Blackpool

Blackpool gets its name from a historic drainage channel (possibly Spen Dyke) that ran over a peat bog, discharging discoloured water into the Irish Sea, which formed a black pool (on the other side of the sea, "Dublin" (Dubh Linn) is derived from the Irish for "black pool"). Another explanation is that the local dialect for stream was "pul" or "poole", hence "Black poole".

People originating from Blackpool are called Sandgrownians or Sandgrown'uns (this is also sometimes used for persons originating from Morecambe and Southport) or Seasiders (although this is more commonly associated with Blackpool F.C.).[5]

View of Blackpool, 1784

A 13,500-year-old elk skeleton was found with man-made barbed bone points (probably from spears) on Blackpool Old Road in Carleton in 1970. Now displayed in the Harris Museum this provided the first evidence of humans living on the Fylde as far back as the Palaeolithic era.[6] The Fylde was also home to a British tribe, the Setantii (the "dwellers in the water") a sub-tribe of the Brigantes, who from about AD80 were controlled by Romans from their fort at Dowbridge, Kirkham. During the Roman occupation the area was covered by oak forests and bog land.

Some of the earliest villages on the Fylde, which were later to become part of Blackpool town, were named in the Domesday Book in 1086. Many of them were Anglo-Saxon settlements. Some though had 9th and 10th century Viking place names. The Vikings and Anglo-Saxons seem to have co-existed peacefully, with some Anglo-Saxon and Viking placenames later being joined – such as Layton-with-Warbreck and Bispham-with-Norbreck. Layton was controlled by the Butlers, Barons of Warrington from the 12th century.

In medieval times Blackpool emerged as a few farmsteads on the coast within Layton-with-Warbreck, the name coming from "le pull", a stream that drained Marton Mere and Marton Moss into the sea close to what is now Manchester Square. The stream ran through peatlands that discoloured the water, so the name for the area became "Black Poole". In the 15th century the area was just called Pul, and a 1532 map calls the area "the pole howsys alias the north howsys".

In 1602, entries in Bispham Parish Church baptismal register include both Poole and for the first time blackpoole. The first house of any substance, Foxhall, was built toward the end of the 17th century by Edward Tyldesley, the Squire of Myerscough and son of the Royalist Sir Thomas Tyldesley. An Act of Parliament in 1767 enclosed a common, mostly sand hills on the coast, that stretched from Spen Dyke southwards. Plots of the land were allocated to landowners in Bispham, Layton, Great Marton and Little Marton. The same act also provided for the layout of a number of long straight roads that would be built in the areas south of the town centre, such as Lytham Road, St. Annes Road, Watson Road and Highfield Road.[7]

By the middle of the 18th century, the practice of sea bathing to cure diseases was becoming fashionable among the wealthier classes, and visitors began making the arduous trek to Blackpool for that purpose. In 1781, Thomas Clifton and Sir Henry Hoghton built a private road to Blackpool, and a regular stagecoach service from Manchester and Halifax was established. A few amenities, including four hotels, an archery stall and bowling greens, were developed, and the town grew slowly. The 1801 census records the town's population at 473. The growth was accelerated by the actions of Henry Banks, often considered to be the "Father of Blackpool". In 1819 he purchased the Lane Ends estate, including the Lane Ends Hotel, and built the first holiday cottages. In 1837, his son-in-law Dr. John Cocker built Blackpool's first assembly rooms which still stand on the corner of Victoria Street and Bank Hey Street.

Blackpool sands in 1895

The most significant event in the early growth of the town occurred in 1846, with the completion of a branch line to Blackpool from Poulton on the main Preston and Wyre Joint Railway line from Preston to Fleetwood. Fleetwood declined as a resort, as its founder and principal financial backer, Peter Hesketh-Fleetwood, went bankrupt. In contrast, Blackpool boomed. A sudden influx of visitors, arriving by rail, provided the motivation for entrepreneurs to build accommodation and create new attractions, leading to more visitors and a rapid cycle of growth throughout the 1850s and 1860s. In 1851 a Board of Health was formed. Gas lighting was introduced in 1852, and piped water in 1864. By 1851, the town's population was over 2,500.

The growth was intensified by the practice among the Lancashire cotton mill owners of closing the factories for a week every year to service and repair machinery. These became known as wakes weeks. Each town's mills would close for a different week, allowing Blackpool to manage a steady and reliable stream of visitors over a prolonged period in the summer.

In 1863, the North Pier was completed, rapidly becoming a centre of attraction for elite visitors. Central Pier was completed in 1868, with a theatre and a large open-air dance floor. The town expanded southward beyond what is today known as the Golden Mile, towards South Shore, and South Pier was completed in 1893, making Blackpool the only town in the United Kingdom with three piers. In 1878, the Winter Gardens complex opened, incorporating ten years later the Opera House, said to be the largest in Britain outside London.

The town was granted a Charter of Incorporation as a municipal borough in 1876. W.H. Cocker, son of John Cocker, and therefore grandson of Henry Banks, was its first mayor. The town would become a county borough in 1904.

From the 1880s until the First World War, Blackpool was one of the regular destinations for the Bass Excursions, when trains would take employees of Bass's Burton brewery on an annual trip to the seaside.

Photochrom of the Promenade c. 1898

Much of Blackpool's growth and character from the 1870s on was predicated on the town's pioneering use of electrical power. In 1879, it became the first municipality in the world to have electric street lighting, as large parts of the promenade were wired. The lighting and its accompanying pageants reinforced Blackpool's status as the North of England's most prominent holiday resort, and its specifically working-class character. It was the forerunner of the present-day Blackpool Illuminations. In 1885 one of the world's first electric tramways was laid down as a conduit line running from Cocker Street to Dean Street on the Promenade. The line was operated by the Blackpool Electric Tramway Company until 1892 when their lease expired and Blackpool Corporation took over running the line. A further line was added in 1895 from Manchester Square along Lytham Road to South Shore, and the line was extended north, first to Gynn Square in 1899, and then to Fleetwood. In 1899 the conduit system was replaced by overhead wires. The tramway has remained in continuous service to this day.

By the 1890s, the town had a population of 35,000 and could accommodate 250,000 holidaymakers. The number of annual visitors, many staying for a week, was estimated at three million. 1894 saw the opening of two of the town's most prominent buildings: the Grand Theatre on Church Street and Blackpool Tower on the Promenade. The Grand Theatre was one of Britain's first all-electric theatres.

The first decade of the new century saw the development of the Promenade as it is known today and further development southwards beyond South Shore towards Harrowside and Squires Gate. The Pleasure Beach was first established about this time. Seasonal static illuminations were first set up in 1912, although due to World War I and its aftermath they only enjoyed two seasons until they were re-introduced in 1925. The illuminations extended the holiday season into September and early October, ceremonially switched on by notables and celebrities.

Promenade steps at high tide in 2017

The inter-war period saw Blackpool attain pre-eminence as a holiday destination. By 1920, Blackpool claimed around eight million visitors per year, three times as many as its nearest British rivals, still drawn largely from the mill towns of East Lancashire and the West Riding of Yorkshire. Stanley Park was laid out in 1920 and opened in 1926. The area around the park has become renowned for some of the most desirable residences in the area.

In 1937, Littlewoods opened its first department store in the town.[8]

Documents have been found to suggest that the reason Blackpool escaped heavy damage in World War II was that Adolf Hitler had earmarked the town to remain a place of leisure after his planned invasion. Despite this, on 11 September 1940, German bombs fell near Blackpool North railway station and eight people were killed in nearby houses in Seed Street. This site today is occupied by the new Town Hall offices and Sainsbury's Supermarket.

In the same war, the Free Polish Air Force made its headquarters in exile at Blackpool in Talbot Square, after the force evacuated to Britain from France. The nearby Layton Cemetery contains the war graves of 26 Polish airmen.[9] The famous No. 303 Polish Fighter Squadron[10] was formed in Blackpool, and became the most successful Fighter Command unit shooting down 126 German machines in only 42 days during the Battle of Britain.[11]

Blackpool's population boom was complete by 1951, by which time some 147,000 people were living in the town – compared to 47,000 in 1901 and a mere 14,000 in 1881.[12] In the decade after the war, the town continued to attract more visitors, reaching a zenith of 17 million per year. However, several factors combined to make this growth untenable. The decline of the textile industry led to a de-emphasis of the traditional week-long break, known as wakes week. The rise of package holidays took many of Blackpool's traditional visitors abroad where the weather was more reliably warm and dry and improved road communications, epitomised by the construction of the M55 motorway in 1975, made Blackpool more feasible as a day trip rather than an overnight stay. The economy, however, remains relatively undiversified, and firmly rooted in the tourism sector.

A number of shipwrecks have occurred on the coastline of Blackpool. The most recent occurrence was the grounding of the cruiser Coco Leoni in March 2008. Famously, in 1897, HMS Foudroyant, Nelson's flagship before HMS Victory, was grounded close to North Pier in a storm.

The view from Blackpool Tower

Blackpool rests in the middle of the western edge of The Fylde, which is a coastal plain atop a peninsula. The seafront consists of a 7-mile sandy beach,[13] with a flat coastline in the south of the district, which rises once past the North Pier to become the North Cliffs, with the highest point nearby at the Bispham Rock Gardens at around 34 metres (112 ft).[14][15] The majority of the town district is built up, with very little semi-rural space such as at Marton Mere. Due to the low-lying terrain, Blackpool experiences occasional flooding,[16] with a large-scale project completed in 2017 to rebuild the seawall and promenade to mitigate this.[17]

Blackpool has, like all of the UK, a temperate maritime climate according to the Köppen climate classification system. Thus the same cool summer, frequent overcast skies and small annual temperature range is typical.

The absolute minimum temperature stands at −15.1 °C (4.8 °F),[18] recorded during December 1981, however −18.3 °C (−0.9 °F) was recorded in January 1881.[19] The lowest temperature to occur in recent years is −11.9 °C (10.6 °F)[20] during December 2010. In the average winter between 1991 and 2020, the coldest night averaged −5.9 °C (21.4 °F).[21]

The absolute maximum temperature recorded in Blackpool was 37.2 °C (99.0 °F) during the 2022 United Kingdom heat wave. During an average summer, the warmest temperature reached 28.5 °C (83.3 °F) between 1991 and 2020.[21] Although southeasterly winds can bring hot temperatures to Blackpool, heat waves are short-lived due to the prevailing wind from the cool Irish Sea that dominates the local climate. The annual temperature at 10 °C (50 °F) is a lot warmer than would be expected for the latitude as the sea remains mild throughout winter. Even so, similar latitudes in mainland Europe have a lot warmer summers. In the western part that also includes similar annual temperatures.

Precipitation averages slightly less than 900 mm (35 in), with over 1 mm of precipitation occurring on 147 days of the year.[22]

Blackpool is within a green belt region that extends into the wider surrounding counties and is in place to reduce urban sprawl, prevent the towns in the Blackpool urban area and other nearby conurbations in Lancashire from further convergence, protect the identity of outlying communities, encourage brownfield reuse, and preserve nearby countryside. This is achieved by restricting inappropriate development within the designated areas, and imposing stricter conditions on the permitted building.[25]

As the town's urban area is highly built up, only 70 hectares (0.70 km²; 0.27 sq mi) (2017)[26] of green belt exists within the borough, covering the cemetery, its grounds and nearby academy/college playing fields by Carleton, as well as the football grounds near the airport by St Annes.[27] Further afield, portions are dispersed around the wider Blackpool urban area into the surrounding Lancashire districts of Fylde and Wyre, helping to keep the settlements of Lytham St Annes, Poulton-le-Fylde, Warton/Freckleton and Kirkham separated.[28]

In 2017, Blackpool had the fourth highest rate of antidepressant prescription in England with the most common health problems being depression, stress and anxiety. At 12.9%, Blackpool had the highest fraction of working-age people too sick to work and has no improvement on this percentage since 1999 despite the rate in the North West England as a whole improving from 11% in 1999 to 7.8% in 2016. Blackpool also has high rates of obesity (13.5%), smoking (27%) and alcoholic liver disease (28 deaths per 100 thousand).[33] Men in the Bloomfield ward had the lowest life expectancy at birth, 68.2 years, of any ward in England and Wales in 2016.[34]

Blackpool was historically part of the township of Layton with Warbreck, which was part of the ancient parish of Bispham. The township was constituted a Local Board of Health District in 1851, governed by a local board.[35][36] In 1868 the Layton with Warbreck district was renamed the Blackpool district.[37]

In 1876 the district was elevated to become a municipal borough, governed by a body formally called the "mayor, aldermen and burgesses of the borough of Blackpool", but generally known as the corporation or town council.[38] The borough was enlarged several times, notably in 1879, when it took in parts of the neighbouring parishes of Marton and Bispham with Norbreck,[39] in 1918, when it absorbed the rest of Bispham with Norbreck, and in 1934, when it absorbed the rest of Marton.[40]

In 1904 Blackpool was made a county borough, taking over county-level functions from Lancashire County Council.[41] This was reverted in 1974 when Blackpool became a lower-tier non-metropolitan district with the county council once more providing services in the town.[42] Blackpool regained its independence from the county council in 1998 when it was made a unitary authority.[43]

Blackpool remains part of the ceremonial county of Lancashire for the purposes of lieutenancy.[44]

Blackpool is covered by two Westminster constituencies:

• Blackpool North and Cleveleys
• Blackpool South

Until 1945, the area was represented by just one constituency, named Blackpool. This was replaced by the new Blackpool North and Blackpool South constituencies. Blackpool North became Blackpool North and Cleveleys for the 2010 general election, when Conservative Paul Maynard became MP. Another Conservative, Scott Benton, won Blackpool South from longstanding Labour MP Gordon Marsden in 2019, but Benton now sits as an independent since he had the Conservative whip suspended while the Parliamentary Commissioner for Standards investigates a fake lobbying role he was offered by reporters from The Times.[45]

The constituencies will be reorganised for the 2024 general election, following recommendations from the Boundary Commission for England that aim to make the number of voters in the country’s seats more equal.[46] If approved by the Privy Council, Blackpool South will be expanded to take in new wards near the north of the constituency. The Blackpool North and Cleveleys constituency will now take in Fleetwood and five wards from the Blackpool Council area, and be renamed Blackpool North and Fleetwood – as a similar seat was known between 1997 and 2010. In 2022 Maynard told the Blackpool Gazette: “I am sure that residents of Fleetwood will be glad to be reunited with the rest of the Fylde coast, as they are geographically.” [47]

During the second half of the 20th century and up to 2007 Blackpool was one of the country's leading locations for political conferences, with the three main parties as well as bodies such as the TUC holding events at the Winter Gardens.

In 1946 Conservative leader Sir Winston Churchill told his party's conference about his vision of a "United States of Europe" following the horrors of the Second World War, while his colleague Anthony Eden explained his objective of creating a "property owning democracy".[48][49] The conference was seen as an attempt by the Conservatives to begin a long fight back to power after Labour's landslide victory in the 1945 general election. It was the first conference that future Conservative leader Margaret Thatcher would attend.[50]

Labour leader Hugh Gaitskell unsuccessfully sought to overturn his party's commitment to Clause IV of its constitution at its Blackpool conference in 1959. The clause committed the party to nationalisation of the means of production in the economy and remained policy until its leader Tony Blair once more launched a bid to remove it in his Blackpool speech in 1994.[51]

The Conservative conference of 1963 was reported to be one of the "most dramatic ever held".[52] Against a background of France's rejection of Britain's application to join the EEC and the Profumo affair earlier in the year, there was speculation that Conservative leader Harold Macmillan's health would prevent him from fighting the next general election. Needing to have an operation on the eve of conference, Macmillan wrote a letter of resignation that foreign secretary Alec Douglas-Home read out unexpectedly to the Blackpool audience, setting a number of challengers for the leadership running. Douglas-Home prevailed and became prime minister.

Thatcher's first conference speech as leader, in 1975, was at the same Blackpool venue she had first attended nearly 30 years earlier. New York Times journalist Bernard Weinraub interpreted the conference's speeches as placing the party on an "unmistakable rightward course".[53] Thatcher claimed to the conference: "There are voices that seem anxious not to overcome our economic difficulties, but to exploit them, to destroy the free enterprise society and put a Marxist system in its place. Today those voices form a sizeable chorus in the Parliamentary Labour Party."[50]

Her successor as leader, Sir John Major, launched his ill-fated Back to Basics campaign in Blackpool in 1993 and made a speech aimed at appeasing his eurosceptic opponents in the party in 1995.[54]

By 2002, Blair – whose successful bid to remove Clause IV had begun in Blackpool – had made two more speeches at party conferences in the town, one in 1996 as opposition leader stating his commitment to "education, education, education"[55] and one as prime minister two years later after Labour's 1997 landslide victory. His party's 2002 conference, conducted amid heavy security following the 9/11 attacks, was notable for a speech from Bill Clinton, former US president, followed by a late-night visit to McDonald's.[56]

With the Winter Gardens in need of refurbishment and parties preferring inland city locations to coastal resorts, Blackpool held its last major political conference in 2007 until the Conservatives returned for their spring event in 2022 in the newly built Winter Gardens Conference and Exhibition Centre.[57]

Like most UK coastal resorts, Blackpool declined from the 1960s onwards with the rise of overseas holidays and this was matched by a lack of investment in the town and its facilities for both residents and tourists.[64]

Fulfilment of a 1965 masterplan to remodel the town centre was “limited and piecemeal”. According to Historic England.[65] Ambitious plans to redevelop the centre “stuttered to a halt in the early 1970s”. Large numbers of homes were deemed unfit for human habitation and by 1993, almost a third of households did not have central heating, compared with the national average of 8.5 per cent. A new masterplan in 2003 was a response to this decline and the growing threat from coastal erosion. It was described by English Heritage as a “bold attempt to ensure the future of the town”.

Blackpool had pinned its regeneration hopes on an Atlantic City or Las Vegas-style resort casino since Leisure Parcs, then owner of Blackpool Tower and the Winter Gardens, unveiled £1 billion plans in 2002.[66] By 2007 Blackpool and Greenwich in London were frontrunners among the seven bidders for Britain’s first and only supercasino licence[67] but nearby Manchester won the bidding process. The Casino Advisory Panel ruled that the “regeneration benefits of the supercasino for Blackpool are unproven and more limited geographically than other proposals".The government later abandoned the supercasino licence altogether following a legislative defeat in the House of Lords.[68]

Blackpool's revamped promenade

In response to Blackpool losing out and lobbying from the town’s disappointed leaders, ministers increased its regeneration spending,[69] which was being co-ordinated by urban regeneration company ReBlackpool, set up in 2005.[70] Before being wound up in 2010, ReBlackpool led on Central Seafront, a £73 million coastal protection scheme that brought new promenades and seawalls for the town and funded by Government, the North West Development Agency and the European Regional Development Fund.[71] ReBlackpool also prepared the Talbot Gateway scheme, appointing Muse Developments to develop160,000 sq m of office and business space, as well as retail and hotel units, on a 10ha plot near Blackpool North Station. Blackpool Council agreed to relocate its offices to the development and there were plans for a new public transport interchange.[72]

In 2010 Blackpool Council bought landmarks Blackpool Tower, the Winter Gardens and the Golden Mile Centre from leisure entrepreneur Trevor Hemmings, aiming to refurbish them in a “last-ditch effort to arrest Blackpool’s economic decline”.[73] Public ownership enabled significant further investment in the facilities.[74] The restoration of the Tower’s stained glass windows was carried out by local specialist Aaron Whiteside, who was given a Blackpool Council conservation award for the work.[75]

Refurbishment of the Winter Gardens conference centre was completed in time to host the Conservative Party spring conference in 2022, with further work announced in 2023.[76]

Blackpool Council was one of four local authorities in the Blackpool Fylde and Wyre Economic Development Company – the others being Lancashire County Council, Fylde Borough Council and Wyre Borough Council. It oversaw the development of the Blackpool Airport Development Zone, which came into existence in 2016.[77] It offers tax breaks and simplified planning to employers.

Blackpool Council, once again owner of the airport since it acquired it from Balfour Beatty in 2017, is seeking outline planning consent to build five new hangars and a commercial unit. The masterplan for the Blackpool Airport Enterprise Zone then envisages a new digital and technology quarter called Silicon Sands.[78][79]

In 2018 Blackpool Council announced plans for the 7-acre Blackpool Central development, on the site of Blackpool Central Station, which was closed in 1964. The council agreed to provide the land for the scheme – which had earlier been earmarked for the supercasino – but it was to be private-sector funded, led by developer Nikal.[80] It aims to provide a new public square, hotels, restaurants, a food market and car park.[81]

Talbot Gateway

Talbot Gateway Construction Work

The first phase of Talbot Gateway was completed in 2014 with the opening of the Number One Bickerstaffe Square council office, a supermarket and a refurbished multi-storey car park, and public spaces.[82]

Phase two, including a new Holiday Inn and a tram terminal for the extended tramway between North Pier and North Station, began in 2021 and was due to be completed by 2022 but has been delayed, with completion now expected in 2024.[83] But new ground floor retail units were released in July 2023.[84]

Construction started in February 2023 on new government offices as part of phase three of Talbot Gateway, and 3,000 Department of Work and Pensions staff are due to be relocated to the town after an expected completion date of March 2025.[85]

In January 2023 Blackpool Council and Wyre Council were awarded £40 million from the government’s Levelling-Up Fund for a new education campus as part of phase four of Talbot Gateway. The campus will provide a new carbon-neutral base for Blackpool and The Fylde College.[86] This will involve “relocating” the existing Park Road campus which is considered to present challenges including dated infrastructure.[87] The future of the 1937 building on Palatine Road – designed by civic architect JC Robinson for Blackpool Technical College and School of Art – is unknown.

Blackpool Central

Plans for Blackpool Central’s multi-storey car park and Heritage Quarter were approved in October 2021, and construction of the car park began in 2022.[81] But the £300 million development was stalled because of a lack of funding to move the Magistrates and County Courts from the site. In November 2022, Levelling-Up Secretary Michael Gove said his department would award £40 million of funding to enable that relocation and “revitalise this great town by delivering much-needed homes, more jobs and new opportunities for local people”.[88]

Heritage Action Zone

The Blackpool Heritage Action Zone (HAZ) aims to bring new uses to the town centre by restoring buildings and promoting creative activities. Blackpool is one of more than 60 locations in the UK to have Heritage Action Zones, and its initial funding of £532,575 was secured in 2020.[89]

Restoration of buildings is taking place on Topping Street, Edward Street and Deansgate, while the largest part of the scheme is the Church Street frontage of the Winter Gardens. The Art Deco building of 28 Topping Street has become a community creative hub run by Aunty Social, a voluntary arts organisation focussing on socially engaged work in gentle spaces and directed by Catherine Mugonyi[90] and a building on Edward Street is to be converted into live/work for local artists and creatives.[91]

Abingdon Street Market was partially reopened to the public in May 2023 after a three-year closure due to urgent maintenance works.[92] The Edward Street side of the market was redesigned as a food hall and space for live entertainment and community events. The retail side of the market – located via the Abingdon Street entrance – is due to open in Winter 2023. The market was purchased by the council with £3.6 million of government funding through the Getting Building Fund. Renovations were funded with further government money – £315,000 from the UK Shared Prosperity Fund and £90,000 from the HAZ. The market is operated by Little Blackpool Leisure which comprises Blackpool-born directors Andrew Shields and James Lucas, and locally based Jake Whittington.[93]

The HAZ cultural programme has included artist-led workshops and activities, and pop up creative markets.[94]

Blackpool School of Arts, part of Blackpool and the Fylde College, opened in 1937 on Park Road in a building designed by civic architect JC Robinson. The building houses a gallery space which hosts a range of exhibitions. Alumni visual artists include Jeffrey Hammond, Adrian Wilson, Sarah Myerscough, Craig McDean and Garth Gratrix.[147] Plans for a new town centre ‘multiversity’ are set to replace the current Park Road campus in 2026.[148]

The Grundy Art Gallery on Queen Street is operated and supported by Blackpool Council and is an Arts Council England National Portfolio Organisation. It is a long-standing member of the Contemporary Art Society and holds Museums Accreditation status. Its curator since 2018 is Paulette Brian.[149]

The gallery opened in 1911 and adjoins Blackpool Central Library. The Edwardian baroque building is Grade II listed and was built following a donation of money and a small collection of artworks from brothers Cuthbert and John Grundy who were both artists living in the town. Cuthbert was described at the time as “a leader of the artistic, literary and scientific life of the town”.[150]

In 2017 the Grundy’s collection consisted of 2,315 objects divided into four main areas: fine art, decorative art, modern jewellery and ephemera.[151] The works are displayed as part of temporary exhibitions and represent Victorian oils and watercolours, modern British paintings, contemporary jewellery and video, oriental ivories, ceramics, and photographs and souvenirs of Blackpool. Contemporary artists represented include Craigie Aitchison, Martin Creed, Laura Ford, Gilbert & George and Peter Liversidge.[150]

Other significant British artists represented in the painting collection include Anna Airy, Samuel John ‘Lamorna’ Birch, Stephen Bone, Thomas Sidney Cooper, Frederick William Elwell, Stanhope Alexander Forbes, Patrick Hughes, Augustus Edwin John, Laura Knight, John Linnell, Charles S Ricketts, David Roberts, Charles Spencelayh, Henry Scott Tuke, and Lucy Kemp Welsh.[152]

In 2016 the gallery hosted Neon: The Charged Line, Britain’s “biggest ever survey of neon art” which included pieces by artists including Joseph Kosuth, Tracey Emin and Gavin Turk.[153]

Significant recent exhibitions at the Grundy have included: Grayson Perry: The Vanity of Small Differences (2018), Artist Rooms: Roy Lichtenstein (2019), Artist Rooms: Louise Bourgeois (2023)[154] and Bloomberg New Contemporaries (2023).[155] The Grundy also hosts an annual Open Exhibition.

In 2023 a feasibility study was carried out on extending Central Library and the Grundy Art Gallery into a neighbouring car park. It stated that extending the library and art gallery had the potential to increase visitor numbers by 59,000 per year, including 15,000 additional tourists, and boost annual visitor spend by £860,000. Ellis Williams Architects were appointed to lead the design process. Funding for the project comes from a grant of nearly £6m awarded to Blackpool in July 2022 from the Shared Prosperity Fund – part of the government’s Levelling Up agenda.[156]

Left Coast is an arts organisation that was established in 2013, as part of the UK Creative People and Places Programme. It aims to produce socially-engaged creative and cultural activities in Blackpool and Wyre.[157]

Left Coast projects have included the National Community Lottery funded Real Estates programme which aimed to “decrease social isolation and increase personal and community agency through the development of collaborative arts-based activities in three residential areas of Blackpool and Fleetwood”.[157] Artists were given residencies on local housing association estates to test whether they could become embedded in the community rather than being seen as visitors. An independent evaluation based on findings by UCLan stated that the project "made a real difference to local communities through the use of arts as a catalyst for the development of a sense of confidence and self-worth, developing or rediscovering skills, and increasing social connections.”[157]

Following the publication of a Financial Times article Left Behind: Can anyone save the towns the economy forgot?[158] in 2017, Left Coast commissioned a series of artists to respond to the article with the intention of providing "a nuanced and thoughtful counter position". Photographer Craig Easton photographed the Williams family who he had first met in 1992 for a commission by French newspaper Libération to document the British 'underclass'. His images of the Williams’s “came to symbolise the deprivation that was a legacy of the Conservative government of the day”. Revisiting them for Left Coast, Easton created a project entitled Thatcher’s Children.[159]

Left Coast raised £1.3m towards the Art B&B project from funding sources including the Coastal Communities Fund and Arts Council England, Community Business Fund, Tudor Trust and the Clore Duffield Prize Fund.[160] Opened in 2019, the B&B included 18 different themed rooms curated by UK artists. The Now You See it, Now You Don’t suite was created by artist and writer professor Tim Etchells and the Willy Little suite by artist Mel Brimfield celebrated the career of a fictional entertainer and his performances at The Ocean Hotel – the original name of Art B&B.[161] Despite receiving £73,000 from the government's Culture Recovery Fund during the Covid-19 pandemic, the B&B closed in October 2022 claiming there were not enough future bookings to sustain the business.[160] Left Coast clarified it was no longer involved with the project which had become an independent Community Interest Company.[162]

In 2022 Left Coast opened Wash Your Words: Langdale Library & Laundry Room on social housing estate Mereside. It was designed by Lee Ivett and Ecaterina Stefanescu following conversations with the community about their needs. It provides somewhere for people to wash clothes, read, learn and create art and cost £30,000 to renovate. In January 2023 it was nominated for the RIBA Journal MacEwen Award, celebrating architecture for the common good. Judges praised it for a “joyful design [that] raises expectations of the quality of architecture people should demand of social housing estates, changing the conversation from what people don’t have, to what community asset models should look like from a social, economic and environmental perspective”.[163][164]

Established in 2011, Aunty Social is a voluntary-run community arts organisation that aims to give people opportunities to develop their creativity, learn new skills and connect with others through art. It is co-founded and directed by Catherine Mugonyi, a member of the National Lottery Heritage Fund North Committee and former Clore Fellow who advocates for systemic change within the cultural sector to support grassroots organisations.[165]

In 2013 it registered as a Community Interest Company (CIC) and opened Charabanc, a shop selling products made by local artists and designers.[166] Aunty Social runs projects including online arts and culture magazine Blackpool Social Club, the Winter Gardens Film Festival and BFI Film Club, supporting filmmakers aged 12–15.

Local textiles group Knittaz With Attitude is an Aunty Social project which has carried out several yarn bombing projects in public spaces. In 2022 the group responded to reports of sexual harassment recorded by Reclaim Blackpool which maps incidents that take place in public places. Over 20 participants created craftivist works highlighting the precarious safety of women and using methods including cross stitch, crochet, appliqué and embroidery under the banner We’re Sew Done. The pieces were placed in locations plotted on the map before being exhibited in Blackpool Central Library. The exhibition featured in local singer Rae Morris’s video for her single No Woman Is An Island.[167]

Knittaz With Attitude's Discomfort Blanket

To coincide with the Conservative Party’s spring conference held in Blackpool in March 2022, Knittaz With Attitude made the Discomfort Blanket, a patchwork quilt made up of nearly 50 squares that addressed concerns about how Conservative policy making has affected the town, as well as broader political concerns. The patches covered a variety of concerns such as NHS cuts, the Levelling Up agenda, fuel and food poverty, and the hostile environment faced by refugees. Others addressed poor health, low life expectancy, lack of social care, pay gaps and state pension inequality. It was displayed in the window of the organisation’s Charabanc shop, close to the conference centre.[168]

In 2023 Aunty Social relocated and took on a ten-year lease in a council-ownd building in Topping Street, newly renovated using Heritage Action Zone (see regeneration) and Quality Corridors funding. It operates a shop selling local arts and crafts, includes a community darkroom and library and hosts creative sessions including a Queer Craft Club and Heritage Craft Workshops.[169]

Established in 2011 and named after its former use for the production of Blackpool rock, the Old Rock Factory consists of studios housing printmakers and other artists in Blackpool. Residents include printmaker and painter Suzanne Pinder[170] and its founder, screen printer Robin Ross who brought the building back into use.[171] Ross, a former radio DJ,[172] also founded Sand, Sea and Spray street art festival. Running between 2011 and 2016, the festival featured live street art by international artist produced on walls and billboards in various locations throughout central Blackpool.[173]

Opened in 2014, Abingdon Studios is a contemporary visual art project space and artist studios curated and directed by Garth Gratrix. Gratrix, who has curated the Robert Walters Group UK Young Artist of the Year, champions working-class and queer artists.[174][175] In 2021 he and artist Harry Clayton-Wright produced We’re Still Here, the first permanent collection of LGBTQIA+ heritage in Blackpool, supported by the National Lottery Heritage Fund.[176] Abingdon Studios is a limited company and co-directed by studio members. In 2016 is was named best visual arts venue in Blackpool by The Guardian.[177]

Co-founder and directed by local artists Dawn Mander and Kate Yates, HIVEArts is a gallery space and grassroots arts collective that hosts regular exhibitions.[178] Exhibitions have included The Art Of Forgery by Peter Sinclair (2022),[179] the Gallery Space open exhibition (2022) and The Air That A Breathe, a group exhibition raising money for the Aspergillosis Trust (2023).[180] In 2022 the gallery hosted an art auction of 250 original paintings, photos and sculptures donated by local artists raising £8,000+to help victims of the Ukraine war.[181]

Tea Amantes is a tearoom and gallery run by Anna Paprzycka. Established in 2021 the gallery hosts monthly art exhibitions by local emerging artists.[182] Exhibitions have included The Main Resort, featuring Blackpool street photography,[183] and Golden Energies by Katarzyna Nowak.[184]

Reginald Dixon, MBE, ARCM, who held the position as organist at the Tower Ballroom, Blackpool from March 1930 until March 1970 made and sold more recordings than any other organist.[185]

Blackpool Symphony Orchestra was founded by Percy Dayman in 1921. It presents an annual series of concerts and organises educational and community outreach projects.[186]

Frank Sinatra performed at the Opera House on several occasions in the 1950s. A 1953 concert was recorded and eventually released on CD many years later.[187]

The Beatles had a long and varied association with Blackpool, including a significant event in John Lennon's early childhood[188] and multiple gigs in the town between 1963 and 1965.[189]

Formed in Blackpool in 1963, The Rockin' Vickers were a rock and roll beat combo most notable for featuring Ian "Lemmy" Kilmister, then known as Ian Frasier, later of Hawkwind and more famously Motörhead, as a bassist and vocalist. The band recorded four singles before splitting in 1967. The other Rockin' Vickers guitarist, Nick Gribbon, continues to perform in pubs in and around Blackpool as Nick Unlimited, with an open door policy that has given many talented younger Blackpool musicians their first opportunity to play live.[190]

The Executives were a Blackpool band who recorded a handful of singles in the 1960s including the original 1964 version of March of the Mods, which became a top 40 hit for Joe Loss and His Orchestra in the same year. The tune was written by Tony Carr, the father of Executives' frontman Roy Carr,[191] who later became a well-known music journalist with New Musical Express and the author of several books on popular music and executive editor of music magazines including New Musical Express, Melody Maker and Vox.[192] Executives bass player Glenn Cornick became a founding member of Jethro Tull, later forming Wild Turkey. Tony Williams, The Executives' guitarist, joined Stealers Wheel soon after its formation in 1972 and also briefly joined Jethro Tull in 1978 as a touring bassist.

Additionally, the nascent Jethro Tull, then called The Blades, featuring future Tull members Ian Anderson, John Evan, Jeffrey Hammond, and Barrie Barlow, formed as students in Blackpool in the early 1960s.

Blackpool was notorious for having imposed an indefinite ban on the Rolling Stones from performing in the town in 1964 after a riot broke out among the audience who had found their performance "suggestive" during their concert at the Empress Ballroom. The ban was lifted forty-four years later in March 2008.[193][194]

The Jimi Hendrix – Experience video and DVD features concert footage of Hendrix's performance at Blackpool's Opera House in 1967.[195]

Psychedelic rock band Complex were formed in Blackpool in 1968 and self-released two albums in 1971. Only 99 copies of their self-titled debut were pressed and this extremely rare vinyl album has since been described as "one of the "Holy Trinity" items of rare British Psychedelia".[196] The band continued to play until 1978 when they disbanded with the onset of punk.[197] Limited edition remastered versions of both Complex albums were released by Guersson in 2012.[198][199]

A number of bands from Blackpool achieved a level of success during the punk and post-punk era. Factory Records' Section 25[200] were formed in 1977 in Poulton-le-Fylde, a small market town on the outskirts of Blackpool, as were the 1976–79 version of punk band Skrewdriver, who recorded several singles and an album for the Chiswick label[201] (the skinhead "white power" rock act of the same name that gained notoriety later, contained only one member of the original band). Both bands claimed Blackpool as their place of origin.

Another Blackpool band signed to Factory was Tunnelvision,[202][203] who recorded just one single for the label in 1981.

When Barry Lights relocated his Lightbeat record label from Leeds to Blackpool in 1981, the label's first Blackpool signing was electronic rock band Zoo Boutique.[204] After releasing the debut single by Fleetwood punk band One Way System, Lights set up specialist hardcore punk Beat the System label. Blackpool punk band The Fits were amongst the first to benefit, eventually releasing four indie chart hit singles in 1982–85.[205]

The Membranes who featured John Robb initially set up their own Vinyl Drip record label in 1981 before achieving three indie top 20 hits from 1984 to 1986,[205] reaching number 6 in John Peel's Festive Fifty in 1984[206] and making a pre-recorded appearance on Channel 4 rock show The Tube.

The Ceramic Hobs formed in 1985 and to date have "made more than 30 uncategorisable releases on vinyl, CD and cassette for many different worldwide record labels".[207][208]

Blackpool musician Lucifer's "Cyber Punk Rock" EPs of 1994 contained the first full vocal songs intended for playback on a computer.[209][210]

21st century musical exports from Blackpool include Karima Francis, The Locals, who first appeared on BBC Introducing when they were just 15,[211] Goonies Never Say Die, Litterbug, Aiden Grimshaw who came ninth on the 2010 series of X Factor, The Senton Bombs, UFX/Uncle Fester and Little Boots, who topped the BBC Sound of... poll in 2009.

The White Stripes recorded their first official DVD, Under Blackpool Lights, at the Empress Ballroom in the Winter Gardens on 27 and 28 January 2004. Get Up Kids guitarist Jim Suptic's Kansas City, Missouri, indie rock band Blackpool Lights is named after the DVD title.

In 2005, a compilation album, The Ugly Truth About Blackpool Volume One, chronologically documenting the best of Blackpool indie rock music from 1977 to 2005, was released by Andy Higgins' JSNTGM Records in conjunction with the Arts Council, Blackpool Evening Gazette and Blackpool Council.[212][213] Volume 2, showcasing the best Blackpool indie bands active in 2005/6 was released the following year.[214][215] Other Blackpool recording artists on JSNTGM include Sick 56, Erase Today and Litterbug.[216]

Each August since 2006, Blackpool has been the venue for the largest festival of punk rock in the world, the annual Rebellion Festival, which is held in the Winter Gardens over four days and features over 200 punk bands.[217]

In the 2010s, Grime music in Blackpool increased dramatically with the invention of BGMedia. They gained millions of views but also caught controversy due to the lyrical content of BGMedia rappers.[218]

In August 2018, German Indie label Firestation Records released in Europe and Japan an eleven track retrospective album 'Illuminated', on Vinyl and CD, by the late 1980s Blackpool Indie Band 'Rik Rak'.[219][220][221]

In 1937, George Formby's song "With My Little Stick of Blackpool Rock", was banned by BBC radio for having suggestive lyrics.[222]

The Kinks' song "Autumn Almanac" contains the following lines: "... I go to Blackpool for my holidays/Sit in the open sunlight ..."[223]

"She Sold Blackpool Rock" was a minor success in 1969 for Honeybus as the follow-up to their 1968 top ten hit single "I Can't Let Maggie Go".

Graham Nash's semi-autobiographical song "Military Madness" begins "In an upstairs room in Blackpool / By the side of a northern sea / The army had my father / And my mother was having me".

Paul McCartney recorded a song entitled "Blackpool" amongst a number of demo home recordings in the years 1971 and 1972.[224]

The Jethro Tull song "Up the 'Pool" from the 1972 Living in the Past album is about Blackpool, singer Ian Anderson and other members of the band's childhood home. Another Tull track about the beach attractions of Blackpool is "Big Dipper", from the 1976 album Too Old to Rock 'n' Roll: Too Young to Die!.

In the early 1980s, the then Blackpool-based band The Membranes used the town as the subject matter for their "Tatty Seaside Town" 1988 single,[225] which was later covered by Therapy? in 1994.[226]

Other songs written about Blackpool include "Oh Blackpool" by The Beautiful South and several different songs called "Blackpool", by Sham 69, Macc Lads, Roy Harper and The Delgados. "Blackpool" is also the title song from a production co-written with author Irvine Welsh and Vic Godard (Subway Sect) in 2002, later released as a four-song EP called Blackpool. A song called "Blackpool Fool" appears on the Frank Sidebottom's album, A, B, C & D (1997).[227]

Franz Ferdinand's 2013 "Love Illumination" single was originally called "Blackpool Illuminati".[228]

Songs that mention Blackpool in the lyrics include "Elvis Impersonator: Blackpool Pier", the opening track of the Manic Street Preachers album Everything Must Go, which contains the lyric "20ft high off Blackpool Promenade" amongst other references to Blackpool. The opening line of Soft Cell's 1982 "Say Hello, Wave Goodbye" hit (later a hit for David Gray in 1998) "Standing at the door of the Pink Flamingo, Crying in the rain" is believed to be a reference to Blackpool's famous gay nightclub The Flamingo. Låpsley's chillout song "Painter (Valentine)" includes the lines "you can paint these wings and make me fly / crush coming over like the R.E.M kind / orange in the colour like Blackpool on the sunrise".

Folk songs written about the town include The Houghton Weavers anthem "The Blackpool Belle" ("Oh the Blackpool Belle was a getaway train that went from Northern stations. What a beautiful sight on a Saturday night bound for the illuminations"), Jasper Carrot's "Day Trip To Blackpool" ("Didn't we have a miserable time the day we went to Blackpool? An 'orrible day, we got drunk on the way And spent our money on chips and bingo...")[229] and Mike Harding's single "Talking Blackpool Blues" ("Well my Mam and Dad and Gran and me / We went to Blackpool by sea / It rained and rained for most of the day / But we all got tanned in a funny sort of way").[230]

The resort is featured in the 1934 film Sing as We Go, starring Gracie Fields, as well as other cinema and TV productions, including Forbidden (1949), Hindle Wakes (1952), Holiday (1957),[237] Coasting (1990),[238] Funny Bones (1995) starring Lee Evans and Oliver Platt and directed by St. Annes born Peter Chelsom, and The Parole Officer (2001) starring Steve Coogan.

The Japanese film Shall We Dance? (1996) closes with a scene at the World Ballroom Dancing Championships in Blackpool. All the hair styling for the film was completed by Blackpool-born-and-bred hairstylist Eileen Clough, who has been in the trade since the 1960s. In the Hollywood remake of the film (2004), directed by Peter Chelsom, Blackpool is mentioned but not shown.

Blackpool is the setting for Bhaji on the Beach (1993) directed by Gurinder Chadha. The film Like It Is (1998) directed by Paul Oremland was also partly filmed in Blackpool. The opening scenes were filmed in the Flamingo. The 2005 television comedy/thriller series Funland revolved around the fictionalised, seedier aspects of Blackpool.

The town also features heavily in the BBC television serial Blackpool, starring David Morrissey, Sarah Parish and David Tennant and first broadcast in 2004, and the one-off follow-up Viva Blackpool, broadcast in June 2006.

In 2006 Lion Television filmed The Great British Summer, which featured many buildings in Blackpool. The Royal Windsor Hotel was featured, with the owner talking all about the hotel seasons and industry. Bernard Manning was also shown at the hotel doing his spot through the season hosted by Blackpool Born local Entertainer & DJ Gordon Head and other local acts. The Great British Summer was narrated by Alan Titchmarsh.

Between 10 September 2012 and 19 November 2012 the resort was featured in Channel 4's 999: What's Your Emergency?.

The resort was also featured in the three-part reality television series, Blackpool Lights on Channel 5 in December 2013.[239][240]

As well as this, the 2016 Tim Burton film Miss Peregrine's Home for Peculiar Children also features Blackpool and its key tourist attraction, The Blackpool Tower.

Blackpool was once again featured in a Channel 5 documentary series from 26 October 2017, this time entitled Bargain Loving Brits in Blackpool. The series ran for six episodes until 30 November 2017.[241]

Newspapers that cover the Blackpool area are the Blackpool Gazette, the daily newspaper covering the Fylde Coast area, known locally as The Gazette. The Lancashire Evening Post is a daily evening newspaper covering the county of Lancashire.

Local radio was provided by Radio Wave, a commercial radio station, based on Mowbray Drive in Blackpool, which covered the Fylde Coast area. This radio station closed and last aired on 20 August 2020. Blackpool also falls in the coverage area of BBC Radio Lancashire, Rock FM, Greatest Hits Radio Lancashire, Smooth North West and Heart North West.

Bay Trust Radio is a hospital radio station run by volunteers and broadcast throughout Blackpool Victoria Hospital, other hospitals in Lancashire and Cumbria and online. Radio Victoria, Blackpool was merged with Bay Trust Radio in October 2018.[242]

In September 2022 Fun Coast Digital, a not for profit Community Interest Company, was awarded an Ofcom licence to operate a DAB radio transmitter from the top of Blackpool Tower, allowing radio stations to broadcast across the Fylde Coast.[243] These include Fylde Coast Radio and Coastal Radio.

Blackpool Social Club is an independent, volunteer-led online arts, culture and listings magazine which has been operating since 2012 (formerly as AltBlackpool) and has had various print editions.[244] It is part of Aunty Social, a Community Interest Company and community arts organisation in Blackpool.[245] Other online publications serving Blackpool include Lancs Live and The BPL Bible.

National television with local opt-outs is provided by ITV Granada, the ITV franchise holder for the North West, BBC North West, the regional BBC station for the North West region.

Blackpool also has a dedicated local TV news service, That's Lancashire, part of the That's TV network, broadcast from their studio in Preston.[246]

Blackpool had its first gay pride celebration in 2006.[247] Historically, seaside resorts have been able to provide niches for minority groups.[248] Blackpool, like other English resorts, has had a reputation for being a safe community for gay people.[248] During World War II, there was a proliferation of cafés, pubs and clubs where homosexual men could meet in Blackpool.[249] In the 1990s, the town began to be promoted as a gay tourist destination.[248] Blackpool contains several bars, pubs and nightclubs aimed at the LGBTQ+ community. These include Funny Girls (a burlesque cabaret showbar), Buzz, Flamingo, and the Flying Handbag.[250] As of the 2021 census, 3.26% of Blackpool residents aged over 16 identified as gay men or lesbians; this is the twelfth highest proportion among the 331 local authorities in England and Wales.[251] In 2022, We’re Still Here – an oral histories project supported by Heritage Lottery Fund was established by queer-led arts organisation Abingdon Studios and artists Garth Gratrix and Harry Clayton-Wright.[252] Blackpool Pride saw it’s first inclusion of an arts and heritage strand in 2013 with an exhibition at Winter Gardens Blackpool titled We’re Here… curated by Gratrix and including site-specific plantings as part of The Pansy Project by artist Paul Harfleet. An international art project, it aimed to raise awareness of sites of homophobic attack or insult reclaimed as sites beauty.

Blackpool has two main venues for boxing fight nights, the Tower Circus Arena and the Winter Gardens, which both hold regular fight nights throughout the year. Events at these venues have been screened on Sky Sports, British Eurosport and Channel M.

Blackpool is home to many current and former professional boxers including Brian Rose (born in Birmingham), Jack Arnfield, Jeff Thomas (born in Dordrecht), Mathew Ellis (born in Oldham), Matty Askin (born in Barnsley), RP Davies and Scott Cardle.

Blackpool Cricket Club is Blackpool's major cricketing team, playing in the Northern Premier Cricket League, formerly the Northern Cricket League. It has won the league 18 times (once jointly with Preston), making it the most successful side in the competition.[253] Established in 1893, the club’s home is in the grounds of Stanley Park, which also hosts Lancashire County Cricket Club.

The town's professional football club is Blackpool F.C., who have spent 31 seasons in the top division and won the 1953 FA Cup Final. Legend players for the club include Sir Stanley Matthew’s, Jimmy Armfield and Roy Gratrix. There are other, smaller football clubs located within Blackpool, including A.F.C. Blackpool, Blackpool Wren Rovers and Squires Gate.

There are three golf clubs in Blackpool. Blackpool North Shore Golf Club opened in 1904, moving to its present site on Knowle Hill in 1927; the new course was designed by Harry Colt.[254] In 1926, an Alister MacKenzie designed course opened within Stanley Park;[255] it is home to Blackpool Park Golf Club. The newest addition is Herons' Reach Golf Resort, which was designed by Peter Allis and Clive Clark and opened in 1992.[256] Blackpool Golf Club, which opened in 1894, was located in South Shore; it closed at the beginning of World War II, with the land subsequently becoming part of Blackpool Airport.[257]

Blackpool Borough were the first professional rugby league club in the town. However, they eventually folded after leaving the town in 1987. Blackpool Panthers were formed in 2004 and played in Co-operative Championship One. They ground-shared at Bloomfield Road then in 2007 at Woodlands Memorial Ground, the home of Fylde Rugby Club in the neighbouring town of Lytham St Annes. The club ceased to exist after the 2010 season due to lack of finance.[258]

Blackpool Stanley, Blackpool Scorpions and Blackpool Sea Eagles are amateur rugby league clubs in the town.

The resort formerly held the now discontinued Northern Rail Cup Final at Bloomfield Road, a Rugby League knockout competition for all clubs outside of the Super League attracting many thousands of visitors.

Blackpool is currently home to the annual 'Summer Bash' rugby league tournament held at Bloomfield Road, where an entire round of Championship matches are played in the town to showcase the sport.

Blackpool also has a rugby union club, called Blackpool RUFC. Their home ground is Norbreck Rugby Ground.

The annual Blackpool Marathon is staged on the Promenade each April. Thousands of competitors run on the closed Promenade, organised by Fylde Coast Runners.[259]

The Pleasure Beach's Horseshoe Show Bar was home to professional wrestling events throughout the season, promoted by Bobby Baron. The bar shows were home to a "wrestling booth" where members of the public could challenge the wrestlers for cash prizes for each round they survived. These challenges would be taken by shooters, wrestlers skilled in the brutal submission holds of catch wrestling, which they could deploy to defend the prize money even against skilled amateur wrestlers. Booths such as these had been a foundation of the professional wrestling industry since the 19th century, and Baron's booth is reputed to have been the last of its kind in the world.[260]

Numerous renowned professional wrestlers worked as carnival shooters at the booth, including future WWE star William Regal; his tag team partner Robbie Brookside; Shak Khan, who runs a catch wrestling school in the area; Dave Duran (John Palin) and future women's champion Klondyke Kate. The booth ended with Baron's death in 1994, although other promoters have since held shows in the bar.[260] Additionally, the Tower Circus was a frequent venue for wrestling shows. A photograph of noted wrestling villain Jack Pye in action at the circus was, for some time in the late 2000s, displayed by the entrance to the circus. The tradition was revived by ASW when they promoted a summer season at the venue in 2008, and a similar summer season in 2012 at the Winter Gardens. The Tower Ballroom hosted one date of the six show live tour of the World of Sport Wrestling TV show in February 2019.

WWE held a tournament at the Empress Ballroom on 14 and 15 January 2017 to crown the inaugural WWE United Kingdom Champion. In attendance were Regal and Triple H, with the latter commenting to local journalists, "Blackpool has this reputation. It's easy to get to, a lot of people come here and when they come here they lose it and that's what we wanted. I almost feel like there wasn't really another choice."[261] Tyler Bate won the inaugural tournament to become the first WWE United Kingdom Champion.[262]

Several renowned wrestlers have invested in Blackpool. Kendo Nagasaki owns the Trades Hotel and KAOS Nightclub,[263] Rex Strong (born Barry Shearman, 1942–2017) owned the Hadley Hotel,[264][265] and Johnny Saint owned a block of holiday flats in the town.[266] Shirley "Big Daddy" Crabtree worked as a lifeguard on Central Pier. He was reunited, on a 1979 edition of ITV's This Is Your Life, with a woman whose life he had saved in the course of his duties.[267]

The Blackpool Combat Club, a heel faction in All Elite Wrestling led by Regal, was named in honour of Blackpool.

Blackpool is twinned with:

• Bottrop, Germany[268]
• Sanya, China[269]

Blackpool Airport operated regular charter and scheduled flights throughout the UK and Europe. The airport is actually just over the borough boundary into Fylde Borough, although a proposal to reorganise Blackpool's borders would see the airport incorporated into Blackpool Borough. This airport, formerly known as Blackpool Squires Gate Airport, is one of the oldest in the UK having hosted public flying meetings in 1909 and 1910. After a gap, it was active from the 1930s to mid 2014 and from December 2014 to date. Airlines that served Blackpool, before its temporary closure in late 2014, included Jet2.com and Aer Arran. The airport was reopened to small aircraft after failing to find a buyer in December 2014.[278]

The airport's most recent scheduled services to Belfast and the Isle of Man ceased when Citywing suspended operations in March 2017. Access to the town by air is now via Liverpool John Lennon Airport or Manchester Airport, both approximately 60 kilometres (37 mi) away by road.

In 1927 the local council announced that an airfield would be built near Stanley Park, which would become Stanley Park Aerodrome offering flights to the Isle of Man for £1-16s–0d (£1.80).[279] The airport opened in 1929 and was officially opened by Prime Minister Ramsay MacDonald in 1931.[280] However, with the opening of Squires Gate Airport a decision was announced in 1936 by the Ministry of Transport to close the Stanley Park airfield. In fact, civil operations continued until the outbreak of war with scheduled services to the Isle of Man and elsewhere.[281] During the war, Stanley Park was used as a Royal Air Force (RAF) training station, known as No. 3 School of Technical Training. Vickers assembled many Wellington bombers here and Bristol Beaufighters were repaired for the RAF. The airfield closed in 1947. The land on which the airport stood now covers Blackpool Zoo and a hotel and golf course. The hangars from the old airport are still in use at Blackpool Zoo as the main entrance building, Playbarn, Education Academy and camel house.[280]

A Blackpool Transport bus en route to Fleetwood

• Blackpool Transport operates the main bus services in and around Blackpool
• Stagecoach Merseyside & South Lancashire operates the regional bus and coach services in and out of Blackpool
• National Express operates the main long-distance coach services in and out of Blackpool

Facilities include:

• Blackpool Talbot Road Bus Station, which was the main town centre bus station but is now a gym. Blackpool Transport stopped using the bus station in the early 2000s after a disagreement with Blackpool Council regarding the state of the bus station building. Blackpool Transport now use Market Street and Corporation Street, in the town centre, as their bus interchange. National Express have also recently stopped using this bus station, moving to the new National Express Blackpool Central Coach Station.
• Blackpool Central Coach Station[282] is the main coach station for all National Express coach services. which is also used by some independent coach operators. The coach station has a booking office and toilet facilities.
• Blackpool Lonsdale Road Coach Station was the main coach station for South Shore district of Blackpool. This was mainly used by independent coach operators. The coach station has a café, shop and toilet facilities but is in a state of disrepair.
• Blackpool Colosseum Bus & Coach Station, which was the main bus and coach station in South Shore. Located next to Blackpool Transport Headquarters, it was demolished to make way for a Somerfield supermarket. The site is now occupied by the link road from the M55 motorway and additional depot parking.

Blackpool North

Blackpool Pleasure Beach

Blackpool South

Layton

Squires Gate

Blackpool Central

South Shore

Railway station
Site of former railway station

Interior of Blackpool North station

Train operators that serve Blackpool are:

• Avanti West Coast
• Northern Trains

Stations in the town are, or were:

• Blackpool North (originally Talbot Road)
• Blackpool Pleasure Beach (originally Burlington Road Halt)
• Blackpool South (originally Waterloo Road)
• Layton (originally Bispham)
• Squires Gate (just outside the borough boundary but serving Blackpool Airport)
• Blackpool Central (originally Hounds Hill, closed 1964)
• South Shore (renamed Lytham Road 1903, closed 1916)

Blackpool once had two railway terminals with a total of over 30 platforms, mainly used by excursion traffic in the summer. Blackpool Central, close to Blackpool Tower, was closed in 1964, while Blackpool North was largely demolished and rebuilt as a smaller facility. The route of the former excursion line into Blackpool Central is now used as a link road from the M55 motorway to the town centre. The line into Blackpool via Lytham St Annes now has a station serving Blackpool Pleasure Beach but terminates at Blackpool South station. The line into North station is now the more important.

The M55 motorway links the town to the national motorway network. Other major roads in the town are the A583 to Kirkham and Preston, the A587 and A585 to Fleetwood, the A586 to Poulton-le-Fylde, Garstang and Lancaster and the A584 and B5261 which both lead to Lytham St Annes.

A map of the tram network

Flexity 2 tram, No 011 at Tower tram station in April 2012

An unmodified double-decker English Electric Balloon tram on the Promenade at Bispham

The Blackpool Tramway runs from Starr Gate in Blackpool to Fleetwood and is the only surviving first-generation tramway in the United Kingdom.[283] The tramway dates back to 1885 and is one of the oldest electric tramways in the world. It is run by Blackpool Transport, owned by Blackpool Council. The tramway runs for 11 miles (18 km) and carries 6,500,000 passengers each year.[284]

The tramway was for a long time the only working tramway in the United Kingdom outside of museums. It was also the UK's first electric system. However, there are now a number of other tramways, including Manchester Metrolink, Sheffield Supertram and West Midlands Metro.

On 1 February 2008 it was announced that the Government had agreed to a joint Blackpool Transport and Blackpool Council bid for funding toward the total upgrade of the track. The government contributed £60.3m of the total £85.3m cost. Blackpool Council and Lancashire County Council each provided about £12.5m. The Government's decision meant that the entire length of the tramway from Starr Gate to Fleetwood was upgraded and also sixteen new trams joined the fleet.[285]

In April 2012, the tramway reopened after the major reconstruction. Day to day services are run by the 16 Flexity 2 trams. Several double deck English Electric Balloon trams from the older fleet have been widened to work alongside the new trams to provide additional capacity in the summer months. Several non-modified older trams also operate a heritage service from Pleasure Beach to Little Bispham on weekends and holidays with a slight upcharge.[286]

An extension of the new service to Blackpool North railway station was planned to open by April 2019 between the existing North Pier stop of the Blackpool Tramway, along Talbot Road, and terminating at Blackpool North railway station, but was delayed and is now on schedule to open Summer 2022.[287]

• William Henry Cocker: 19 June 1897.
• Joseph Heap: 19 November 1907.
• John Bickerstaffe: 6 February 1912.
• James Fish: 6 February 1912.
• James Ward: 16 November 1914.
• Robert Butcher Mather: 16 November 1914.
• John Grime: 3 November 1915.
• James Heyes: 3 November 1915.
• David Lloyd George: 6 August 1918.
• Brigadier General Thomas Edward Topping: 2 August 1922.
• Thomas Bickerstaffe: 4 August 1926.
• Sir Lindsay Parkinson: 4 August 1926.
• William Henry Broadhead : 4 August 1926.
• Henry Brown : 3 October 1928.
• Samuel Hill : 3 October 1928.
• John Collins : 3 October 1928.
• Thomas Fielding : 3 October 1928.
• Edward Stanley, 17th Earl of Derby : 1 August 1934.
• Josiah Stamp, 1st Baron Stamp: 23 March 1937.
• Sir Cuthbert Cartwright Grundy: 31 January 1938.
• Sir Winston Churchill: 4 September 1946.
• Field Marshal Lord Montgomery of Alamein: 21 July 1948.
• Eli Hey Howe: 3 March 1950.
• Tom Gallon Lumb: 3 March 1950.
• Thomas Fenton: 3 March 1950.
• Sir Harold R Grime : 3 March 1950.
• Rhodes William Marshall: 2 May 1973.
• Harold Grimbledeston: 2 May 1973.
• Ernest Alfred Machin: 2 May 1973.
• Joseph Shepherd Richardson: 2 May 1973.
• Leonard Broughton: 2 May 1973.
• Raymond Jacobs: 25 June 1984.
• Walter Uriah Robinson: 25 June 1984.
• Harold Leslie Hoyle: 25 June 1984.
• Percy Patrick Hall: 25 June 1984.
• Stan Mortensen: 29 November 1989.
• Doris Thompson: 9 April 2003.
• Jimmy Armfield: 9 April 2003.

• R (Blackpool) Battery 288 (2nd West Lancashire) Light Anti-Aircraft Regiment Royal Artillery, Territorial Army: 1961.
• HMS Penelope RN: 1990.
• 12th Regiment Royal Artillery: 2005.
• The Duke of Lancaster's Regiment: 2017.
• The Loyal North Lancashire Regiment.
• HMS Triumph RN: 2017.

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