Chris Bottomley – författare

Blackpool has seen massive changes in the last 120 years. At the beginning of the twentieth century, it was the leading holiday resort in England, famous for the entertainment on offer, its Illuminations and the Pleasure Beach, which drew millions of visitors annually. The population grew massively as the town continued to flourish through the two world wars, but as people began to holiday abroad the town’s popularity declined. Blackpool has been regenerated in recent decades, and the pace of change has been rapid, with large-scale development of areas underway or still planned.Blackpool Reflections features an exciting collection of historic and modern pictures that are individually merged to reveal how the area has changed over the decades. Each of the 180 pictures in this book combines a recent colour view of Blackpool with the matching sepia archive scene. Through the split-image effect, readers can see how streets, buildings and everyday life have transformed with the passing of time. This fascinating visual chronicle ingeniously reflects past and present glimpses of Blackpool and will be of interest to residents, visitors, local historians and all those with links to the area.

Like all towns and cities in the UK, Blackpool has changed over the years, and continues to do so. This much-loved seaside resort has developed from just a few houses fronting its 7 miles of ‘Golden Beach’ in the mid- to late 1700s, to what it is today with its famous Tower, three piers, Golden Mile, Illuminations, Comedy Carpet and Pleasure Beach. In the intervening period many attractions along the promenade have come and gone and the whole 7 miles developed with hotels and houses.Lost Blackpool shows the many well-known attractions and buildings – such as the Big Wheel, The Palace, Derby Baths, Yates’s and Central station – that are no longer part of the landscape, as well as many of the shops, schools, pubs, cinemas and churches of the ‘other’ Blackpool behind the seafront. Lost Blackpool is a book that will appeal not only to the town’s residents but also the many visitors who come here every year to sample its delights.

Although Blackpool is not an old town, it has a wealth of fascinating buildings that represent its growth from a small village on the Lancashire coast to a centre for tourism. Visitors from nearby Liverpool and Manchester came by stagecoach in the eighteenth century but when the railways were built in the 1840s large numbers of holidaymakers were transported to the town and the population grew rapidly to cater for them. The famous promenade was developed, and piers, boarding houses, hotels, theatres, public houses, churches and a tramway system were built. Blackpool boomed and added bold buildings such as the Winter Gardens and Blackpool Tower. Twentieth-century Blackpool was Britain’s most popular holiday resort, not least for the Pleasure Beach, and although numbers have declined in recent years, millions still visit every year.Blackpool in 50 Buildings explores the history of this fascinating Lancashire seaside resort through a selection of its most interesting buildings and structures, showing the changes that have taken place over the years. Alongside the landmark Blackpool Tower and its Tower Ballroom and Circus, the Winter Gardens and its Opera House and Pleasure Beach, the book shows the wealth of other buildings across Blackpool that have contributed to its history, including the Town Hall, North Pier, churches, schools, pubs, clubs, cinemas, theatres, hotels and a windmill. This book will appeal to all those who live in Blackpool or who have visited it over the years.