Bygone Burnley: Red Lion Street area and Swan lock-up, with Roger Frost

Transcript

00:00Today we're in the centre of Burnley, behind the Swan, which as you know is on St James's Street.

00:09The Swan itself was built, I think, in 1795. It's one of the oldest buildings in the town centre.

00:17But we're actually standing outside a building to the rear of the Swan,

00:24which was built in 1817 as Burnley's lock-up prison.

00:30Now if you look carefully at the building, the windows have still got iron bars on them.

00:37And it is the only part of the prison that is left. It was much larger and it survived because the Swan used to use it.

00:48I think they still do use it as a beer store.

00:51So the prison was built after a riot took place in 1817.

00:58There was an earlier lock-up, which would have been under the present shopping department, Charter Walk.

01:07It was actually just off New Market Street.

01:12But the riot resulted in the jailer being locked up in his own prison and several people escaping.

01:23They were recaptured and put back into the old prison, which was destroyed almost.

01:31And they decided to build a new one and this is it.

01:36It's over 200 years old now and it's quite a remarkable discovery.

01:44I didn't realise that it was still here until I was at university or something.

01:51And I persuaded the then landlords to let me go and have a look.

01:55And it's made of really crude stones.

02:00It's been a lot cleaner than this in the old days, but it has survived.

02:06We've now moved round the corner from the prison, but we're still standing in the area where the Burnley lock-up was.

02:16It has an interesting history because of the different buildings that have been on the site.

02:25The site is quite a large one and in front of me there is a modern building, which was built as Barclays subsidiary, Martins Bank.

02:39And it's still got Martins coat of arms on the building.

02:43Afterwards, that building was used as a shop when Martins closed.

02:49Oddies used to have a little confectionery shop there.

02:55But the building now is being revitalised as a restaurant, bar, hotel and even a cinema.

03:06So that's a really interesting development in Burnley's current history.

03:12One which we'll look back on in a large number of years.