Category: Preston

Preston Venue 39 – New Longton Cricket Club

Blog number 150 brings me to the sleepy outpost of New Longton, where Gill’s parents have always lived, it is situated about four miles south of Preston. The original formation of the village was sparked by the building of New Longton station on the West Lancashire railway line between Preston and Southport.

Beeching’s astonishingly short-sighted rail review in the 1960’s closed the local station with hundreds of others across the country, thereby negating the direct Preston to Southport link and from then on necessitating a change at either Burscough or Wigan to complete that journey. There was recent talk of building a new station at Midge Hall a couple of miles away on the current line, next to the Midge Hall pub, but sadly this has not yet come to fruition.    

In the late 1980’s in my pre-car days I used to travel over on the Z28 bus, which were especially infrequent on Sundays. I once caught the last bus when it was heading back to the depot on a Friday night before jumping off in town and walking the last leg back to my then current digs in Plungington. I spooked my mate Bicker when I was waiting at the bus stop as he was returning from a night around the Preston hostelries.

When I had no choice but to leave home at the tender age of twenty, I lived in a suite of unhygienic shared houses with a plethora of noisy co-residents, I think the ‘pad’ off New Hall Lane near the Acregate pub was my particular favourite. As a result, I quite often crashed at Uncle George’s flat in town and also on the lounge floor at the in-laws with the faithful pooch Patch keeping me company on the adjoining settee!

I was always well fed with extra portions and have been around that long that Gill’s youngest sister Charlotte and I share a joke that she cannot recall a pre-Jimmy time in her life. I have also been sitting next to Gill’s dad John on PNE matches for around three decades now!   

Around that time, I also used to undertake regular train journeys to Crewe where Gill was currently working, and we used to sally out for regular nights out in nearby Nantwich. I recall utilising my young person’s railcard reducing the fare from £9.60 to £6.35, I know that price is now about thirty years ago, but Avanti still please take note!

My good friend Paul Catterall was in a short-lived band called Debaser (and they did cover that song!) in the 90’s and they used to rehearse at a church hall in New Longton, canvassing local knowledge it was thought this was likely to be the Methodist church on Chapel Lane.   

Though the local corner shop used to serve fresh butter pies which is a massive plus in my book, there are sparse pickings nearby the New Longton lodgings. One of these is the Farmers Arms which resides on Wham Lane. It was for many years a Brewers Fayre establishment and we have had a few decent meals in there. The last time I ventured there was on a particularly soulless Millennium Eve with EastEnders booming on the TV prior to attending an equally soulless party where too much champagne was imbibed!      

Farmers Arms. Image Credit whatpub.com

A fifteen-minute jaunt the other way down Chapel Lane takes you to the New Longton Cricket Club. The club was established in 1921 and last year celebrated its centenary. The cricket club played local fixtures before officially joining the Chorley and District League in 1967. There are also pool, bingo and poker teams affiliated to the establishment.   

It is a homely venue that you can visit via invitation from a current member, with a large lounge split into linked rooms. I have visited several times, either on Christmas and Boxing Day, watching a match on the big screen or simply for a couple of cheeky beers! They regular have cask ales available and have subsidised prices, so much so that Gill’s dad is in shock when he purchases beers in other pubs, based on that I don’t think I will ever take him to Manchester Apollo! 

New Longton Cricket Club. Image Credit newlongtonssc.co.uk

Their big event every year is the President’s Day which takes place on the late August bank holiday, there are numerous food and tombola stalls in place, and it is always well attended. On 26/08/18 I attended the shindig, however the weather that day was somewhat apocalyptic, so the band decided to play indoors.

They took up a fair share of space because they were the Lostock Hall Memorial Brass Band. They had just qualified for the national brass band finals and the following month in Cheltenham they finished in a very respectable seventh place.   

Preston Venues 37 to 38

At the tail end of 2005 I read an article in the Friday entertainment section of the Lancashire Evening Post which provided detail of an interesting sounding gig in January 2006. The gig was to take place at Preston St Bede’s Club. I had never heard of the venue and located it on the map to the bottom of Brownley Road off Chorley Old Road in Clayton Le Woods, above five miles outside the centre of town.

I still had limited familiarity of the area so decided to undertake a field trip in the car beforehand to case out the joint and work out feasible travel plans and surrounding hostelries to visit beforehand. I found the building nearby to the Church and attached Presbytery of St Bede’s, the latter sites having been Grade II listed since 1984.

The 125 bus was decided upon as the most practicable commute option. So, on a particularly baltic Friday night I met Uncle George at the main bus station, and we boarded the bus that traversed its meandering way through Bamber Bridge, past Junction 29 off the M6 to our drop off point very near our first watering hole the Halfway House.  The bus continues past Chorley Hospital and eventually arrives at its end destination of Bolton a week on Tuesday!    

The 125 bus with Preston Bus Station in the background. Image Credit flickr.com

We visited a couple of other pubs, but I forget their names, I recall in one the jukebox had Husker Du ‘Don’t Want to Know if You Are Lonely’ on so that was obviously selected. In the other I encountered local comedian and Phoenix Nights star Dave Spikey in the lavatories!  

From there, there was an alley that cut you through to the venue. The concert area was a large, packed room in a social club setting where the audience was very respectful, so you had to tiptoe to the back of the room. George said it resembled folk clubs of old.

The support act was Corb Lund who is a country and western singer from Alberta in Canada. He has been on the scene for many years and a long-standing member of the Corb Lund band. On the night he played a solo set and was very engaging and enjoyable. 

The main act who had originally sparked my attention was Chuck Prophet. The Californian had first crossed my radar as a member of the 80’s desert rock band Green on Red. I used to play their records a lot, especially their debut album ‘Gas Food Lodging’.

I recall an interview at the time with Neil Young on the Old Grey Whistle Test where Andy Kershaw played some of the record to Neil, who listened for a few seconds and then drawled ‘sounds like Crazy Horse’! I got a chance to see them once supported by Steve Earle at Manchester International 1 in March 1987, but they produced a crushingly disappointing set.

Obviously, lessons were not learnt as unfortunately, this was little different as the gig was limp and his banter was surreal and unamusing. We left prior to the end of the set and arrived at the bus stop and prepared to wait more in hope than in anticipation, though the gods were smiling on us as a bus arrived within a couple of minutes to take us back into the city. The evening ended with a late drink in the Roper Hall club.

Nearer town on the same bus route on Preston Road, you would find the Preston Pines Hotel.  The venue was a famous local establishment and had been open for fifty years for cabarets, functions, school proms and weddings and I had personally attended a couple of weddings there myself and stayed overnight in the thirty-five-room hotel. It was owned throughout this period by the Duffin family before eventually closing in February 2017 and making space for 40 apartments and a Lidl supermarket.

Preston Pines Hotel. Image Credit pinkweddingdays.co.uk

They had a large function room where in 2006 Gill and I were roped in to attending a friend’s birthday party. The ‘entertainment’ on the evening was a local Abba tribute band called Mamma Mia.