Category: Preston

Preston Venue 60 The Ferret – Part 1

The Preston Ferret has been a jewel in the crown for catching live music in the city for many years. It is situated on Fylde Road opposite the University of Central Lancashire Student Union building and for around a decade was a sister act to 53 Degrees when that venue was located across the road.

It opened originally as the Mad Ferret in 2006 by taking over the site of Preston’s first steam powered cotton mill, owned by local businessman John Horrocks way back in 1794. The first owner Frazer Boon introduced live music to take place on most nights including a Tuesday open mic session and the busy schedule of over 200 gigs a year, many of them free of charge, remains to this day. In 2013, a new landlord took over and removed the ‘Mad’ from the name and it simply became the Ferret.

The old Horrocks Mills Centenary building located on New Hall Lane. Image Credit flickr.

It survived the troubling Covid years by staging sit down safe distance gigs. Despite that its very existence was thrown in considerable doubt when it was unexpectedly put up for sale in 2022, however a crowd funding initiative was launched and the sale price of £795k was raised to save the pub. I for one was ecstatic at that news as these small venues remain essential to the lifeblood of the music industry, especially in regularly bypassed backwaters like Preston.  

It is an archetypal grungy and extremely noisy venue and that just makes me revel in it even more, and it was a handy 15-minute walk from where I lived at that stage. For many years, it was my most attended venue as I have visited there 42 times for live music, many other times just for a beer with no music witnessed. That total has just recently been matched by Academy 2 in Manchester, so therefore as of today (01/03/2024) it remains my joint most attended ever venue. Many times, when visiting there I have run into other Preston musos, Rachael Beattie and Nick Godkin spring to mind here.

The Mad Ferret days. Image Credit Ents 24.

Idles and the Orielles have graced the stage there, but I will relay two other tales in relation to the venue. In 2011, the promoter booked in a young Ed Sheeran who in between the announcement and the actual gig released his debut single ‘A Team’ which flew up to No 5 in the charts. Now, I do not personally understand the appeal of Mr Sheeran, but fair play to the lad he honoured the date and crashed at the one of the audience’s house and played them a personal set there.

My biggest missed opportunity was Jason Lytle who played shortly after the breakup of his band Grandaddy, of whom who I am a huge fan. For some inexplicable reason I did not attend and sincerely hope I was doing something very worthwhile instead!  

Jason Lytle cogitating on a new tune. Image Credit YouTube.

My first attendance at the venue was in August 2007, a week before I travelled northwards for my one visit to the excellent Connect Festival at Inverary Castle. Uncle George and I met Gill after a PNE match and visited the noodle bar that was located at the Ringway end of Ormskirk Road where I mentioned a gig at the Ferret I had read about the day before in the Lancashire Evening Post.

Thus, we wandered down to investigate and the band in question was Slippage from Seattle from whom the driving force was Alison Maryatt who has also been in Rocket Surgery and recorded as Allison in Wonderland. They were in the grunge vein and were excellent though I have found that sourcing any of the material today from any of those acts is rather challenging as there are only very sparse outputs available. 

Around a year later I saw a band called Pencil In who supported the headliners Ivan Campo. The main act are a folk trio who formed in 2006 when they met at the University of Central Lancashire. They have had several 6 music sessions and their single ‘The Great Procrastinator’ was featured in the soundtrack of the TV series Skins. 

In 2010, I witnessed Victorian Dad, an upbeat folky band from Wigan whose driving force is David Rybka. They supported singer songwriter Daisy Chapman who reminded me of Jonie Mitchell. She has been an on/off member of prog band Crippled Black Phoenix and has toured with Howie Gelb of Giant Sand, who interestingly have just announced their first British tour for 9 years.

Preston Venues 57 to 59 – Garstang

Throughout the blog lifecycle I have had to create lines of definition in relation to regional areas and I have undertaken this via the utilisation of postcodes. Therefore, applying that principle, the town of Garstang falls under the jurisdiction of Preston postcode venues!

Garstang is a small market town that lies equidistant between Preston and Lancaster and was recorded in the Domesday book under the name Cherestanc. Situated on the Great Northwest Highway it was an integral staging post for coaches between London and Edinburgh in the 18th century and was also famous for its cattle and cheese fairs. In 2001 it had the distinction of becoming the World’s first Fairtrade Town.  Famous residents include Rugby World Cup winner Jason Robinson and 6 music DJ Mary Anne Hobbs.

Garstang town centre. Image Credit lancashirecaravanparks.co.uk

My first memories of Garstang were making a visit every May bank holiday to an Aunty who lived there, and this always coincided for when the fair was in town, and I recall we were well fed as there was always a reet good spread!

My first job after leaving college was at a car components shop on North Road in Preston called Partco. I was employed on the old YTS scheme and the weekly ‘pay’ in 1985 was from memory £27.20 for a 40-hour shift. This was 13 years before the national minimum wage was introduced so I was paid a princely £0.68 per hour!

In December of that year, I attended the Christmas works do on a Friday which was at the Vineyard restaurant and then onto Snootys nightclub. In the club I ran into Uncle George who was also on his works shindig, and we got to chatting about having a night out in Garstang the following evening.

Thus, after attending the PNE match on the Saturday afternoon, I headed out to the bus stop at Withytrees to catch the No 41 bus and we had a fine sally around the numerous hostelries in Garstang.

At the end of the evening the last bus coming through from Lancaster simply did not turn up. A discussion ensued and despite George having enough funds to pay for a cab we somewhat inexplicably decided to walk the 11 miles back in the pouring rain! Most of the route is via the busy A6 with a portion of road at that stage with no clear pavement, which in our merry state made it a tad perilous.

Picture of a No 41 bus in Garstang, one of which decided not to keep to the schedule! Image Credit dreamstime.com

We eventually arrived at Broughton traffic lights on the outskirts of Preston where a cab pulled up alongside and offered us a free journey home but being stubborn buffoons, we wanted to finish what we had started, so politely declined. I landed home about 3am and slept like Marty McFly in Back to the Future! I was awoken by my brother to attend the gym on the Sunday morning but understandably had an ineffective session, before going to the Exchange pub for a lunchtime ‘hair of the dog’, and then back to work on the Monday for a rest!      

Garstang town centre has a large Booths supermarket which embraces local produce and has plentiful stocks of the Preston staple of Butter Pies and also has bottles of the high-quality Lancaster brewery beer. They also until recently had a large branch of M and Co where I had obtained many bargains.

Located adjacent to the River Wyre you will find the Garstang Th’Owd Tithebarn. It dates to 1710 and its original purpose was a post-medieval grain storage tithebarn, hence the name. In April 2018 we visited some friends in the town and had a meander into the centre and grabbed a seat overlooking the marina. It so happened this coincided (honestly unplanned) with an outdoor performance by The Lune Valley Jazz band.   

Th’Owd Tithebarn pub. Image Credit tithebarn.pub

We then progressed onto the High Street and another old boozer called Garstang Kings Arms and there was a blues band called Whistle Test playing in the corner. Finally on the music front we visited Garstang Wheatsheaf. The pub first opened its doors in 1717 originally named the Wheat Cake before morphing into the Dog Inn in 1820. On the night we visited a band called The Section were playing who were a rhythm and blues combo hailing from down the road in Lancaster.