Rare pictures of Blackpool in its holiday heyday

But while it is the resort in its heyday that is captured in these rarely-seen photographs, Blackpool’s beginnings were anything but entertaining.

Little more than a hamlet until the effects of the industrial revolution began to unload tourists there by the trainload, its name betrays its rustic roots. “Black pool” was what locals called the effluent from a drainage channel that ran over a peat bog on its way to the sea.

The first tourists had arrived by stagecoach – from Manchester in 1781, and from Halifax the following year. The journey from Yorkshire took two days.

It was the enterprise of Henry Banks in the early years of the century that saw the beginnings of the town that stands today. Known as the “father of Blackpool”, Banks and his heirs built the first holiday cottages, the first assembly rooms – the body of which still stand – and first purpose-built place of entertainment, the Victoria Promenade.

Many more seaside entrepreneurs followed, eager to exploit the captive holiday audiences that the Lancashire mill towns disgorged.

In 1863, the North Pier – the first of three along the prom – was built out of cast iron.

In 1893, the old Beach Hotel was flattened to make room for the Tower, to this day a beacon for holidaymakers and day-trippers from far and wide.

It was not until the 1970s, with the boom in cheap package deals to the Mediterranean, that the tide turned for Blackpool and the stars that had twinkled there, went out. But as long as there is sand on the beach, Blackpool will still be Blackpool.

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