ACCRINGTON - Lancashire County Council

Lancashire Historic Town Survey
Accrington
Standardised terraced housing and the gridiron layout of the streets gave Accrington a
formal regularity, in agreement with classical precepts of urban design (Miller 1999). The
new urban fabric was regarded as tidy, sober and prosperous by some, monotonous and
ugly by others.
The town’s population peaked in 1911, though physical expansion continued throughout
the twentieth century. Sadly, many of the historic structures and features of Accrington
have been removed during twentieth-century redevelopment. Some were demolished in
‘slum’ clearance schemes before the Second World War following the 1931 Accrington
Improvement Act. Others have disappeared more recently as part of clearances such as
that undertaken in Oak Street, or as a consequence of developments such as the Arndale
Centre or the Broadway inner relief road.
Commercial development
In the earlier nineteenth century, shops were concentrated around the Church Street area
and along Abbey Road. By the 1830s, Warner Street was also developing as a shopping
area (Crossley and Ainsworth 1995). There
was little diversity or specialisation, with
clothing, footwear and basic foodstuffs being
the main goods on offer (Rogerson 1818).
Directories indicate that in the mid-nineteenth
century the major shopping streets were
Abbey Street, Blackburn Street, Blackburn
Road, Oak Street and Warner Street (Slater
1851, Mannex 1855). Burnley Road appears
to have become an important shopping street
by 1878 (Barrett & Co 1878, 267-308), and
Plate 7: Houses along Warner Street,
purpose-built with ground floor shops; 1820s
Stanley Street also seems to have been
significant by the end of the century (Barrett
& Co 1900, 568-591).
In the later nineteenth century shops appear
to have been more widespread and far more diverse than previously. A little evidence of
specialisation occurs in some streets, with Blackburn Road in particular appearing to have
developed as a centre of clothing manufacture and retailing (Barrett & Co 1900). The most
obvious change between 1878 and 1900, however, was the appearance and proliferation
of the fish and chip shop, for 57 individuals were listed as fried fish dealers in 1900 (Barrett
& Co 1900, 581). How many of the shops in the early nineteenth century were purposebuilt
is difficult to estimate, but certainly in the later nineteenth century Accrington’s shops
were generally purpose-built (LRO MBAC cc 8099/1). Most were built as single shops
within the ground floors of otherwise domestic buildings, but larger commercial
developments also took place.
Opposite the Peel Institute a purpose-built terrace of shops known as Piccadilly was built
(Singleton 1928, 70; AGWC Plan 2). In existence by 1851 (Slater 1851, 11-15), this was
demolished in the twentieth century. The largest purpose-built shops were those belonging
to the Co-operative society, the first of which opened in 1860. The Accrington Co-op
became the largest society in Lancashire (Haslam 1910, 79). As well as numerous smaller
society shops it had four three-storey stores, all on corner sites and in key commercial
locations (Atkinson 1972, 133) – two were on Abbey Street, one on Oak Street (now
demolished) and one on Brown Street (LRO MBAC acc 8099/1).
The Market Hall was built in 1868 at a cost of £28,300, to a design by John Doyle of
Liverpool. It was purposely designed in a classical style to complement the neighbouring
Peel Institute, and was described in a local paper as a ‘living treasure of art’ (Winstanley
2000, 158). It had rest rooms, refreshment areas and fifty-two permanent stalls (Atkinson
1972, 110). In 1894 the Post Office Arcade was built, partly to provide an adequate post
© Lancashire County Council 2005 28