Preston Guild 2012

This year, Preston’s unique Guild Merchant celebrations have been highlighted in several posts. The medieval pageant is held once every 20 years and is the last remaining such commemoration of a royal trading charter in Britain. This year was one of the biggest Guild Celebrations yet, with a year long calendar of events, concerts, processions and parties. The legacy project was the construction of the Guild […]

Cycling the Preston Guild Wheel

If something happens very rarely you might say it occurs only once in a blue moon. But if you find yourself in a certain corner of northern England, someone might say such an event happens once in a Preston Guild. Lancashire folk have a certain way with words, but in this case they are being literal. The Preston Guild only happens once every 20 years and […]

Once in a Preston Guild – ever again in a Jubilympiguild?

If something happens very infrequently you may here it referred to as being ‘once in a blue moon’. In Lancashire, ‘appen tha’ll say ‘once in a Preston Guild’. The Preston Guild is celebrated enough to become part of the language but celebrated so infrequently to become a byword for rare events. So what is the Preston Guild? And why is celebrated only once every twenty years? […]

Once in a Preston Guild

On Good Friday in 2012, the story of the Passion of Christ was played out live on BBC One from the distinctly unlikely surroundings of Preston Bus Station. Preston’s Bus Station is an iconic piece of 1960s architecture and arouses strong feelings in the face of the City Council’s proposals to demolish it. But whatever the merits of this icon of brutalism, it is a world […]