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England > North West England > Lancashire

Rolling Hills, leafy lanes and the picturesque villages of the Ribble Valley make Lancashire a delight to explore. To the south flows the River Mersey, the Pennines soar to the east and the Lake District lies to the north. The great English cities of Liverpool and Manchester lie to the west and east, respectively. Manchester used to be a heavily industrial area and evidence of this remains in the mills, many of which have been turned into shops or working museums. Towns and villages come alive on market days with warm local accents and special charm. This is archetypal England: green fields and babbling streams, silver stone villages and quiet pubs.

The Forest of Bowland in rural Lancashire, with its steep-sided river valleys and heather moorland, is a tranquil, unspoiled and uncommercialised region, dotted with little stone villages and lined with hedgerows and dry stone walls. The English painter Joseph Mallord William Turner loved these landscapes. The banks of the rivers Hodder, Ribble and Lune (sounds like a firm of lawyers) are perfect for walking. Cycling and canal-boat holidays are another option - as is golf; Lythan St Anne's and the elegant Victorian resort of Southport offer excellent golf courses.

The Romans named Lancaster after their camp on the south of the River Lune. This city of Georgian houses prospered under the slave trade. Nobody was allowed to keep slaves in England, but the sale and transportation of slaves was largely run from Britain.


Lancaster is dominated by Lancaster Castle, owned by the Queen. Massive and brooding, Lancaster Castle boasts perhaps the bloodiest history of any castle in the land. More people are said to have been sentenced to death in Lancaster than in any other English town, including the last man to be publicly hanged in Britain (in 1865, for murdering his wife). Most of the sentences were pronounced in Lancaster Castle. The dock in the Crown Court there, where prisoners stood on trial, is still fitted with a hand clamp. If the judge sentenced a prisoner to be branded on the hand with the letter "M"' for "malefactor" (a quaint custom in ye olden days) it was done right then and there in the courtroom with a red-hot branding iron. After the branding, a court official in a picturesque costume stepped forward to inspect the burn and to declare to the judge: "It is a fair mark, my lord." The Crown Court is now the barristers' robing room.


The first castle built on this site was erected by William the Conqueror's cousin, the brutal Roger of Poitou, to show locals the Normans meant business and to keep the North of England in check. The castle has been added to over the centuries, mainly around 1400, when John of Gaunt's Gate was built. For most of its history, the castle has also served as a prison. In 1840, it served simultaneously as a fortress, a prison and as "Lancaster Lunatic Asylum" for the criminally insane. Warning: Lancaster Castle is seriously creepy. It includes dungeons, a torture chamber and arrays of weapons. Not for the faint hearted.


Author's note: When I visited Lancaster Castle I was shown through it by Dorothy Atherton, the only lady castle-keeper in England. Ms Atherton seemed remarkably cheerful for one working in such a grim establishment (which at the time was still being used as a prison). The walls of Hadrian's Tower at the castle are clammy and dungeons still have their nail-studded 500-year-old doors. For centuries, condemned prisoners were taken to The Drop Room before execution, and items on display there include a length of "old drop rope" left behind by Executioner Calcraft after the hanging of one Richard Pedder in 1853. "I'm afraid the rope is a bit straggly," Ms Atherton apologised. "It's quite fragile. I've been taking care of it for 15 years."

Another piece of ancient furniture in Hadrian's Tower is a sinister-looking "lunatic restraining chair" fitted with iron bands. "The more they struggled, the tighter the bands became," Ms Atherton explained. Lancaster Castle was used for witchcraft trials, the most notable being the trial of the Pendle Witches, still spoken of widely in Lancashire. A band of demented old crones with names like Chattox and Demdike were said to be casting spells on local people. They were charged with witchcraft, convicted (mostly on the evidence of a young child) and hanged by the dozen on the Lancaster gallows in 1612, allegedly muttering curses to the end. If any castle in England is haunted, this must be the one. Yet Ms Atherton told me she had never seen a ghost there. Some staff had felt a "presence" in the Judge's Robing Room. Judges' ceremonial robes, by the way, still include a pomander - a mixture of aromatic substances originally carried to ward off the appalling stench of Lancaster Prison.

In slightly lighter vein, condemned prisoners en route to execution (including the witches) were allowed a free jug of ale at a pub just outside the Castle walls. They were given 10 minutes to drink it. One condemned man foolishly refused his last drink and was taken straight to the gallows. Just minutes later, a rider pulled up at the pub and ran inside waving a reprieve for the prisoner - but too late. There's a lesson in that, and I've tried to abide by it ever since! The pub is still there, by the way. It's haunted by the ghost of the prisoner who refused his free drink. "I've changed my mind," the ghost is reputed to cry...


The Ashton Memorial, with its great 220-feet-high dome and shining white walls, stands out on Lancaster's eastern skyline and is highly visible from the M6 motorway. This extraordinary building, which has been called "the finest monument in England", was completed in 1909 at stupendous expense by local industrialist Lord Ashton, "the Oilcloth King", as a tribute to his wife. Oilcloth is an old English name for linoleum - the lord made his enormous fortune from churning out lino for people's floors. At one point, Lord Ashton employed one quarter of the town's workforce. When made Sheriff of Lancashire, he invited 10,000 workingmen to breakfast as a "grand gesture". The Ashton Memorial has been compared to the Sacre Coeur in Paris and St Peter's in Rome. It is open to the public yet still off the tourist beat. The memorial has a wonderfully Edwardian feel. In the midst of the Great Depression, moneyed young gentlemen and their female companions would flock to lavish, impromptu parties thrown by Lord Ashton's son, Charles Meadowfield. Meadowfield was killed in World War II. The memorial's conservatory has been converted into a butterfly sanctuary. A sign at the start warns: "Do not touch the plants and butterflies. Many are poisonous." At the end, another sign advises: "Please check your clothes as butterflies can escape easily." Cunning little rascals, butterflies.


The Judges Lodgings occupies a whole side of a small cobbled square below Castle Hill. It was built in 1620 and from 1826 it accommodated judges visiting Lancaster for the assizes. It's now a Museum of Childhood. If you like dolls, this is for you.


The market town of Kirkby Lonsdale stands by an incredibly attractive stretch of the River Lune. Ancient villages like Arkholme, Wray and Hornby are rural delights. You can see why the Lune valley is so popular with artists. The way marked Lune Valley Ramble and Lunesdale Walk make exploring easy.

The Hodder Valley is so lovely the Queen reputedly plans to retire here. Officially, Her Majesty won't reveal her plans.


Morecambe Bay, to the west of Lancaster, is a haven for thousands of seabirds and its spectacular sunsets are renowned. Perhaps stroll the Stone Jetty.


Author's reminiscence: While breakfasting at a small guesthouse in Carnforth, a village on Morecambe Bay, several years ago, I overhead a snippet of conversation between two women seated at another table.

"The only time I get good black pudding is when I come home to Lancashire," one said emphatically, tucking into forkfuls of the special Lancashire sausage. "The black puddings down south are quite odd - they're full of little bits of fat." "It's true," her companion replied. "And the ones down south are very dry. They're ever so dry." The two women were obviously enjoying their black puddings and appeared to be experts in the field. Black pudding is a kind of black sausage made from minced pork fat, pig's blood and other ingredients. Sliced and fried, it is traditionally served at breakfast with bacon, eggs and fried bread. Another old Lancashire recipe, Thunder and Lightning, calls for fried slices of black pudding to be whipped into a mound of mashed potato and served hot. Simple, filling and surprisingly satisfying.


If you want to see how the British working classes enjoy themselves, head for Blackpool - the archetypal brash and breezy British seaside resort. It's all here - deck-chairs, men in braces with knotted handkerchiefs on their heads, boisterous "stag" and "hen" parties out for a riotous night's entertainment, all sorts of regional accents (Scotland, Lancashire and Yorkshire are well represented) and three piers. Despite competition from cheap continental European holiday destinations like Spain's Torremolinos, Blackpool still drags 'em in. It's Britain's number one holiday destination and Blackpool Pleasure Beach is Britain's top free tourist attraction. A 518-foot tower dominates the skyline. Blackpool is a bit tacky but quite fun for its insights into Brits at play. Maybe stroll the beachside "golden mile" and pick up a stick of Blackpool Rock or buy a couple of those inimitably British "naughty" postcards, filled with double entendres and sexual innuendo. The postcards continued to sell briskly right through the prudish Victorian era.


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