Just for Fun

Did you know? (just for fun!)

When King James I stayed with Sir Richard de Hoghton at Hoghton Tower (a Tudor mansion in central Lancashire) in 1617 he so enjoyed his hosts hospitality that one night, over dinner, he drew his sword and knighted the joint of beef with the words "I knight thee, Sir Loin" – hence the modern name of sirloin steak. The huge table on which the loin of beef stood can still be seen at Hoghton Tower.
With 260,000 people, Bolton is the largest town in Britain
Britain's shortest river is the Brun which runs through Burnley.
Carnforth Station was the location in 1945 of the filming of the Iconic movie 'Brief Encounter'
Preston is home to Europe’s largest bus station
Bacup is home to one of the few remaining English folk dance troupes - the Britannia Coco-Nut Dancers, or 'Nutters'. Their dancing is very distinctive and colourful. There is the Garland Dance and the Nut Dance. The 'nuts' are wooden discs, which are worn on the dancers' hands, knees and belts and are struck in time to the music.
The young actor Sam Aston, who plays Chesney in Britain's longest running soap, Coronation Street, also lives in Bacup.
The UK canal system was started in Lancashire with a canal from Worsley to Manchester built in 1759 by James Brindley. (Called the Bridgewater Canal). It was built to take coal from the Duke of Bridgewater’s coal mines at Worsley into the centre of Manchester to be used for the newly invented steam engines. (Brindley also achieved another world first, building an aqueduct taking the canal over the River Irwell).
In 1830 the first British passenger railway opened in Lancashire. The Manchester to Liverpool railway was developed mainly to bring raw cotton from the port of Liverpool to the growing cotton metropolis of Manchester at a much cheaper cost than by road or canal. Trials were held at Rainhill near Liverpool to find the best locomotive for the railway and George Stephenson's 'Rocket' won. The railway opened on 15 September 1830.
Lancashire was the centre of cotton production, with towns such as Manchester, Bolton, Preston, Blackburn and Burnley dependent on the cotton mills that grew up. Some of the main inventions that contributed to the growth of the cotton industry originated in Lancashire e.g. John Kay's Flying Shuttle in Bury, James Hargreaves' Spinning Jenny in Blackburn, Richard Arkwright's Water Frame in Preston and Samuel Crompton's Spinning Mule in Bolton.
Bolton Wanderers beat Manchester United 2-0 in the FA Cup final in 1958!
Blackburn Rovers Football Club was formed by a group of public schoolboys in 1875
Lanky Twang is the nickname for the speaking of Lancashire dialect and slang. It includes phrases like 'Orite' meaning 'Are you alright', 'Rite for a do' meaning 'I'm ready' and 'Put wood in'th hole' meaning 'close the door'.
In 1612 eight women and two men were hanged at Lancaster jail for the murder, by witchcraft, of 17 people in the area of East Lancashire known as the Forest of Pendle. There were three others also involved, but one died in jail, another was tried and hanged at York, and another was convicted of witchcraft but not murder and was imprisoned for a year. The ten were known as the ‘Pendle witches’.
The Fisherman's Inn, Hollingworth Lake, Littleborough (near Rochdale) is where this site’s creator grew up!
Coronation Street, set in Manchester, is one of the longest-running soaps on British TV, and also the most popular, alongside Eastenders. Some episodes have attracted almost 20 million viewers, which equates to about one third of the population of the UK.
The Romans founded a small settlement called Mamuciam where the city of Manchester now stands. In Castlefield the remains of a Roman fort can be found. This is where the rivers Irwell and Medlock meet and as such was a good defensive position which the Romans took advantage of. By the 5th century, when the Romans left Britain, the settlement was home to an estimated 2000 people. The site at Castlefield has been decimated by industrial development in the 18th and 19th centuries, however some ruins still survive.
For much of its existence Manchester was a particularly unimportant place. By the time of the Norman invasion in 1066 it was only a district. It formed part of the Hundred (or Manor) of Salford, which then stretched from present-day areas Preston in the north to Stockport in the south, and from Warrington in the west to Rochdale in the east.
In 1830 the Manchester to Liverpool railway was opened to carry both passengers and freight. It ran for 31 miles between the two cities and linked the industries of Manchester to the huge port of Liverpool. The opening ceremony was attended by the Prime Minister and several other important guests, one of whom (William Huskisson, MP for Liverpool) was run over and killed by one of the locomotives. It was by no means the first railway in the world, and in fact two freight lines were built in Britain in the five years beforehand; one from Stockton to Darlington and one from Bolton to Leigh. It was, however, the most successful and within five years of operation was carrying 500,000 people a year between the two cities.
In the 18th century Manchester became the centre of a canal network that stretched across the country. However, it was one canal in particular, The Bridgewater Canal, built in 1765, that is widely seen as kick-starting this development.
The Guardian daily newspaper was first established in 1821 in Manchester. It was known as the Manchester Guardian until 1959. It relocated to London in 1976 to reflect its status as a national newspaper.
During the 19th and 20th centuries Manchester was a hotbed of radicalism and reform movements. It was also home to Emmeline and Christabel Pankhurst, famous campaigners for women's rights.
The two oldest buildings in the city are the Old Wellington Inn and Sinclair’s Oyster Bar. The Wellington Inn was built in the 1550's and Sinclairs Oyster bar dates back to 1720. They had already been moved slightly (15ft upwards) in the 1970's to accommodate the Arndale shopping centre development. They both survived the 1996 IRA bomb blast because they were surrounded by those new buildings. They were eventually moved 100m to their present site opposite the cathedral.
Known as the backbone of England, the Pennines (or rather the fact that Manchester lies directly to the west them) are the reason the city is rainier than most places in the UK. This is because the prevailing wind carries water vapour inland, and drops this in the form of rain when it is forced to rise over the uplands.
Greater Manchester is a large area comprising ten districts, with Manchester at the centre. Other districts include Bolton, Bury, Oldham, Rochdale, Salford, Stockport, Tameside, Trafford and Wigan.
Today Manchester is most famous for football. Manchester United, arguably one of the greatest football teams in history, is known and supported across the globe.