Preston, the Guild city

Preston is the administrative centre of Lancashire, in north-west England, on the banks of the River Ribble. A city since 2002, it has about 150,000 inhabitants and holds many firsts: the word teetotal was coined here, the club that won the first football league in history without losing a match was born here, and Britain's first stretch of motorway opened here in 1958. Preston is also the city of the Guild, a celebration held only once every twenty years, and of the parish church with the tallest spire in England. For travellers in the north it is a convenient and little-known stop, halfway between Manchester, Liverpool, Blackpool and the Lake District.

Trains from London Euston take just over two hours, and Manchester Airport is about an hour away.

The priests' town and the Guild

The name Preston comes from Priest's tun, "the priests' settlement", recalling an ancient religious foundation. In 1179 the town received its first charter, allowing it to have a Guild Merchant, a merchants' corporation. Since 1542 the Preston Guild has been celebrated regularly every twenty years with processions, parades, concerts and festivities lasting a week: in English the phrase once every Preston Guild still means "once in a blue moon". The last Guild was held in 2012, and the next is expected in 2032.

In 1648, during the Civil War, Oliver Cromwell defeated the Scottish army allied with the king at Preston, and in 1715 the town saw one of the last battles fought in England, during the Jacobite rising. In the 18th century Preston was a quiet town of lawyers and officials, but in 1768 Richard Arkwright perfected his water frame here, one of the machines that launched the Industrial Revolution. In the 19th century Preston became a cotton town, with dozens of mills and workers' districts.

Teetotal and Dickens

In 1833, at a meeting of the temperance movement, a Preston worker, Richard Turner, according to tradition stressed his pledge of total abstinence from alcohol by repeating the first letter, speaking of t-t-total abstinence: since then the word teetotal has meant in English someone who doesn't drink alcohol. Twenty years later, during a long strike by cotton workers, Charles Dickens visited Preston, and the town partly inspired the grim "Coketown" of his novel Hard Times.

What to see in Preston

The Harris Museum and the Flag Market

In the middle of the city, on the Flag Market square, rises the Harris Museum, an imposing neoclassical building of 1893 inspired by Greek temples, which houses the library and collections of art, costume and local history, and has been the subject of a major restoration project. Around the square are the old post office and the central streets, with the Victorian covered market under a large iron canopy.

St Walburge's and the churches

The Catholic church of St Walburge, built in 1854, has a spire about 94 metres high, the tallest of any parish church in England, visible from all over the city. You can climb to the top on guided tours. The nearby Preston Minster and the Catholic church of St John are the other main religious buildings in the centre.

The parks on the Ribble

Along the Ribble lie two of the finest Victorian parks in the north: Avenham Park and Miller Park, with terraces, fountains, a Japanese garden and the old tramway bridge. In summer they host concerts, festivals and the traditional Easter egg-rolling, pace egg rolling. East of the city, the Brockholes nature reserve was created from an old gravel quarry turned into lakes, with a visitor centre floating on the water.

The bus station

A curiosity for architecture lovers is Preston's bus station, built in 1969 in the Brutalist style, with its long curving concrete balconies: once threatened with demolition, it was saved and listed in 2013, and is now one of the most photographed modern buildings in the north of England.

Football

Preston North End is one of the founding clubs of the Football League. In the 1888-89 season, the first of the English league, it won the title without losing a single match and also won the FA Cup without conceding a goal: the team went down in history as the Invincibles. At Deepdale, the club's ground, The Splash statue honours the great Tom Finney, one of the legends of English football, who played his whole career for Preston.

Around Preston

• Blackpool, half an hour away, with the tower and the promenade; see our guide to Blackpool.
• The Forest of Bowland, with hills, moors and stone villages such as Slaidburn and Downham.
• Lancaster, with its castle and the Ashton Memorial.
• The Lake District, about an hour away.
• Manchester and Liverpool, less than an hour by train.

Living in Preston

Preston is an administrative and university city: it is home to Lancashire County Council, the courts and the University of Central Lancashire, one of the largest in the country, with tens of thousands of students. Homes are cheap, the position on the rail and motorway network is excellent, and the Lancashire landscapes are minutes away. The city is also known for the "Preston model", a local economic policy that favours local businesses in public procurement. Like other northern cities, it also has low-income neighbourhoods.

Getting there and getting around

• By train: from London Euston just over two hours on the West Coast Main Line; direct services to Manchester, Liverpool, Blackpool, Glasgow and Edinburgh.
• By air: Manchester Airport has direct trains in about an hour; Liverpool Airport is also about an hour away.
• By car: Preston lies on the M6 motorway, linking Birmingham with Scotland.
• In the city: the centre and the parks are walkable.

For travel around the rest of the country see trains and transport, and for other cities British cities.

Tips for your visit

• How long: half a day or a day, perhaps as a stop on the way to Blackpool or the Lake District.
• When to go: May to September for the parks; Easter for the egg-rolling in Avenham Park.
• A tip: if you are passing through Preston in the summer of 2032, don't miss the Guild: the next chance will be twenty years later.

Preston on the map

Nearby