Visit Lancashire

Christmas Countdown

Now’s the perfect time to put together your Christmas Day dinner to do lists. The earlier you start to prepare the better, and it takes out all the panic that can suddenly appear mid December! We’ve got all the advice you need straight from the professional team at the Walled Garden Bistro, at Barton Grange Hotel near Preston, who have been preparing for Christmas Day since the summer!

The first thing to do in November is put together a big to do list of what needs to be prepared and all the meals you are going to cook with their ingredients, broken down by week until you reach Christmas. Decide what is going to feature on your Christmas Day menu and rustle up some dishes to freeze that you can eat after Christmas Day so you don’t have to be rushing round prepping lots of meals.

Once you’ve done this it’s also worth thinking about how friends and family can help out and what they can do.

November in Lancashire

Watch the fireworks over Lancaster Castle • wrap up warm and take a walk down a pier • find a pub with a real fire and settle in for the afternoon • drive through the Trough of Bowland • wear a red rose for Lancashire Day (27 Nov) • take a ride on a steam train • watch a murder mystery • go to a Christmas lights switch on

Event highlights

LIGHT UP LANCASTER, 4-5 November
Take to the streets after dark for a magical citywide experience and light art trail. Projections and installations illuminate the city’s handsome historic buildings, squares, parks and monuments. This year, amongst many highlights, Illuminos invite you to crack the code to Lock and Key at the Castle and in a surprise location, 1000s of balloons for Steve Messam’s countywide commission will rise in a tide of red – a twist on the familiar county emblem the red rose. The festival is topped off by a spectacular fireworks display on the Saturday evening

LANCASHIRE DAY, 27 November
Join one of the many events across the county to celebrate Lancashire Day including Lancashire Day in Nelson on 26 November.

Catching up with the Quirky Traveller

Visit Lancashire are excited to be hosting a visit from award winning travel writer and self-proclaimed ‘happy northerner’ - The Quirky Traveller, Zoe Dawes.

Zoe will be visiting LightPool in Blackpool on 28 Oct and Light up Lancaster on 4-5 Nov.

What do you love about living in Carnforth? It’s a small, friendly place, with good shops and it’s not been tarted up. It’s very handy to get to places. There’s a good train service from the ‘Brief Encounter’ station, it’s only half an hour into the Lake District or Yorkshire, good local transport links and the M6 is on my doorstep.

When you’re not travelling the globe where do you go to relax? Morecambe Bay is just up the road and I often walk along the Jetty or say hi to Eric on the Prom. My favourite local spot to relax is Heysham Barrows; I often wander up there and admire the views across the Bay. Sometimes I just get in my car and set off to explore somewhere new. I’m forever getting lost in the Trough of Bowland; it’s so pretty. Lancaster is just up the road and has a couple of great theatres, plus plenty of pubs and restaurants to eat out with friends.

Top 5 Autumnal Walks in Lancashire (with a pub nearby)

There’s a nip in the air, the skies are clear and the leaves are turning golden – hurray for autumn! Head out for a walk this weekend and then reward yourself with a hearty pub meal, preferably one with a roaring log fire.

1. A Cartford Country Walk- 4 Miles The award winning Cartford Inn have mapped out a leisurely walk that starts and finishes at the inn. Discover the pleasant fields and country lanes that surround the inn. Walk along the banks of the River Wyre before returning over the Cartford Bridge. <<Download walking routes>>

Cycling routes to look out for in Lancashire

Inspired to take up cycling following a fantastic summer of sport? Fancy a new challenge? These new cycling routes are ideal — Leisure Lakes Bikes explains more.

Brun Valley Greenway

Location: The Brun Valley Greenway start at Burnley town centre and leads out into the surrounding countryside.

An introduction to the route: Parks and wooded river valleys are just some of the sights awaiting you along the Brun Valley Greenway route.

Suggested route: Start your journey along the Brun Valley Greenway at Burnley Central Station and follow the route along an old mineral railway. When you reach Netherwood Bridge, it’s up to you whether you prepare for a climb that takes you into Briercliffe and the Queen Street Mill — a tradition steam-powered mill — or cycle along the Brun Valley towards Brownside, Pike Hill and Rowley Lake.

October in Lancashire

Take a stroll along the Leeds-Liverpool canal • go on ghost walk climb to Pendle Hill’s 557 metre high summit • order apple pie for pudding • watch the migrating birds over Morecambe Bay • go stargazing at Beacon Fell Country Park • listen to live music in a country pub • catch the Pendle witches bus tour

Event highlights

RHAPSODY TO THE LEEDS LIVERPOOL CANAL, King George’s Hall, Blackburn, 16 October
Composed and written by Ian Stephens and Ian McMillan, performed by choral voices of all ages, accompanied by the Brighouse & Rastrick Brass Band, soprano, Amanda Roocroft and cellist, Jonathan Aasgaard. 

FLYING SCOTSMAN RETURNS, East Lancashire Railway, Rawtenstall 13-16 October
See this world famous locomotive thunder down the tracks to Rawtenstall. You can take a ride on the Scotsman or watch it drive by throughout the weekend.

 

Review: Steve Messam, When the Red Rose in Preston

Taking as his starting point notions of space, scale, material and the temporal, Steve Messam’s site-specific installation When The Red Rose in Preston was delivered as part of the wider series of events in September’s Lancashire Encounter programme. Composed of tethered balloons of various sizes affixed to the walls of Surgeons Court and three other sites in Lancashire, the resulting work (and its sister works) serves to highlight this otherwise innocuous space, transforming or redefining the street from thoroughfare to a meeting place and site of meaning-production, and re-defining our function as citizens to what Margaret Morse, in her essay The Body, the Image and the Space-in-Between refers to as the active performers of a work of installation art.

Atkinsons Est. 1837. Re-booted 2005. New Roastery 2016

Atkinsons & Co - Tea & Coffee Specialists  are a fervent, quality-driven, coffee-obsessed, local-to-Lancaster, caffeine-fuelled family firm. Established in 1837 at the start of the Victorian Age they were rebooted in 2005 when Ian and Sue Steel took up the challenge of bootstrapping this local institution into the 21^st Century. So now, with their two sons, Maitland and Caspar, even though they are steeped in heritage, they are constantly pioneering new boundaries in their search for the elusive sweet spot of the bean. In this quest for the best-in-class, they scour the coffee world to source from small family farms, delving into deeper traceability & offering sustainability to encourage growth at either end of the value chain.

5 Things to do in the Autumn

The leaves are starting the turn, conker shells litter the pavements, fires are being lit and Halloween merchandise fills the shops. Allotments and farmers markets are bursting with ripe fruit and vegetables, whilst restaurant menus are filled with game and heartier food. It is officially autumn!

Here’s our top autumnal things to do

1. Find yourself a pub or inn with a log fire and settle in for the afternoon or evening.
Few things can beat the smell and warmth from the real fire and the experience can be enhanced with glass of real ale and a plate of seasonal food. We’re thinking venison, wild duck, squash, aubergines, lamb, plums….we could go on! The following all have real fires and tempting menus; The Millstone at Mellor, The Fleece Inn at Dolphinholme, The Royal in Kirkby Lonsdale, The Clog & Billycock near Blackburn, The Borough in Lancaster and the Shireburn Arms Hotel at Hurst Green in the Ribble Valley. 

Whats new at Samlesbury Hall for families

This weekend was my first non-working visit to Samlesbury Hall in quite a while and with the family in tow I spent a very pleasant sunny Sunday morning revisiting this very splendid medieval hall. There’s been lots going on at the hall in the last 12 months – new play area, new wafflery, new tours, new opening hours and there’s even brand new ‘glamping’ accommodation in the form of the Shepherd Hut Hamlet. So here’s my run down of the new stuff at Samlesbury Hall which we discovered during out visit.