3-028-570 - The Print Collector/Heritage Images

Opening of a new promenade and drinking-fountain on Easter Monday at Blackpool, Lancashire, 1870. 'The pleasant and healthy seaside town of Blackpool...has gained a new attraction and local advantage by the opening of the promenade and carriage-drive, and of an improved entrance to the fine iron pier...The engineers of this work are Messrs. Garlick, Park, and Sykes...A new drinking-fountain, with a bronze dome on eight pillars, a clock, and a gas-lamp upon an octagonal stone base, has been placed in Bellevue or Talbot-square...It was designed and cast by Messrs. G. Smith and Co., of the Sun Foundry...The streets and piers were gaily decorated with flags; and there was a triumphal arch, inscribed with the title "The Gate of Health"...surmounted at each side with figures of a life-boat man and a volunteer fireman, bearing the mottoes "Always Ready" and "Always Willing"...The procession consisted of the Lancashire artillery volunteers...the bands of the Blackburn volunteer corps...the Masonic lodges of Lancashire and Yorkshire...the Volunteer Fire Brigade, with engine and hose; the life-boat, with its crew...The inauguration...was undertaken by Colonel Wilson-Patten, M.P., and was witnessed by more than fifty thousand persons'. From "Illustrated London News", 1870.