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LANCASHIRE DID YOU KNOW

The Royal Connection

The first Duke of Lancaster, the county town of Lancashire, was Henry of Grosmont, 4th Earl of Lancaster, 4th Earl of Leicester, 1st Earl of Derby, 1st Earl of Lincoln and Lord of Bowland. He died in 1361, possibly as a result of a surfeit of earls and the peerage expired. Being a duke makes you a peer of the realm. On 13th November 1362 the title was given to John of Gaunt, 1st Earl of Richmond, and the third surviving son of King Edward III. John had married Blanche of Lancaster, daughter of Henry Grosmont and heiress to his estates. When John died in 1399, the Dukedom passed to his son, Henry of Bolingbroke, who would later become Henry IV, parts I and II. The dukedom then became part of the monarchy and the King was also Duke of Lancaster. Later that same year, the dukedom was re-instated and given to Henry's son, also Henry and when he became King in 1413 it merged into the crown again and has been there ever since.

Lancashire and the county town called Lancaster are the home of the red rose, across the country from York, home of the white rose. You may already know about the wars of the Roses which were fought, on and off, from 1455 until 1485. If you would like to know more then start here on our website.

Descendants of the houses of Lancaster and York battled to be King of England over this period with both sides having spells as ruler. Linking this to a royal connection is therefore pretty easy

The current Duke of York is the late Queen Elizabeth's second son, Andrew. Her first son, Charles, is now King Charles III. The King's sons are the Duke of Cornwall and Cambridge, William, and Sussex, Harry, while the Queen's youngest son, Edward, is the Earl of Wessex. Her late husband, Prince Philip, was Duke of Edinburgh.

However, and I do wonder if this should really have been in the "Now That's Weird" section, between 1952 and September 8th 2022, the Duke of Lancaster was Queen, Elizabeth II and, to the best of my knowledge, a woman. However, as I said earlier, the monarch is, since 1413, always the Duke of Lancaster and so there you have it. Now Queen Elizabeth has died, King Charles II has become Duke of Lancaster. The Duchy of Lancaster, of which said Duke is head, owns land and buildings in the estate which provides money for the Crown. At one time, in Lancaster, it was not uncommon to hear the national anthem sung as "God save our gracious Queen, long live our noble Duke," and so on.

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Lancashire Eats

What else would you expect here but the Lancashire Hotpot, a very traditional Lancashire dish. During the Industrial Revolution, (read about it here), Lancashire was the centre of the cotton industry. Most of the workers in the cotton mills were poor and the Hotpot was a way of having a nice hot meal without too much expense. What is more the meal could be left to cook all day ready for when you got home.

Some people think the name comes from the tall, earthenware dish used to make the stew, because it is really a stew, but others say that the term Hotpot comes from the word hodgepodge which just means a mixture. Traditionally the meal was made up of layers of meat, in olden days mutton but now more likely lamb, with alternate layers of root vegetables and thinly sliced potatoes. Also in the olden days the pot would have oysters added when these were cheap. You could decide which vegetables to include, maybe carrots or parsnips, but the mutton and potatoes were a must.

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Lancashire VIPs

Seven random people who were born in Lancashire in the last 100 years:-
Nick Park (Animator - Creator of Wallace and Gromit), Zoe Ball (TV and Radio Presenter), Jessica Taylor (Singer), Sir Ian McKellen (Actor), Andrew Flintoff (cricketer/TV Presenter), James Anderson (Cricketer) and the late Eric Morecambe (Comedian)

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Richard Remembers

I've been to this stretch of coast four times as I spent a week's holiday in Southport in 2014 as well as my three round-the coast visits. My biggest memory is of the sand and the dunes all along this coast. From Morecambe Bay in the north down to Lytham St Annes on the southern Lancashire border it is nothing but a sandy coastline and it even extends on down to Southport, Formby and Crosby in Merseyside.

This is holiday coast and the centre of it all is Blackpool. In 1840 Blackpool was a small, fishing village with just a single row of houses on the seafront. But with the arrival of the railways in 1846, the building of the North Pier in 1863, it now has three piers, and the opening of the winter gardens in 1876, Blackpool blossomed as a seaside resort. The Lancashire cotton mill owners would close their factories for a week each year to service and repair the machinery. Each town's mill would close for a different week and that resulted in a steady flow of holiday makers to Blackpool. People would come to take the sea air away from the grime and smog of the factories.

The rather grainy picture on the right shows Blackpool's north pier in 1912. Bit crowded by my standards and not your conventional beachwear either.

Blackpool has many stand-out attractions even though since the 1960s and foreign holidays (pre Covid), its popularity has waned. The three photos below I took back in 2014 and show the tower, built in 1894 and for many years the tallest building in Britain at 518 feet, the tram cars which run along the promenade and my daughter and granddaughters completely entranced by something, more later.

Each year, between September and late October, the whole of the seafront is lit up with over 375,000 bulbs, laser beams and animated displays. This is known famously as the Blackpool illuminations. My first trip resulted in us being near Blackpool in late September so we decided to take a drive along the sea front and see the illuminations. The drive took over 3 hours if my memory serves me correctly at I would guess an average speed of about 3 mph. This may, thinking about it, have led to the incident which you can read about in the "Richard Remembers" part of the Merseyside section. Despite the slow progress I'm glad I saw them but maybe next time walking would be quicker.

And now to what was fascinating my family back in 2014. Despite being in Blackpool three times before I had never been inside the Tower. It's not just a tower, like Mr Eiffel's creation; there are bars, restaurants, a circus, a Sea Life centre, a branch of Madame Tussauds's famous wax works and a dungeon. You can even go up 380 feet and climb out on to a platform and look out over the whole of North West England but I can assure I will not be doing this. I might go up but I wouldn't walk out.

But the attraction which fascinated everyone was the world famous Tower Ballroom. We went there on a quiet Wednesday afternoon in February and you can see from my pictures how packed it was. Couples were dancing, and as you might be able to see from the second photo they weren't all old, and up on the stage was the much loved organ, playing all the tunes you wanted to hear if you wanted to dance. Take a look sometime, it's well worth it.

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Owlbut's Birdwatch

Kestrels are found all over the place from farms to cities and on moorland. The only places they don't seem to like are dense forests, mountains and wetlands with no trees. You can often see them hovering beside a main road or perched on a high tree branch or telephone wire on the look out for food. They eat small mammals and birds, worms and insects. Kestrels have pointed wings and a long tail. They are on the Amber list but there are about 46,000 breeding pairs in the UK.

Kestrels have black, brown, cream, buff, grey, orange and red feathers, yellow legs and a black and yellow, short, hooked chunky beak. They are about 35 cms in length, have a wingspan of between 70 and 80 cms and can weigh between 150 and 250 grams.

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Two extra sections, "It Happened Here" and "Now That's Weird", will appear on 9 June 2025