Celebrating Lancashire Day

Lancashire Day - Grand Theatre Blackpool 2014 Town crier Barry McQueen with the mayor of Blackpool Coun Val Haynes

The historic day, which commemorates the first elected representatives from Lancashire to be invited to Parliament by King Edward I in 1295, saw town criers read out the Lancashire Day Proclamation.

Towns including Blackpool, Thornton, Lytham, Poulton and St Annes recognised the event, with mayors turning out to support the reading.

Blackpool’s mayor Coun Val Haynes, said it was important to celebrate Lancashire’s history.

She added: “I am a Lancashire lass born and bred in Blackpool. One of the proudest things for me is being the mayor in the town I was born in.

“We, Blackpool, are such a big part of Lancashire.

“Lancashire is a wonder-ful place - it is unlike anything else. It is about who we are and being proud of who we are.”

The proclamation reads: “Know ye also, and rejoice, that by virtue of Her Majesty’s County Palatine of Lancaster, the citizens of the Hundreds of Lonsdale, North and South of the Sands, Amounderness, Leyland, Blackburn, Salford and West Derby are forever entitled to style themselves Lancastrians.”