Past and present meet on a city centre street once said to have it all

Fifty years ago in 1975 a Lancashire Post reporter visited Guildhall Street in Preston to observe the situation and according to the headline produced it was “The street with something for everyone”.

- 

Following the passage, writes Keith Johnson, of time I thought it worthy of a visit to see if things had altered.

It is a street whose development began in 1876 and it was intended to name it Bold Street after the owner of the land, but with the next Preston Guild approaching in 1882 it was named Guildhall Street.

One of the first buildings erected was the three-storey Preston Conservative Club. Work started in 1877 and it was officially opened in May 1878 by the Home Secretary Richard Assheton Cross a former Preston MP.

The Grade II listed building having cost £11,500 to erect and fit out. Advertisements soon appeared offering shops and offices to rent as numerous properties sprang up as either private dwellings or shop premises. Tea & Coffee dealers W. Welbourne & Co. had become an early resident of the street at No. 4 in December 1877 moving from their Winckley Square base and within months solicitor Charles Fryer, an insurance agent, moved into No. 12 and architect David Grant occupied No. 7. One attraction to the area from 1878 was the Grand Clothing Hall on the corner of Fishergate which was a forerunner of the department stores. At the bottom of the street the extension of the Cannon Street Congregational church in 1887 saw that building fronting onto Guildhall Street.