Yarn Bomb

All roads lead to the West Indies here.

The tree was yarn bombed before a pop up Caribbean carnival would take place.  As you can see from the damp pavements the weather was not very Caribbean on the day I took this photograph (with total lack of timing I missed the carnival by a day)  For the past forty year the Caribbean Carnival has wound its way along the streets of Preston but lack of funding needed for security, crowd management, cleaning and road closures meant this year it found a temporary home here in the Flag Market as a static festival.      

The whole area would be filled with colourful costumes, music and dance troupes with a splash of spicy food.  The only colour on this day was the yarn and flags

perhaps this little yarn balloon will whisk me off to the bright blue skies and a Caribbean beach

I see one yarn bomb and lo and behold I'd seen another one the month before in a completely different city.   This was by the old railway arches near Bradford Forster Square station.  

unfortunately I couldn't really get a decent photograph of the row so I'll leave it to your imagination. 

Round the corner there was more yarn on street lights and trees. This was done by people well used to wrapping things up, the workers of Broadway Marks and Spencer who brought this splash of colour, brightening up the area, as part of their community project linked to the Inn Churches Storehouse which tries to tackle food poverty.

A Yarn Bomb and interesting railings, I couldn't resist that snap.  The railings surround the Inland Revenue offices and were designed and installed by local artist and blacksmith Chris Topp, his brief was to offset the 'drab modern building' with something more interesting, hence these Charles Rennie Mackintosh influenced structures.

So there you have it two dull and rainy days in two different parts of England brightened up by the power of yarn.

An entry to ABC Wednesday, a journey through the alphabet, this week sojourning at Y here

Preston Parched Peas

 Journey to the heart of Lancashire and you will discover the local delicacy of parched peas and at this stall in Preston combine them with baked potatoes. They are also traditionally eaten on bonfire night in November out of a cup with salt and malt vinegar.  So what are parched peas?  They are black peas soaked overnight and then simmered, hence the name parched which is an old term for a long slow boiling. (Recipe here) The man on the right doesn't want to waste any time in eating his. As I live in what is historically known as Lancashire North of the Sands, they are not sold here, only the traditional accompaniment to fish and chips, mushy peas, which are cooked in a similar way only with dried marrowfat peas and bicarbonate of soda.

The Roberts family have been selling their popular baked potatoes and parched peas in Preston since 1955 but the van was showing its age so they decided on a new build, not the usual generic food van but a replica of a Preston Guild tram.  This was built in time for the Preston Guild celebration in 2012 (the next Guild will be in 2032) and the      

birth dates of Keith Jr's children were used as the tram number.  Here the tram is seen operating from the Market Square, in the background is the newly renovated (and now gleaming white) Cenotaph for those who died in the Great War.  Designed by Sir Gilbert Scott (1880-1960),  famous as the architect for Liverpool Anglican Cathedral, Battersea Power Station and the red   

Phone Box.  This row of phone boxes is just around the corner from the square.  Replaced by a more utilitarian design in the 1980s by British Telecom around 2000 of these red boxes were given listed status and remain, some were adopted locally and turned to another use such as libraries, art galleries and even a defibrillator station and some were sold so it is not unusual to spot one in a garden. The use of the telephone box is of course in rapid decline with the use of mobiles and I don't think many of them would remain except for the fact that BT has a "Universal Services Obligation" to retain them.  In the middle of nowhere with no mobile phone signal and an emergency a red box would be a welcome sight.  

An entry to ABC Wednesday, a journey through the alphabet, this week sojourning at P here

      

ABC Wednesday - Centenary

 The city of Preston at one time had 64 cotton mills and Centenary Mill was one of them.  The power house chimney

 today is a city landmark.  Centenary Mill was built by the Horrockses Company in 1891 to mark 100 years of its cotton manufacture in Preston (where they had originally started in the Yellow Factory).  In the second half of the 19th Century takeovers and mergers instigated the construction of enormous spinning mills and this was one of four monumental giants erected in the final years.  Horrockses had merged with companies of Crewdson and Hollins to become the Horrockses and Crewdson Company  Could my pocket camera get the building into one photograph?

 

 Well I managed to get the side entrance and a portion of the building so I tried again

 and just squeezed it in while cutting off the top of the tower. Outwardly the brick façade is in the style of the day, inwardly there was a revolutionary steel frame, allowing greater weight to be supported inside and permitting large and numerous window.

 In 1981 Courtaulds Textiles closed their mill and Horrockses moved work from Centenary Mill to the Courtaulds site. In 1986 Centenary Mill was taken over for blue jean manufacture and 50% of UK jean manufacturing was done here employing 3000.  That finished and  it was used as warehousing eventually it lay empty until in recent years the building was converted into apartments.

Horrockses was a vast enterprise but its founder John Horrocks was a small spinner who by building a mill was one of the pioneers of the Lancashire 'factory system' by which the cotton industry was revolutionised.  The company used the slogan "The Greatest Name in Cotton" and at the time the Centenary Mill was built they were expanding their business both at home and abroad. Labels were tailor made for each different market, they were rarely understated....

An entry to the ABC Wednesday meme, a journey  from A to Z

ABC Wednesday - Journey

To journey by bike is the best way to see a country, faster than walking yet slow enough see the sights and meet the people.  This bike was outside the port office in La Roche Bernard so perhaps the owner had another mode of transport for his journey in mind such as

this one which would take the three sailors out into the Atlantic. If a little more comfort is required maybe something bigger would take one to another country

 such as this ferry leaving Portsmouth bound for St Malo. Or maybe journey across continents by train

although you would have to pick the right day with my local line up the coast. This photo was taken on Sunday and no trains ever run on that day.   So maybe it would be better to jump on

a motor bike like this one.

The ABC Wednesday journey from A to Z has reached the letter J

ABC Wednesday - Miller Arcade

  Now what could I find for this week's letter?  I rooted round some this years photographs and found in a recent visit to Preston I had taken a photograph of the windows ( and balcony) of the Victorian Italianate  terracotta façade of the Miller Arcade.  The Victorian were fond of balconies so there is one on the end

of the building, suitably ornate.  The British Listed Buildings site describes the arcade as being of "an eclectic style with some Moorish elements".  This is probably because until the mid 20th century it had a Turkish Baths on the first floor. The entrance to it was blocked up when it was turned into offices.

In a previous visit before Christmas I had taken a view of the interior of the Miller Arcade, well actually it was the stained glass in the windows, but being a gloomy winter afternoon they did not appear in the photograph as they had to the eye.  I had a search to see if I could snaffle someone's superior camera work but no luck, however the Lancashire County Council site does have one which shows off

its roof.  The building was modelled after the Burlington Arcade in London, however this Preston version got an award in 1895 that may be perceived as rather niche for the 'best planned fire-proof arcade', so rest easy if you are shopping here.

Mooch over to ABC Wednesday where there will be lots more words starting with the letter M

 

Oblivion

The entrance to Oblivion. It was shut when I walked past so cannot testify to the accuracy of its message.

"The problem with the world is that everyone is a few drinks behind" - Humphrey Bogart

An entry to Sign, Signs

Bookshop Windows

 Waterstones Bookshop, Fishergate, Preston, Lancashire

Isn't this a wonderful building for a bookshop, the windows give an almost Venetian feel. The white façade  stood out on a gloomy day. The Grade II listed building was completed in 1859 as a grocery store (Booths), it certainly beats modern supermarket buildings hands-down. The upper floors were refaced in 1915.  Thanks to the British Listed Buildings site I can say that it is brick with a façade of sandstone ashlac with the two top stories being of white architectural faience, and to complete the effect, the Lombard frieze on the top.

I don't think anything is left of the original building inside but happy hours can be spent amongst the two stories of books, not to mention pretty notebooks and other bookish ephemera plus a nice red plush carpet.

Mary the Teach is our hostess of  Window Views...and doors too 

Autum in the City

What turned out to be a wet day in Preston. Here at the Portland stone cenotaph by the Harris Art Gallery and Museum in Market Square.  A soldier at the railway station collecting for the British Legion with his tray of poppies no doubt will be here in  this square for Remembrance Sunday.   

Greenhalgh's bakery shop had an extensive, and mouthwatering, display covering both seasons of winter and autumn, witches and ghosts, and the mince pies on the left:  Of course any self respecting Lancashire bakery would have to display Eccles cakes (on the right). Or are they Chorley cakes, the same thing but with no sugar topping, flatter and made of shortcrust rather than flaky pastry. No time to stop, we were heading for the Mystery Tea House café and their cakes with a choice of  seventy different teas and what seem to be the same number of different types of fascinating tea pots.

Harris Museum and Art Gallery

The Harris Museum & Art Gallery is a Grade 1 listed building and I would guess this is because of the luscious interior. I could not resist taking a picture of the Dhruva Mistry 'Her Face' in this setting. The upper Egyptian Balcony is usually closed but there are a couple of tours in January. There was one today but I missed it, bad timing.

Apart from the fine art collection they also have an amazing collection of calling card cases from the times when it the the custom to leave your card when making acquaintances. There are many intricate and different styles, beautiful objects. One of the interesting pieces of information I gleaned was then if the corner of the card was turned down this would indicate you had called in person, rather than laying on your chaise lounge and sending a servant round.

The other large collection is Mrs French's Scent Bottles, over 2,700 of them. So many, that a lot of them are in pull out drawers. I wonder how many years it took for Mrs French to build up this collection and where on earth did she keep them all. When the collecting bug strikes it is difficult to resist.

Speaking of bugs here is one of the more unusually calling card cases.