The splendour of Victorian and Edwardian life in St Annes is today nothing more than a fast-fading memory. Imagine what fun it must have been to witness the growth of the genteel seaside resort in the late eighteenth century. Lytham was the grand old lady of the Fylde coast, steeped in history and tradition, and St Annes was the brash newcomer; a town hacked out of the sandhills by rich and powerful industrialists as recently as the mid-1870s. When the ancient and modern communities combin...

This fascinating collection of old and new photographs of Lytham, Fairhaven and Ansdell provides a wonderfully nostalgic look at these towns on Lancashire's Fylde coast. In their heyday these towns, famous for their gardens, mansions, spacious streets and luxurious hotels, attracted some of the wealthiest people in the country. Businessmen commuted daily into Manchester, retired industrialists played golf and the rich sent their children to be educated here. This was also a coast of many c...

Fleetwood and Thornton Cleveleys are well known for their proximity to the coast. Developed during the Victorian era, Fleetwood retains a lot of this style, with remnants of its once vibrant life as a deep-sea fishing port. As a popular resort, today it acts as a quiet contrast to busier nearby towns, and is home to the Mount, a 7-acre park offering views across Morcambe Bay. Thornton Cleveleys, like Fleetwood, is also a prominent seaside town. The wonderful promenade, the Jubilee Gardens ...

The Lancashire market town of Preston boomed during the Industrial Revolution to become a major textile manufacturing centre. The population soared as families came to work in the cotton mills and the town spread rapidly. New housing, churches and civic buildings were constructed, and industries such as engineering clustered in the town. The downturn in textile manufacturing in the twentieth century hit Preston hard and, in common with many towns and cities during the country’s regeneratio...

Lytham St Annes has always been a bit posh, the yin to its neighbour Blackpool’s yang, and home to no fewer than four golf courses, including the illustrious Royal Lytham St Annes. The town actually comprises the two separate towns of Lytham and St Annes, which are joined together at Fairhaven Lake. Lytham is the older of the two, while St Annes-on-Sea (as it used to be known) was a planned town laid out by a Victorian mill owner for a better class of holidaymaker, its grid pattern of wide...

The city of Chester grew up around one of the largest Roman fortresses in the country. Its cathedral and Norman castle are evidence of Chester’s importance in the Middle Ages. During the Industrial Revolution the arrival of canals and railways brought increasing prosperity to Chester, resulting in a further boom in building, and in the twentieth century the town expanded beyond the city walls. Today the city attracts many visitors to its numerous ancient buildings, not least the Rows, two-...