Celebrating Lancaster Day – The City With A Story - HPA

Celebrating Lancaster Day – The City With A Story

Lancaster Day is a celebration of our fantastic city, marking the signing of the original charter on 12th June 1193. This year, festivities take place across the city with talks from local history experts to guided walks and vintage music.

Proud to be based in the city for the last 46 years, and now in the heart of the city on Castle Hill, we asked our team for their favourite historical images of Lancaster and why?…

Trainee Architect Sam Jones chose the 65ft high concrete former restaurant at Lancaster Services, which stands as a modern hexagonal icon representing the futuristic aesthetic of the 1960s and is the only Grade II modernist building in the city, acting as a gateway to the Lakes, and a relic of a forgotten future.

Image Source: RIBA Pix

Heritage Director Jess Barrow chose Old China Lane. “I love thinking about how different Old China Lane (Street) was before the demolition and widening of the street to create China Street as we know it today”. It is one of the oldest roads in Lancaster and was just 8ft wide, the width of a single cart. Accounts talk about it being a “rookery” during the Victorian era, owing to its cramped nature and high levels of criminality, which was in part put down to the high concentration of pubs within such a small area. The demolition works were planned to improve the area, with the buildings on the east side being retained and forming the shops we see today.

Image Source: Red Rose Collection

Director and Specialist Conservation Architect Zoë Hooton – a Lancaster stone fanatic – chose the Turner painting of the construction of the Aqueduct. The painting showcases Lancaster as one of the most cutting-edge cities embracing new stone techniques, with Skerton Bridge below constructed in 1787 – the first flat bridge structure in the country and certainly a precedent for the Aquaduct. The painting also features the Castle as a backdrop, an ever-present in the city. Zoë notes, “What fascinates me is that these buildings are just as vital to the city’s transportation today as they were back then”.

Painting of Stone Quarry now Williamson Park. Image Source: Art Fund https://www.artfund.org/supporting-museums/art-weve-helped-buy/artwork/7163/lancaster-from-the-stone-quarries

Accounts & Quality Manager Lucy Housden chose the recent VE Day celebrations, commenting, “I think it shows such a joy and community in the city. The festivities to mark King Charles’ visit to Lancaster Castle earlier this week brought a similar feeling in the city”.

Image Source: Lancaster Past & Present

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