Keith Johnson

Historic photographs are a fascinating window into the past and due to the advances in the colourising of images we are nowadays able to see the colourful scene that the camera lens captured. These images bring Preston’s past to life. In the photographs that pioneering photographer Robert Patteson took around the town in the 1860s we can now appreciate the colours that he saw with his own eyes as he focussed his camera lens in Avenham, Winckley Square and beyond. Likewise, those images by the press photographers of the 1920s onwards can now be seen in a cavalcade of colour. All the pomp, pageantry and processions of old produced parades teeming with colourful banners, participants and crowds. Royal visits, military parades and Preston Guilds were all occasions to hang out the bunting and wave the multi coloured flags. The mill girls from Horrockses took part in many a procession and they showed it was not only about clogs, aprons and shawls as they paraded in the colourful fashionable frocks produced by them in their Preston factory and worn throughout the land.This book will take you on a journey into Preston''s colourful past. Life in Preston has always had a dash of colour about it but this does not show it through rose-tinted glasses – here we see the true life of bygone days. These pictures transport you back in time as you reflect on the life of Preston and the lives of folk who have dwelt there.

Preston was awarded city status in 2002 but the town had played an important part in Lancashire’s history since the Middle Ages, when it was centre for wool production and weaving. The town boomed in the Industrial Revolution, attracting new engineering industries alongside textiles but in the later decades of the twentieth century many of these industries declined, with factories closing. From the 1960s the town centre was redeveloped, and new housing built. Some landmark buildings from before were lost, replaced by buildings which have become the new face of Preston.Lost Preston presents a portrait of this Lancashire city over the last century to recent decades that has radically changed or disappeared today, showing not only industries and buildings that have gone but also people and street scenes, many popular places of entertainment and much more. This fascinating photographic history of lost Preston will appeal to all those who live in the area or know it well, as well as those who remember it from previous decades.