Tag: Lancaster Live Festival

Lancaster Venues 26 to 28

This week I continue the tale of my extensive visit to the 2025 Lancaster Live festival. The White Cross pub is situated in a refurbished cotton mill warehouse that was owned by Storey’s Cotton Mill who sensibly obtained a strategic and geographical position next to Lancaster Canal. They used to store oilcloth, linoleum and other chemicals there.

There are records dating back to 1820 which indicate there was a coach station located in that area at that time.  The name of the pub which opened in 1987 links to an original stone white cross that was located about 200 yards away.  It was initially a Bass Taverns establishment before the current owners Tim Tomlinson, and his team took over residency in 2004, and they have created a fine hostelry with over twenty rotating ales.

Lancaster White Cross. Image Credit Visit Lancashire.

Tim also now owns two other pubs Merchants 1688 and the Stonewell Tap in the city centre and is also involved in the organising of the festival I was attending. I recall first visiting in the 1990’s and also had a rendezvous there on my 50th birthday shindig after we had gravitated back after an overnight stop in Glasgow.

It is a pub accessed via the canal towpath from either one of the two adjacent bridges. It takes full advantage of its picturesque location by having extensive seating outside which can cater for up to 300 people. Even though it was an October day it was warm enough for us to grab one of those canal side tables and quaff one of their special brewed Festival ales. Munchies kicked in at that stage, and we dined on a fish finger butty which was sourced from nearby Fleetwood.

They do not as a rule stage live music however, they made an exception for the festival weekend, and they had acts playing at the Lancaster White Cross Acoustic Stage located just inside the doorway. Performing was a local artist and singer/songwriter Eleanor Bennett who alongside displaying her art, also undertakes sound and singing workshops.

Eleanor Bennett. Image Credit eleanorbennettsartstumblr.com

Further into the venue was located Lancaster White Cross Main Stage where another local 5-piece combo called Chimps of the Future took to the boards. They formed in 2021 and perform their own material and were in the rock mould. They were good fun and gathered quite a decent audience.

The owners of the White Cross have previously admitted in the past they have lived in the shadow of the more well known Lancaster Water Witch, which was our next destination. It is located about five minutes’ walk away and is another canal path hostelry.

The original Water Witch was not a boozer but was in fact a seventy six foot packet boat that plied its trade on the canal in the 1830’s with the premise of combatting the new railways. Alongside carrying people, they also transported parcels and mail, and they would set off from Kendal at 6am and arrived in Preston at 1pm, halving the journey time of previous packet boats and probably completing the trip in quicker time than some Northern trains do today!

They had scope to cater for up to 120 commuters who were housed in two heated cabins and stewards were on hand to provide refreshments, though unfortunately I don’t think butter pies would have been included on the menu at that stage. It travelled at a princely ten miles an hour and was pulled by horses who thankfully had an equine relay change every four miles. The fare for the cabins on the trip were three shillings for first class and two shillings for second class. 

  Lancaster Water Witch. Image Credit waterwitchlancaster.co.uk

The building itself was previously a canal company stable block and opened as a pub under its current name in 1978. It is a long narrow atmospheric public house with bare stone walls and floors and as a taller punter I have to crouch down a smidge on entering. It is a renowned food establishment and similar to the White Cross there are a plethora of outdoor seats.

It is a hostelry I have visited many times over the years, especially in the summer months and was our first port of call after we cycled the entire Preston to Lancaster canal in 2005. They occasionally have acts playing and, on our visit, there was a local acoustic duo called Outatime playing indie covers in a little window alcove about halfway down the bar area.

Lancaster Venues 23 to 25

This week I return to the Lancaster Live festival I attended in 2023 to review the final venue visited that year which was Lancaster Tite & Locke. This establishment opened on the northbound platform 3 on Lancaster train station on 8th April 2022. It was named after the original architect and engineer of the station, when that was first built back in 1846.

It is a very cosy welcoming bar with the wooden surrounds and exposed brickwork providing a vintage feel. It has four rooms, the initial containing the bar and the others named as first, second and third class lounges!

Tite and Locke. Image Credit flickr.com

There are 24 beers on tap including the five different variations of the very fine Lancaster Brewery ales, and they also offer a takeaway service in advance of your upcoming journey. There is also a large covered outdoor area where you can watch the trains departing to Glasgow, Edinburgh and the Lake District.   

We had a cheeky head wetter there when we first landed around lunchtime and had a relaxed hour at the end of the day prior to the members of our group jumping onto Manchester and Carlisle trains respectively. We managed to commandeer a large table in front of the small acoustic stage in the bar area.

The first act we saw was local band Diverted Traffic who undertook some cover versions including Johnny Cash’s ‘Folsom Prison Blues’ including the amended line of the day which became ‘Shot a man in Tesco, just to watch him die’!

The other performer was Chris Barlow, who is the Senior Lecturer in Education at the University of Cumbria and has been instrumental in driving forward the Eden Project inspired Morecambe Bay curriculum.

The commendable initiative links to place based learning including staging Glastonbury Festivals at the local Sandylands school featuring live music, songwriting workshop, face painting and weaving workshops. That sounds like a whole lotta fun to me and top trumps the double physics classes in my day!

When he needs what I am sure is a welcome break from academia he transforms by night into acoustic guitar man! He has released two albums, one called ‘Hiroshima Twinkie Sunset over Morecambe Bay’ which has tunes featuring lyrics devised by the afore mentioned Sandylands school pupils.

The other is titled ‘Lunar Landscape’ under his stage name Chris Twinkle containing songs with Half Man Half Biscuit sounding titles such as ‘Hey Jules Verne’ and my personal favourite name of ‘Iggy Pop’s Trousers’!

Iggy Pop. Image Credit madelinex.com

So, then I will move forward two years to Gill and I’s return to attend the 2025 festival. The event itself was initially under a modicum of doubt as the original organisers decided to take a well-deserved year off, but thankfully a separate local co-operative took up the mantle. They did a fine job with the usual 50+ venues in operation over the four days of the weekend.

We decided to avoid the risk of relying on train transport home and bagged a room at the Sun Inn in the centre of the city. This allowed us to have a full day’s gigging on Saturday and a half day on the Sunday resulting in a Jimmy personal best of 37 gigs and 23 new venues!

There obviously had to be the traditional false start to proceedings with our local trains having a meltdown, but this was swiftly resolved by an uber to pick up our connection at Manchester Piccadilly, landing in Stockport about 1pm. Our first port of call was the Lancaster Storey Café, where we attended a gig in the gardens last time, but this was the first event inside the building.

Thus, against the backdrop of cappuccino makers and tempting looking cakes there was a local singer called Grace Dawson performing. Prior to our departure we managed to purloin a programme with valuable schedules contained in the pages within.

Our next destination was the Lancaster Toll House Inn, situated near to the canal. There are records of a public house being in this location since 1820. There then followed many derivations before the Thwaites brewery owners undertook a £2m refurbishment in 2007. It was renamed the Penny Street Bridge Hotel complete with bar, brasserie, courtyard and 28 bedrooms.

Toll House Inn. Image Credit Visit Lancashire

In 2015, it obtained its current name reflecting the fact of its location at the original toll house, At the turn of the 19th century local football teams, even ones like Scotforth and Galgate which are only a couple of miles away, were quantified as southerners and thus charged a toll to enter into Lancaster!

It is a grand old Victorian building, and we saw a three piece self-styled jukebox band called the Beets who were actually playing as a duo on the day. They were exactly as they stated on the tin, by playing any song on request from the audience.  

A postscript this week is I do not think the pictures will display, which could be a pesky AI problem, so I shall endeavour to resolve for next week!