in an arch off Church Street. The first total-abstinence pledge was signed at the Cockpit on Stoneygate by seven named working men — a weaver, a tailor, a joiner. The seven-month lockout of workers was led by Mortimer Grimshaw, the Thunderer of Lancashire, and George Cowell, the weaver's son from Mellor — the same dispute that drew Charles Dickens north and gave him Hard Times. The park on the valley slope was dug by cotton workers thrown out of their mills by the American Civil War. The church spire visible across three counties is said to have been raised with the pennies of Irish loom-workers' Sunday collections. The bus station its builder said should give ordinary people the luxury of air travel. These are the spinners, weavers, pledgers, strikers, navvies, dockers and overlookers whose names rarely made it onto the plaques.
Arkwright HouseThe Georgian brick house at the end of Stoneygate where Richard Arkwright lodged with the headmaster of Preston Grammar School in 1768 and worked in secrecy with clockmaker John Kay and reed-maker Thomas Highs on the machine that became the water frame. Arkwright was born in Preston in 1732, trained as a barber and wig-maker, and the spinning frame he developed here — patented in 1769, first factory-built at Cromford in 1771 — changed the cotton industry irrevocably. Grade II* listed, now used by Age Concern Central Lancashire.
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Avenham ParkPark in Preston, United Kingdom
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Preston railway stationRailway station in Preston, Preston, Lancashire, England, UK
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PrestonThe war memorial on platforms 3 and 4 of Preston railway station, installed in July 2012 to honour the Preston Pals — officially 'D' Company, 7th (Service) Battalion, Loyal North Lancashire Regiment. On 7 September 1914, the Pals paraded before a crowd in the Market Place, marched along Fishergate, and left from this station for training. The memorial is sited where they departed.
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Preston Flag MarketThe open market square at the heart of Preston, site of the medieval guild market since 1179 and of the Guild Merchant roll-calls held on an unbroken twenty-year cycle from 1542. The Cenotaph and the equestrian statue of the Earl of Derby stand here, but the square's working life is older: the in-burgesses and foreign burgesses whose names fill the guild rolls from 1542 were the traders, craftsmen and merchants of the town.
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Covered MarketThe Victorian market hall at the heart of the city, with its elegant wrought-iron canopy completed in 1875. The market hall and the adjacent covered market formed the main provisioning centre for the working families of Preston — the stalls run by market traders who, like the guild craftsmen whose rolls are read at the Flag Market nearby, made their living in the open civic economy of the town.
