Blackpool History, Mystery, Heritage and Hauntings

Scrooges Closed !!!!  So on social media the lovely owners posted the following 22.5.2020 The rumours are true... It is with a VERY heavy heart 💔 that we have to announce, that the award winning Scrooges Bar will not open its friendly doors again 😔 . The council have been wanting Scrooges Bar, Reform Health Club and several other land & properties we own in the town centre for redevelopment for some time now.... and a deal has finally been done.. It is always hard to walk away from a hugely successful business, but even harder to walk away from a way of life and probably losing contact with some of THE SOUNDEST CUSTOMERS any bar could ask for ❤ . Scrooges will miss you all loads. Xxx The worst thing for us is that due to Covid, we don’t get to have one last party. You don’t get to have one last mental sesh with all your mates. There will be no photographs on socials of an amazing sending off party... and that is always gonna be sad for us

You can come in , and out and in and out , it's like the hokey cokey ! What is a lockdown photographer to do ... In my case I have been sorting out my slides, photo's and postcards , I also thought I had about or around 15, 000 saved....BIG no ! it's now closer to 93,000 ! That was a shock and a new hard drive and more backups were done in the most quick of manners. I had great fun looking back on what I actually had/have some published and some have yet to see the light of day ... below is one I had written about before for a now out of print magazine and redone for the E-Zine OLM  Made me think about the things I do in my spare time and what photos am I actually aiming for in the long run?  Do I want to appear on the weather channels - nice - but folks you just get the kudos and no pay! The 'nationals' are a better bet, but again the shots used on a regular basis are quite niche, say we both took one of Blackpool Tower, one was a drone

Happy New Year everybody !  I have been set a challenge !  How many pictures can I find of Poulton stocks ?!!!  Ok this was taken last year in 2019... With the red flowers 2014... This is from one of my slides - 1967   Another one of my slides from 1967  Re the image above - Richard benson on Poulton past had the following to say ! - I had a story about the stocks id like to share. My Great Aunt told me this many years ago. Just after the war the stocks where vandalised. At the same time our family farm (Butlers Farm), which was located at the end of First Avenue and land extended to what is now Garstang Road, was bought by the council for housing. The gate posts from the farm where used to rebuild the stocks and are still there today. Quite humbling that I have a small link to my home town land mark. Here's a picture to the old farm and the gate posts that my Mum

Goodbye to another building ! Council chiefs agreed in December that the Star Inn, on South Promenade, should be bulldozed to make way for a new £12m hotel on the site. Blackpool Pleasure Beach managing director Amanda Thompson revealed ambitious proposals to redevelop the land by building a 120-bedroom hotel to sit alongside the existing four-star Big Blue. A heritage report accompanying the application to pull down the Star describes the pub’s design as being “at odds” with the scale of surrounding buildings. It says the Star has “limited heritage merit” and the loss of the building will be outweighed by the value of the proposed replacement. Although the pub is a locally listed building, there was no objection to the demolition by Blackpool Council’s conservation officer, but a request has been made for a historical record to be made of the site prior to any work commencing. Read more at: https://www.blackpoolgazette.co.uk/news/business/demolition-of-well-known-bl