Take a seat: unusual benches around Preston and beyond

While out and about on your travels this summer, you may well have taken the chance to rest on a public bench. In recent decades, it has become common for memorial and tribute benches to appear in towns, gardens and churchyards — and sometimes they are even adorned with statues, writes Keith Johnson.

If you visit Preston’s new Market Hall, beneath the canopy of the old Covered Market, you can take a seat next to Gromit the pet dog, reading a copy of the Post, with Wallace towering behind you. And should you bring along a snack of Wensleydale cheese and crackers, Wallace may look on enviously.

In September 2021, Nick Park, the multi-Oscar-winning animator, returned to his home city of Preston to unveil the bronze bench sculpture featuring his much-loved characters Wallace and Gromit outside the new Market Hall. It has already become a popular attraction.

Maybe you already have a favourite bench where you like to sit and watch the world go by, or take in a countryside view. There is no shortage of benches in Preston and the surrounding area where you can while away an hour. Renovated Winckley Square Gardens is one fine example, with plenty of places to pause, as are Fishergate and the city’s public parks.

Tour the old county of Lancashire, as I have done, to see its statues, monuments and memorials, and you will find plenty of opportunities to take a seat and reflect.

At Barton Grange Garden Centre, on the outskirts of Preston, visitors can sit beside Edward George “Eddie” Topping, who founded the business in 1963. The life-size statue, created by sculptor Peter Hodgkinson, commemorates a much-loved local figure who was born in 1932 and died in September 2021, aged 89.

Further afield, in Huyton, I sat on a stone bench on Derby Road alongside the statue of former Prime Minister Harold Wilson. Created by Tom Murphy, the statue was unveiled by Tony Blair in September 2006. It recognises Wilson’s more than 30 years representing the people of Huyton and Knowsley, including his two periods as Prime Minister from 1964 to 1970 and 1974 to 1976.

In Oldham, outside the Town Hall, visitors can sit in front of the statue of Annie Kenney, the bell-ringing suffragette born in the town in 1879. A cotton mill worker from the age of 10, she campaigned vigorously for women’s suffrage and endured imprisonment and hunger strikes. Her statue, designed by sculptor Denise Dutton, was unveiled in 2018.

In Liverpool’s Mathew Street and Cavern Quarter, leg-weary Beatles fans can take a seat in the company of John, Paul, George and Ringo while listening to the Mersey beat. Around the corner on Stanley Street, visitors can also sit beside Eleanor Rigby, immortalised in the Beatles song of 1966. The bench statue, created by entertainer Tommy Steele, was unveiled in 1982 and is dedicated to “all the lonely people”.

Still in Liverpool, the gardens beside the church of St Nicholas are home to the Homeless Jesus bronze sculpture by Canadian artist Timothy Schmalz. Unveiled in April 2019, it depicts Jesus as a homeless person sleeping on a bench — a thought-provoking reminder of the plight of those without shelter.

Manchester also has a Homeless Jesus statue, outside St Ann’s Church, unveiled by a homeless man in 2018. There is just enough room to sit at the feet of the draped bronze figure.

In Sackville Gardens, Manchester, a bronze figure of Alan Mathison Turing OBE sits on a bench clutching an apple. Unveiled in June 2001, the statue pays tribute to the pioneering scientist, whose genius helped change the course of history, but who suffered persecution because of his sexuality.

Take a tram ride from Manchester to Rochdale and, outside Greggs at the entrance to Rochdale Shopping Centre, you will find a bronze cast of three moorland sheep with horns. Created by sculptor Judith Bluck and originally unveiled by Gracie Fields in 1977, it has since been moved twice before being returned to its original location in August 2007. There is just enough room to sit on the base, although you may get sheepish looks from passers-by.

At Charter Walk Shopping Centre in Burnley, the Mill Girl and Calf statue shows a girl sitting on bales of cotton cloth with a calf standing alongside. Created by Diane Gorvin and Philip Bews in 1995, the bronze casts invite visitors to sit on the cotton bales, as many do.

Memorial benches are commonplace throughout the county, often carrying personalised messages which we inevitably glance at as we take a seat. On the way towards Chorley Market, near the church of St George, your attention may be drawn to a brick bench dedicated to the Rev Tim Whilby, who spent almost a decade there before his sudden death in December 2016, aged 57.

On a recent visit to the churchyard of Our Lady and St Michael on Alston Lane, an unusual memorial bench caught my eye. There was no room for the weary to sit awhile. Instead, the space was occupied by four brightly carved figures of the Beatles — John, Paul, George and Ringo.

There is no shortage of benches reminding us of the sacrifice made by those who fought in the world wars. Among them are two benches at the war memorial in Penwortham, decorated with silhouettes of soldiers and donated by the Co-op in 2017. At Broughton, opposite the war memorial, there is a long wooden bench inscribed with the words: “Rest awhile and think of their sacrifice.”

And if you visit Leyland, you may come across the Leyland Motors Clock monument. It dates back to the 1930s, when seven Leyland clocks were erected in prominent roadside locations across the country as part of an advertising campaign.

With a bench nearby, you can sit yourself down and watch time go by as slowly as you like.