Blackpool Town Index Page

A series of articles looking back at the town of Blackpool away from the seafront and tourist attractions.

Each article can be accessed by clicking or tapping the photographs below. A link at the end of each article will bring you back to this index page.

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More Blackpool Town Centre News

Following on from the entry posted on 11 April, I took the camera back into town this morning.

It was reported in the Evening Gazette that Yates's Wine Lodge had been further demolished as the rotunda had been in danger of collapse. There's not a lot of the old place left now.

Yet another incidence of arson has hit Talbot Road, this time further away from the seafront, beyond the train station where the construction site of some new apartments was razed to the ground on Thursday night, causing the evacuation of 160 people from their homes, at least one of which lost its roof in the blaze.

Birley Street meanwhile is looking particularly hideous with these ugly gantries for the "sound and light system" (it's what every town centre street really needs...)

On a much more positive front though, the area in front of St John's Church on Church Street is showing some real promise as the paving starts to be laid. It really does look as though it will be a stunning space if it matches the artists' impressions that have appeared on hoardings.

And it crossed my mind whilst I was taking photos of Yates's - or the remains of Yates's, I should say - that I have never photographed the Town Hall, so today I rectified that oversight. To the right, on the corner of Talbot Road and the Promenade the old Clifton Hotel has been taken over and refurbished by Travelodge and now sports their logo.

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Blackpool Town Centre Regeneration

A few photos from earlier this morning. We went into Blackpool for breakfast with Gill and Eddie and David and Jeannie and I took the camera along with me to capture the current chaos, hopefully to be short-lived and worth it!

The main road in front of St John's church, Church Street has been fenced off and the road itself and the area in front of the church which had a couple of grassed areas and a wide pavement has been taken up for re-design and relaying as part of Blackpool's town centre regeneration.

The area once had the graveyard of St John's which is Blackpool's main parish church, before the graves were moved with the creation of Layton Cemetary a mile or two out of the town centre.

Even so there had been a few graves remaining around the side of the church in Cedar Square and as workmen dug down they found an extra unexpected burial. They are trying to identify the remains, of a young woman, before reburial at Layton.

New street lighting has already been erected down Church Street with some rather strange lamp posts, that lean over so much I wonder how many non-concentrating folk will crack their heads or shoulders on them as they walk past... The lights themselves are the projection kind that I would have thought more suited to a disco than a main street and even more worrying I'm sure I read something about a "sound system" too... I may be in danger of becoming a fuddy-duddy but there's enough shops blasting music out without the town council doing it as well...!

I also took the opportunity to go down with the camera to Clifton Street to take a photo of the devastation left by the fire that destroyed Yates Wine Lodge and the surrounding shops a few weeks ago. They reckon it will take 18 months before the buildings will finally be replaced and the street back to normal.

I well remember the old Tivoli Cinema above Yates Wine Lodge. My Dad and I went to see a horror film there once - Ernest Borgnine in "The Devil's Rain" which had a superb twist at the end and a really scary part in the middle - a rat ran over my foot!

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