The Park Hotel, Preston

One from Oct.20 recently released for public consumption

History

Located on a small hill, the red-brick building overlooks Preston railway station, on the West Coast Main Line, to its north-west and Miller Park and the River Ribble to its south-east. In its heyday, the hotel was connected to the southern end of the main south-bound platform (the modern-day platform 4) at Preston station by a covered footbridge. Various pre-1923 objects from the hotel are in the National Railway Museum at York. These include Mappin & Webb cutlery and Elkington & Co. tableware and candlesticks, the latter marked with the initials "P.P." and a lamb and flag, the coat of arms of the city.

The Park Hotel was opened as a joint venture between the Lancashire and Yorkshire Railway Company and London and North Western Railway Company on 1883, in the 1923 grouping of railway companies, ownership passed to the London, Midland and Scottish Railway who operated the hotel until the UK's railways were nationalised in 1948. Ownership then passed to the British Transport Commission's Hotels Executive, and thence to British Transport Hotels, who sold it in 1950 where it continued to operate as a hotel for a number of years until it was acquired by Lancashire County Council who used it as offices, and renamed the building "East Cliff County Offices", the council also constructed a modern annexe to the west of the main building. In 2020, the modern office tower was demolished as part of a plan by the Council to restore the hotel to operation.

Source:

https://www.28dayslater.co.uk/threads/the-park-hotel-preston-february-2023.134857/

Esoteric Eric