On this day … 18 November 1893

The Preston Guardian reported that New Street, on the north side of the Market Place where the former general post office and the cenotaph now stand, was being demolished. When it was built sometime around the beginning of the eighteenth century, it was one of the first new streets in Preston since the town was laid out in the Middle Ages. Hence the name.

It was not there when the town was surveyed in 1685, but was occupied by 1724, as a court leet held that year shows in its record of persons being harboured illegally in the town: ‘A family at Jno Newsham’s in new Street’.

It was quite likely the work of the Wall family. In 1685, a Mr Wall owned a house on the north side of the market place, with a burgage plot stretching back to St John’s Street (an extension of the present Lord Street). Next door was owned by a Francis Woodhouse.

These were the properties that seem to have been demolished to make way for New Street. At the time of the Preston Poor Tax Survey in 1732 there were seven properties in the street, all owned by a Mr William Wall. The survey lists who he leased his properties to, who they rented them to, and the annual rent of each.

On the east side, the first house was leased to the widow of Thomas Fisher and was occupied by Widow Townend. The occupant of the next house on that side, Thomas Danson, rented his house directly from William Wall, as did Henry Cowburn at the next house. The final house on that side of the street was leased to the executors of Mr Henry Fisher, who rented it to John Dickinson.

On the west side of the street, the first house was leased to a Mr Thomas Stanhope, and occupied by a Thomas Kellet. The next was rented directly from William Wall by Anne Kighley, a widow, as was the last on that side, which was occupied a Thomas Johnson.

The houses were all assessed for the poor rate at an annual rental of £9 10s. 0d., which made them some of the more valuable properties in the town at that time. That would have surprised those viewing those houses at the time of their demolition, when they were seen as slum properties.

What is surprising is how narrow and confined the street was. It was just twelve feet wide, which would mean it saw very little sunlight, yet Mr Wall would seem to have had little difficulty asking a handsome price for leases and rentals. The fact that the same rental was assigned to all of them and all of them occupied a very similar footprint, suggests a speculative building project by the Walls.

A hundred years later, when Rogerson published his trade directory for Preston, there were three public houses in the  street: the Golden Ball, the Swan and the White Bull. The tenants of the other properties included a hatter, a shopkeeper, a hairdresser, a clothes broker, a bread and biscuit maker and a bell man.

Shortly before the street’s demolition, Barrett’s Preston trade directory lists the same three public houses, although it named the Swan as the White Swan. Other occupants of the street included a milliner, a confectioner, a clothes dealer, a provision dealer, and a shopkeeper.

In December 1893, the corporation, which then owned all the properties still standing in the street and was about to demolish them for a planned redevelopment, offered for sale in seven lots almost all the properties (not the land). They fetched just £5: ‘This being the fact the prices paid were practically for the bare materials, and the result was considered very satisfactory’.

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Sources
Anyone with a Lancashire County Library card can read the Preston Chronicle and many more papers for free here: https://link.gale.com/apps/BNCN?u=lancs&aty=rpas
The 1732 Preston Poor Tax Survey: https://prestonhistory.com/sources-2/preston-poor-tax-survey-6-july-1732/