City in Lancashire, England
Preston
Britain's first motorway opened here in 1958, the word 'teetotal' is said to have been coined here, and its famous Guild comes round only once every 20 years.
Key information
- County
- Lancashire
- Nation
- England
- Population
- About 147,000 (2021 Census)
- Known for
- Preston Guild, Preston North End, Britain's first motorway, Brutalist bus station, the birth of teetotalism
- What locals are called
- Prestonians
- Famous people
- Sir Tom Finney, Richard Arkwright, Nick Park, Andrew Flintoff
- Football clubs
- Preston North End (the Lilywhites)
About Preston
The town that gave Britain its first motorway
On 5 December 1958 Harold Macmillan opened the Preston By-pass, the first stretch of motorway in Britain. It ran about eight miles around the town and is now part of the M6. The road took through traffic off the streets of a busy cotton town, and it started a habit of motorway-building that changed the country. Preston itself became a city only in 2002, as part of the Queen's Golden Jubilee celebrations. It had been Lancashire's administrative heart for centuries before that, and 'Proud Preston' was a nickname long before the official upgrade.
Once in a Preston Guild
If something happens rarely, Lancashire people say it happens 'once in a Preston Guild'. They mean it literally. The Guild Merchant is a civic celebration held every twenty years, a rhythm fixed in 1542, though the town's Guild charter goes back to 1179. It began as a gathering at which the town's merchants renewed their trading rights. It grew into a fortnight of processions, concerts, sport and street parties. The last one was in 2012, and the next is due in 2032. The 2012 Guild left something lasting: the Guild Wheel, a 21-mile cycling and walking loop around the city. The town's emblem, a lamb carrying a flag, also nods to its name. 'Preston' is usually read as 'priests' town'.
Football's first Invincibles
Preston North End, the Lilywhites, were the first champions of the Football League, in 1888-89. They also won the FA Cup that season. They went through the entire league campaign unbeaten, with 18 wins and four draws from 22 games, and won the Cup without conceding a goal. They were nicknamed the Invincibles. The club began life as a cricket club in 1863 and took up football later. Deepdale is the oldest ground in the world to have staged professional league football continuously. The National Football Museum opened at Deepdale in 2001 and closed there in 2010, reopening in Manchester in 2012. The club's greatest son is Sir Tom Finney, the 'Preston Plumber', who spent his entire Football League career with PNE and was knighted in 1998. He did make one famous guest appearance, for Northern Irish club Distillery against Benfica in the European Cup in 1963. A statue outside the ground shows him in mid-slide, in a pose known as 'The Splash'.
Spinning frames, strikes and a pledge
Richard Arkwright, the barber-turned-inventor who became a founder of the factory system, was born in Preston in 1732. As Lancashire's cotton boom took hold, the town filled with mills and terraced streets. That industrial world shaped Preston's reputation for protest and reform. The Preston Lock-out of 1853-54 was a long, bitter dispute between mill workers and owners. Charles Dickens visited to watch it, and the experience fed into his novel Hard Times. The town was also a centre of the temperance movement. In 1832 Joseph Livesey and a group of campaigners signed a pledge of total abstinence. The story goes that a working man, Dicky Turner, insisted on 'tee-total' abstinence, stammering the word, and that is how 'teetotal' entered the language.
Grand, grey and Grade II listed
The Harris Museum, Art Gallery and Library is Preston's showpiece. It is a Greek-revival temple that opened in 1893 and dominates the Flag Market. It stands close to the Miller Arcade and the Victorian terraces around Winckley Square. The other landmark is a concrete one. Preston Bus Station, which opened in 1969, is a bold Brutalist building with sweeping curved decks, designed to hold a huge number of buses and cars. Locals fought to save it from demolition, and it was listed Grade II in 2013. Beyond the centre, Avenham and Miller Parks drop down to the River Ribble. Preston Docks, built in the 1890s, once made the city a seaport despite its inland feel.
Plates, parks and Prestonians
Prestonians have a taste for classic Lancashire fare: hotpot, tangy crumbly Lancashire cheese and black pudding. Goosnargh, a village just north of the city, gives its name to the buttery Goosnargh cakes flavoured with caraway and coriander. The University of Lancashire, known until 2025 as the University of Central Lancashire, keeps the city young, and its students add to a lively crowd on match days and in the pubs. Preston has also produced some famous names. Nick Park, the creator of Wallace and Gromit, was born here in 1958. So was cricketer Andrew Flintoff in 1977, an Ashes hero in 2005.