Piers and Pleasure Gardens at Blackpool

Blackpool "that great roaring spangled beast" (Priestley), the land of kiss-me-quick hats and formidable landlady's comes out of mass tourism. A by-product of the industrial revolution and Lancashire's 19th century boom in cotton spinning. It required a different set of pleasures and pass times from the small scale, upper class tourism of the 17th and 18th centuries. By the end of the 1880's steam trains were bringing almost a million visitors to Blackpool a year, by the started of the First World War this had increased to close to four million tourists a year and a landscape of ballrooms, boarding house and open air baths had sprung up to cater to them.

This Low Tide Trail looks at some of those places created to cater to the growing number of tourists in Blackpool.

You can find out more about CITiZAN and the work we do around England's coastline by visiting our  website .

Priestley JB, 1934, English Journey, 263

If you'd like to read a little more about the heritage of the seaside holiday then check out our blog on Scarborough,  perhaps the first seaside resort in England .

Thank you for taking this stroll along Blackpool Prom with us, it would be great if you could rate this virtual Low Tide Trail for us. Hope to see you again for another digital stroll soon.