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Shortly after passing the outlet of Savick Brook on the opposite bank, the raised grazing narrows and the route progresses over stiles across a culvert carrying Mill Brook. Now left to its own devices the bank assumes an unkempt appearance, going first beneath successive power lines carried high above the river on massive gantries, and then past the entrance to Preston Docks on the far bank. After skirting a golf course continue at the fringe of Priory Park to walk beneath the A59 bypass. This is now the lowest crossing of the Ribble, an honour formerly held by Penwortham Bridge a little further upstream.

PRESTON DOCKS

The docks were opened in 1892 and at the time boasted the largest dock basin in Europe. They served a town rapidly developing on the back of textile manufacture and quickly became some of the busiest in the country. Warehouses, oil tanks and loading cranes once formed a backdrop to the ocean-going cargo vessels that came and went on the high tides. Preston remained a working port into the early 1980s, but despite the advantage of its proximity to both the rail and motorway networks, the dockyard’s reliance on river access rendered it inaccessible to larger vessels, and trade consolidated on the better-placed docks further south at Seaforth and Bootle. The basin has, however, found a new lease of life, and since the area’s redevelopment for housing, retail and leisure, is once more as busy as it ever was. Preston Docks were named after Prince Albert Edward, Victoria’s eldest son, who finally succeeded his mother to the throne at the age of 60, only nine years before his owndeath.