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Map of Blackpool
Borough of Blackpool
Blackpool is a seaside town in England, on the coast of the Irish Sea. It is traditionally part of Lancashire but on April 1, 1998 was made into an independent unitary authority.
It is believed to get its name from a long gone drainage channel which ran over a peat bog. The water which ran into the sea at Blackpool was black from the peat and formed a "black pool" in the relatively clean waters of the Irish Sea.
People originating from Blackpool are locally termed "Sand Grown" or "Sandgrown'uns" for obvious reasons.
The town boundaries are drawn very tightly, and exclude the nearby settlements of Fleetwood, Cleveleys, Thornton, Poulton-le-Fylde and Lytham St Anne's. Blackpool Borough, unlike its neighbours, is almost completely urbanised.

Tourism

Blackpool is heavily dependent on tourism. Major attractions include:
blackpool Coat of Arms
Blackpool Borough Council
In what is often regarded as its heyday (1900-1960), Blackpool heaved as the factory workers of northern England took their annual holidays there en masse. Any photograph from that era shows large crowds on the beach and promenade. Blackpool was also a preferred destination of visitors from Glasgow and remains so to this day. The town still has more hotel beds than the whole of Portugal. The town went into decline when cheap air travel arrived in the 1960s and the same workers decamped to the Mediterranean coast resorts due to competitive prices and the more reliably favourable weather. Today, many visitors stay for the weekend rather than for a week at a time. Blackpool is continually striving to improve its position within today's tourist industry. One controversial proposal, which has the involvement of the local council, is to transform Blackpool into a casino resort along the lines of Las Vegas and Atlantic City. This plan is dependent on the liberalisation of Britain's gambling laws.
A controversial aspect of Blackpool's night-life is its hen and stag parties. Brides or bridegrooms-to-be respectively, along with their friends, often dressed alike in absurd or risqué attire, roam the town's many bars and clubs getting increasingly drunk. Their rowdy behaviour is claimed to discourage family visitors and has led to complaints from hotel and guest house owners keen to attract a more upmarket clientele.
Blackpool has gained renown as a lesbian and gay destination, with clubs such as the Flamingo and Mardi Gras, the Flying Handbag pub, and many gay-only hotels and guest-houses. These tend to be inland, nearer to the North station than the sea front.
Blackpool remains a major summer entertainment venue, specialising in variety shows featuring entertainers such as Ken Dodd. Outside the main holiday season, Blackpool's Winter Gardens routinely hosts major political conferences, ranging from that of the Labour Party with tens of thousands of delegates and visitors, to substantially smaller gatherings such as the TUC or NUS conferences. Blackpool Illuminations in September and October, consisting of a series of lighted displays and collages arranged along the entire length of the sea front (11 km/7 miles), attract many visitors at a time when other resorts' holiday seasons have ended.

Non-tourist industry

Blackpool Tower
The Tower, Blackpool
Major employers include: Many Blackpool residents work in the retail sector, either in the town centre or the retail parks on the edge of town.

Transport infrastructure

The town's tramway was for a long time Britain's only working tramway outside of museums. Other cities have been rebuilding their networks since the late 20th century.
Blackpool had two railway termini with a total of over 30 platforms, mainly used by excursion traffic in the summer. Blackpool Central, close to the Tower, was closed in 1964, whilst 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 original 'main 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.
Blackpool Airport operates regular charter and scheduled flights. The airport is actually in St Annes although a proposal to reorganise Blackpool's borders would see the airport incorporated into Blackpool Borough.
The M55 motorway links the town to the national motorway network.

Blackpool in film

The resort is featured in the 1934 film Sing as We Go, starring Gracie Fields, as well as other cinema and TV productions, including Funny Bones (1995) starring Lee Evans and Oliver Platt and directed by Blackpool born Peter Chelsom. 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 bread hairstylist Eileen Clough, who has been in the trade since the 1960's. In the Hollywood remake (2004) Blackpool is mentioned but not shown. The remake was also directed by Peter Chelsom.
Blackpool Football Club is an English professional football club. Their home ground is located at Bloomfield Road in the centre of the resort of Blackpool in north-west England.

Blackpool F.C.



Blackpool FC are known as the Seasiders or Tangerines. Their team colour is tangerine.
The club's most famous achievement was winning the FA Cup in 1953 (in the so-called Matthews final) when they beat Bolton Wanderers 4 - 3, overturning a 1-3 deficit in the closing stages of the game.
The club is currently in the Football League One.
Although the main entrance (via the now demolished South stand) used to be on Bloomfield Rd, since the re-development of the North and West stands, the main access to the ground is Seasiders Way.

History

Blackpool Zoo

Just two miles from the famous Blackpool sea-front in Lancashire, England, Blackpool Zoo provides a home to over 1500 animals from all over the world. The Zoo aims to provide its visitors with a stimulating, informative and enjoyable experience that demonstrates its role in the conservation of endangered species.
In recent years the Zoo has been the subject of demonstrations by local animal rights campaigners, who allege that the conditions in which some of the animals are kept do not reflect their natural habitat and therefore are not conducive to the animals' welfare. These groups stage peaceful pickets and distribute leaflets, usually on days when the Zoo offers free or reduced admission.

Blackpool Pleasure Beach

Blackpool Pleasure Beach
Rollercoasters at Blackpool
Pleasure Beach.
Blackpool Pleasure Beach is an amusement park in the town of Blackpool in Lancashire, England. It was founded in 1896 by Alderman William George Bean, who said his intent was to create "...an American Style Amusement Park, the fundamental principle of which is to make adults feel like children again and to inspire gaiety of a primarily innocent character."
It is the home of the Pepsi Max Big One, a 213-foot-tall steel roller coaster built in 1994 by Arrow Dynamics. Until 2002, this was the tallest rollercoaster in Europe.
Entrance to the park is free and rides may be paid for in tokens bought throughout the park, or wristbands may be purchased.
Each autumn, Blackpool presents the Illuminations, an electric light show along the seaside. The displays vary from simple patterns to representations of fairy tales and illuminated models.
Today, Blackpool Pleasure Beach attracts about 7 million visitors a year. The park was the subject of a somewhat unflattering six-part BBC documentary in 1998.
The park is being upgraded, along with the rest of Blackpool, in an attempt to make it an international tourist destination.
Other rides at the park include Big Dipper, Grand National, Rollercoaster, Spin Doctor, Bling, Valhalla, Ice Blast, Irn Bru Revolution, Log Flume, Avalanche, Space Invader, Steeplechase, Wild Mouse, Vigingar, and Zipper Dipper.

The Fylde College dubs

Blackpool and The Fylde College dubs itself an "associate college of Lancaster University". It has 49 buildings spread over the towns of Blackpool, St Annes, Bispham and two locations in Fleetwood.
The College offers further education courses for the over-16s, degree courses, and also part time courses, e.g. croupier skills and slot machine operations.

Blackpool Tower

Blackpool Tower is a tourist attraction in the town of Blackpool, Lancashire, in the north of England (grid reference SD306360). The tower, 518ft (158 m) tall, was inspired by the Eiffel Tower in Paris. It cost GBP £42,000 to construct, and it first opened to the public on 14 May 1894.
Unlike the Eiffel Tower, it is not quite free-standing, being on top of a building housing the Blackpool Tower circus. The top of the tower is accessed by two lifts. There are two viewing platforms open to the public, the lower of which is completely enclosed. These afford views of much of Lancashire, southern Cumbria, North Wales and the Isle of Man, in addition to Blackpool and the rest of the Fylde peninsula. A further platform and the "crow's nest" are only accessible to staff. The tower is topped by a flagpole, and normally flies either the Union flag or the red corporate flag of its owners, First Leisure.
The tower is used as a transmission location by one local radio station and a variety of non-broadcast services. National and regional FM services do not use the tower, because inland locations provide sufficient coverage of Blackpool. The tower is normally painted brown, but for its centenary in 1994 was painted gold.
Blackpool is a popular seaside resort, and the tower, with its beachfront location, is the main attraction. The tower is lit during the annual illuminations, when the town and seafront are adorned with colourful displays of bulbs that stretch up and down the waterfront for several kilometers.
It is a member of the World Federation of Great Towers.

Blackpool Hotels

Ingledene Hotel - Norwood Hotel - Best Western Carlton Hotel - The Norbreck Castle Hotel - Warwick House Hotel - De Vere Herons' Reach - Vidella Hotel - Blackpool, The Savoy Hotel - The Big Blue Hotel - Blackpool Pleasure Beach - Minotel Lucena - The Danescourt Hotel - Grand Metropole - Ramsay Hotel - Shepperton Hotel - Brooklyn Hotel Travel
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