One of the notable omissions from the blog has been Burnley
in Lancashire, especially as it’s only 30 miles from Manchester. To be honest, I’d been putting this one off
as I knew Burnley was a deprived northern town and it can be depressing to
visit a place like that. However, it was
the first proper blue sky day of the year and I thought it was time to bite the
bullet and visit Burnley.
Getting to Burnley from Manchester is easy enough – M60, M66,
A56, M65, exit junction 10 and head into town on the A671. It takes about 40 minutes and parking on a
weekend is relatively straightforward.
We found a pay-and-display in one of the Council carparks.
Burnley is very much a Victorian mill town with plenty of
buildings from that era. It’s really
worth looking up above the fast food shop signs to see the architecture of the
buildings. They have some class and
style, but are in need of some TLC. It
would be interesting to see pictures of them when they were new, with far
classier signage.
The centre of Burnley is pedestrianised with a large 1960s
precinct dominating the centre. The sun
had brought people out and there were plenty of them pottering around the town. The shops aren’t terribly exciting – just your
standard low-end high street shops.
There is a café in the centre of the precinct, and outside
the tables were packed with smokers.
There was a little dog sat on its owners lap with its chin resting on
the stainless steel table looking bored, whilst its owner was smoking up a fog
looking equally as bored.
There is an indoor market which has been built into the
precinct over the main shops. It is
split into two – half is like a proper indoor market with regular stalls whilst
the other half is a wide open space for a temporary market. The day we went the temporary market was
selling crafts. I didn’t expect this,
but I was very pleased to see local crafts-people have the opportunity to sell their
wares. In an age of mass produced
products, there is nothing quite like something which is personal and handmade.
Obviously we were here for the charity shops and there were
plenty to choose from. Whilst Neil did
find some vinyl records, he didn’t buy any as they were rubbish. I didn’t find much either but the overheard
conversations were good. My favourite
was one guy who was volunteering in a shop chattering away to his fellow
volunteer. He said that he’d had seven
wives and at one point had three houses.
When we left the shop Neil said he’d probably had so many wives as he
wouldn’t shut up. It was interesting
listening to him as I could only make out one in three words. Years ago when I was at school we used to
have a regular maths supply teacher from Lancashire. The maths teacher had an impenetrable
Lancashire accent and I remember there was often a sea of blank faces staring
at him as we simply couldn’t understand him.
Listening to the guy in the shop I now realise our maths teacher was
from Burnley.
Just one last note about charity shops – we noticed the YMCA
had new signage and had gone for an AC/DC inspired font. I quite liked it and it was certainly better
than the previous logo. In fact we had
to double take as I didn’t think it was a charity shop at first.
One of the random things I found in Burnley was that you can
do a degree in football here with Burnley Football Club. It made me laugh, but then again football is
big business these days so I guess there is a market for these types of
courses.
There wasn’t really much else to see in Burnley, so we hit
the road and headed off to nearby Clitheroe to stock up at our favourite
sausage shop.
Ok, so was Burnley as depressing as I thought it would
be? No, but I knew that going on a sunny
day would take the edge off it. Then
again you can tell there has been plenty of regeneration money pumped into the
town, although a few more NHS dentists wouldn’t go amiss round here.
To me, Burnley is another northern town that has seen better
days and a place where the kids with ambition will leave for the bright lights
of Manchester or Leeds. I honestly can’t
say I’ll be back in a hurry, but Burnley wasn’t as bad as I thought it would be
and some good work has been done here to get it back on its feet again.
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