About

This website is about historical places that can be visited in Lancashire. It was started in September 2013 and is regularly added to. There are currently over 300 places described in detail.

It is one of two websites written by brothers A & R Bowden. Each of us takes a lead on one of the websites, and this one is written by Adrian. The focus is the historical county of Lancashire, including the modern counties of Greater Manchester and Merseyside (as both used to be part of Lancashire until 1974). The region known as ‘Lancashire North of the Sands’ is also covered. This extended from Barrow to Coniston.

Many of the places are free to visit, some charge a small entrance fee. For each site a brief history is given and a summary of what remains today. Where to park is also mentioned, as are other historical places of interest nearby.

Click on the historical time period that interests you on the  header menu above and this will lead to a list of all the  sites from that period that the website covers to date. The most recent posts can be seen on the ‘What’s New’ page. The ‘Lancashire Links’ page gives links to many of the local history and archaeology groups throughout the region, and local museums.

Our other website is  Lancashire at War (please note, this is temporarily offline, but will return in 2026). This covers the hidden history of war sites in Lancashire. Richard is the lead author on Lancashire at War.

Click the ‘Follow’ button to subscribe for free to Lancashire Past, and receive a notification and link every time a new post is published. As soon as Lancashire at War is back up again, a post will be sent out to all subscribers.