Leyland

Preston stands at a crossing point over the River Ribble on the main route up the west coast towards Scotland. The Ribble valley together with Yorkshire's River Aire creates the "Aire Gap" where the Pennines can be crossed at low altitude, so there was an east-west route also. "Preston" means "priest town": the church held extensive tracts of land hereabouts. The land near town is fertile and lowland, well-suited to dairy farming.

There is a plausible legend that William Shakespeare was in a theatre troupe that toured this area, brandishing their wooden swords at Hoghton Tower and Old Rufford Hall. Preston's position meant that several real armies marched through, and two battles were fought here. It has street names such as Fishergate and Friargate but was never a walled city, "gate" simply meant a street. It remained a small market town until the 19th century then grew rapidly with the cotton trade. That brought wealth to a few but when Karl Marx declared in 1854 that “Our St Petersburg is at Preston!” he wasn't paying a compliment to the civic architecture, but envisaging the mass uprising of the working classes. Yet Preston sucked in labour from Ireland and Glasgow, which had even worse working and living conditions, and as well as cotton it was a metal-bashing town. Leyland a few miles south turned the metal into buses and trucks, while aircraft were made at Warton and Samlesbury. The town already had Preston North End as its football team, but in 1917 munitions workers at Dick, Kerr & Co formed another team, which proved more successful and popular. The Football Association were horrified and banned them, since Dick Kerr were women; yet they battled on until 1965.

By plane:

Manchester Airport (MAN IATA) is usually the best choice for its wide range of flights at competitive fares, and good onward transport, see below.

Liverpool (LPL IATA) has flights across Europe, otherwise consider Birmingham (BHX IATA) and the London airports.

Preston itself has an aerospace industry so any large commercial aircraft skimming low on finals over the town is bringing company suits to BAE Warton or Samlesbury. Blackpool Squires Gate remains in business but has no scheduled flights.

By train:

From London Euston, Avanti West Coast trains run hourly, taking 3 hours via Stafford, Crewe, Warrington and Wigan. These continue north via Lancaster, Carlisle and Motherwell to Glasgow Central, another 2 hr 20 min.

Slower Avanti trains from Euston run hourly through the Midlands via Milton Keynes, Coventry, Birmingham International and New Street, Wolverhampton, Crewe, Warrington and Wigan. From Preston, they either head to Blackpool North or to Lancaster, Oxenholme (for Kendal and the Lake District), Carlisle and Edinburgh.

Trains from Manchester Airport and Piccadilly run every 20 min, taking 55 min via Bolton to Preston, then diverging towards Blackpool, Barrow-in-Furness, Glasgow or Edinburgh.

There are hourly connections from Liverpool via St Helens and Wigan, from York via Leeds, Bradford, Halifax, Burnley and Accrington, and from Leeds via Salford. There are two routes from Blackpool: from North (the main station) every 20 min via Poulton-le-Fylde and Kirkham, and from South (near Pleasure Beach) every hour or two via St Anne's, Lytham and Kirkham.

Trains from Ormskirk run every couple of hours, taking 30 min.

The Caledonian Highland Sleeper rumbles through Preston around midnight from Euston to Aberdeen, Inverness and Fort William. The southbound return train drops off around 4:30AM. You can't use this service or the Lowland Sleeper for Edinburgh or Glasgow — take a day-time train.