Eric Leaver looks back at East Lancashire

BURNLEY town centre was last week promised a big boost with the unveiling of plans for a £5 million revamp of its bus station, but when this picture was taken, it was getting a completely new one for just £125,000.

Seen just four days before it opened at the end June, 1964 - an event rushed forward so the new terminus would be in use in time for the town's big Wakes Weeks holiday starting the following weekend - it was given a low-key launch

There was no ceremony - the official opening was set for the following September - and a Sunday was chosen for the start since it was thought that any teething troubles that arose could best be coped with on the least-busy day of the week.

As it was, the new bus station, described as one of the largest and most up-to-date in the North West, was designed to cope with the arrival and departure of more than 612,000 buses a year - an average of 12,240 a week - as well as passengers totals that were simply calculated as "millions."

But its construction also brought another boost for Burnley in addition to the scrapping of its old bus station seen here in the distance on the Cattle Market site, beyond the car park now occupied by the Thompson Recreation Centre. For the site of the new bus station had been the heart of Pickup Croft, one of the town's worst slum areas.

The transformation of the spot, however, took some two years - with bad weather during construction and a hold-up in grant aid for the project contributing to the delay.

The new terminus also entailed a new road and a new route system for the buses using it, but the town-centre improvements, of which they were a part, did not then include the flyover that later took the dual-carriageway Centenary Way up over Finsley Gate, where the new Fairlanes ten-pin bowling alley opened the previous December.

At the bottom of the bus station on Red Lion Street is the former Aenon Baptist Chapel. Designed by architect James Green, who also drew the plans for Burnley's Mechanics' Institute, the Grade II-listed building had by then been a place of worship for 113 years, but was to close as a church in 1989 and, after an unsuccessful period as a shopping arcade, is now the Arena nightspot.

Nearby was Burnley's highest landmark, the 248-ft destructor chimney at the town's transport and cleansing department. The start of its slow, brick-by-brick demolition began during the Wakes Weeks break of 1967, with the chimney's own destruction being ordered by the town council because it was located in what had become a smokeless zone. Its site is now a car park.

Converted for the new archive on 14 July 2000. Some images and formatting may have been lost in the conversion.