Ashton Memorial

Anyone travelling up the M6 past junction 33 at Galgate will have seen the dome of the Ashton Memorial amongst the trees of Williamson Park. The motorway takes the fast traffic around Lancaster and the memorial is passed in a matter of seconds, but a visit to the park is well worth the effort and the memorial is quite special.

Building work started on the memorial in 1906, and it took 2 years to complete. It was commissioned by Lord Ashton as a memorial to his late wife and finally opened in 1909.






Although damaged by fire in the 1960s and closed on safety grounds in the early 1980s, the memorial has since been restored and is once again an impressive building.

I hadn't realised but the building is open to the public, and the ground floor space underneath the dome is regularly used for exibitions. Climbing the curved staircase, the first floor viewing gallery provides great views across the city and Morecambe Bay to the Lakeland hills beyond.

Chiquitos and an alien called Paul

We'd not been to the pictures for a long time but having seen a clip of Pegg and Frost's new film 'Paul' we went down to the cinema to take a look.

Paul turns out to be a quite a character as the three of them head across America's mid-west staying one step ahead of a number of pursuers. Daft, but good entertainment nonetheless!

Afterwards it was Mexican for us at Chiquitos over the road, with a couple of beers and a selection of nachos, burritos and chimichungas. Far too much food and once again the diet will have to wait another week!

Southport birdlife

A day off today, so after a visit to the exhibition we decided to drive over to Southport for some lunch, a little shopping and some fresh air by the Marine Lake and pier.

At just over a mile long, the lake is home to a variety of seabirds as well as the common birds always found in parks and ponds, and half an hour with a long lens produced several shots I was happy with.


As the sun started to descend in the sky, the clouds were sufficiently broken to generate some fantastic colours in the sky, and as we returned to the car near the pier there was a chance of some great shots silhouetting the pier against the setting sun.

2011 Exhibition

The camera club's annual exhibition is now on display at Darwen Library, and I have four of my prints included. The exhibition takes place to highlight some of the best photos members have produced over the year, but everyone can enter some photos and there's no criteria to work to - you can include whichever photos you want to.

The pics I've included have all been on this blog over the last year and include a shot of the Eagle Owl, the Cuillins mountains, Lytham windmill and Blackburn's fairly new Wainwright bridge. Carole's pictured here looking at my Cuillins photo.

There's no competition as such although visitors are encouraged to vote for their favourite, and I'm sure everyone wants one of theirs to be the most popular.

The exhibition is on until March 8th, it's free admission and the library is open every day except Sundays (early closing at 1pm on Tuesdays).

Snooker legends live up to their billing

Blackburn has been the home of several legendary snooker players over the years, including the 1985 World Champion Dennis Taylor and the even greater Alex 'Hurricane' Higgins, World Champion in 1972 and 1982.

The mill towns of East Lancashire have always produced high quality players, the game proving popular over many years in the numerous Working Mens and Conservative clubs dotted around in Blackburn, Accrington, Burnley and smaller towns in between.

So when the Snooker Legends tour hit town tonight, a sell-out crowd was guaranteed, especially as the two players involved were the hugely popular Jimmy White and Ronny O'Sullivan, along with 1980 World Champion Cliff Thorburn and the entertaining John Virgo providing their own commentary.

The players certainly lived up to the high standards the crowd expected, with O'Sullivan in particular in exceptional form with five centuries in eight frames and another one in the one-frame doubles match with two raffle winners from the audience.

White chipped in too with the highest break of the night, a 130, but O'Sullivan was in total command, rattling in four centuries in each of the first four frames, including a 122 which broke down on the green with a maximum in sight - from his very first shot of the night.





It was all part of Dad's Christmas present too, so he certainly couldn't complain about the entertainment!

It's nearly fifteen years since I last played seriously, but I used to be able to play the game to a reasonably high standard, winning the Accrington 'Observer Cup' in 1994 and the Blackburn CIU Championship in 1995 and 1996, as well as reaching the East Lancs Amateur final in 1993. I also won several high break prizes in competition, including some centuries too, but the game was always considerably harder than O'Sullivan made it look tonight.

Photos at Towneley Hall

I'd heard about a photograph exhibition over at Towneley Hall in Burnley so we decided to take a look. The photos were the commended images from the Photographic Alliance of Great Britain's annual prints competition, and were worth seeing.

The PAGB is an organisation of affiliated photographic clubs and organise a number of competitions throughout the year, all at a very high standard.

Although I had played golf many times at the golf course next to the hall, I'd never been in the Hall itself before, ands although the charge of £3.70 for non-Burnley residents was a little off-putting, it was worth a visit, not just for the photos up in the gallery on the top floor.


The Hall was the residence of the Towneley family from the early 13th century, although the current hall dates mainly from the 18th century.

The family continued to live in the Hall throughout the 19th century, but in 1878 the male blood line died out and eventually one of the daughters sold the estate and buildings to the local council.

Nowadays the hall and grounds draw thousands of visitors at weekends, especially on a nice day, either to visit the art gallery and museum there, or to enjoy a stroll through the parklands and gardens.

City lights

Working in Manchester for the day today... and as darkness fell the lights across the square meant I couldn't resist a photo from the office window.

Full moon tonight

It's a full moon tonight, but even with a tripod and remote shutter release it's not easy getting a sharp shot. My 300mm lens just isn't powerful enough to capture any detail on the moon's surface - but at 384,000 miles away it's a reasonable effort.

Dewlay's towering landmark

There's a new landmark towering over the countryside near Garstang these days in the shape of an enormous wind turbine recently constructed at Dewlay cheesemakers. Dewlays make a number of well-known regional cheeses including several varieties of Lancashire cheese, Wensleydale and the local speciality, Garstang Blue. One of their most unusual products has to be their wedding cake made of cheese - quite literally a cheese cake!

According to the Daily Telegraph the turbine is Britain's largest, towering over the local landscape reaching 126m into the sky, only 32m smaller than that other more famous local landmark, Blackpool Tower. The company plan to use the turbine to generate enough electricity to generate all their electricity and at the same tiem reduce their carbon footprint by almost 3,000 tonnes.


There must be a number of interesting ways to photograph this new addition to the skyline but these pictures from across the rivers Wyre and Calder don't really emphasise its scale, although the turbine does add an interesting focal point to the horizon. I'll have to go back to try again!

Canal wandering at Withnell Fold

To brush off some cobwebs after New Year, we decided to get some fresh air via an easy stroll along the canal bank. The Leeds & Liverpool canal crosses Blackburn and there are numerous points to join the towpath - today we chose a very familiar spot: the Boatyard Inn at Riley Green.

Although the temperatures were above freezing and a little warmer than of late, the canal was firmly frozen with thick ice - I threw a large rock high in the air and it landed on the ice with a thud, but hardly left a mark (I wasn't going after it).

Walking down the towpath under the new motorway bridge, we walked on past several fields to the tiny village of Withnell Fold. Here the old paper mill looked virtually unchanged since it was built in 1843. The wider goods barges moored outside were held fast by the ice and won't be going anywhere for a while yet.

Crossing the bridge here, we walked through the mill courtyard past a square chimney and on to the terraced cottages in the village, overlooking public gardens, which were once the original 'lodge' or reservoir for the mill. The village was the product of the industrial expansion in Lancashire in the mid 19th century, when there was a large increase in the number of mills being built.

As a water supply and transport links were important to a mill's success, sites away from the town centres became important, and Withnell Fold is a good example. The mill was completed on a greenfield site by Thomas Blinkhorn Parke, the son of another Lancashire millowner. Parke also oversaw the creation of the village, and at the time it was revolutionary, with each cottage having a garden and outside toilet.

Walking through the farmyard, we completely missed the large buildings of Withnell Hall, former home of the Parke family, screened by the farm cottages. We progressed onwards through the farm and out across fields to the next farm and from there the route led to a footbridge over the M65 back to the car. Except the paths weren't so easy to pick out and we ended up in fields as the sky began to darken. Keeping our wits, we worked out our bearings and headed for the nearby main road, opposite Bury Lane in Withnell, leaving us a walk of a mile or so along the road back to the car.

A reminder that the days are much shorter at this time of year!