More on the Winckley Square road row

The angry correspondents in the Preston papers protesting the blocking off of the old road across what became Winckley Square should have dug out the Shakeshaft map of Preston (pictured) published in 1810 to present as evidence. (See yesterday’s post).

This clearly shows the road before Winckley Square was developed to the south. In fact, the square is not named on the map, with just Winckeley Street, Winckeley Place (as they are spelled on the map) and Chapel Street marked.

The road that the old inhabitants of Preston could remember when they were called on as witnesses when the row erupted in the 1860s, was the one marked with a dotted line. It ran from the present Cross street to Mount Street.

Mount Street was an ancient route, known as Brewery Lane in the eighteenth century when there was a brewery at the Fishergate end and as Alms House Lane in the seventeenth century when alms houses sat near the brewery site (see plan).

The old lane that crossed what was to become Winckley Square, was also ancient, serving as a back lane to the burgage plots that stretched down from Fishergate. It would have flanked the north bank of the old Syke stream, which still flows under the square, but is now culverted.