APRIL SHOWERS BRING MAY FLOWER

Park Street rises steeply from College Green, the grassed area between the Cathedral and the Lord Mayor's Chapel.

This was once farmland, given over to dairy cattle and known as Bullock's Park. In 1740 Alderman Day was granted land to build a street 40 feet wide up to the entrance to Royal Fort. The Georgian townhouses which later flanked the street were designed by Thomas and William Paty.

In 1775 their inhabitants were merchants like Alderman Richard Farr, doctors like William Moncrieffe MA and gentlemen like Henry Graeme. By the 1820s however Mr Morel, a florist and Mrs Pool, a dressmaker and milliner were advertising in the newspapers as having premises in the street

More and more houses were gradually converted into shops during Victorian times. In 1896, when the columned shop front below was inserted, it was reported in the newspaper that 'the exigencies of business are making increased demands upon premises in Park Street and houses which have for years retained the outward semblance of private residences are by degrees yielding to the inevitable'

The original gradient of Park Street was 1 in 12, which caused great hardship to horses drawing carriages, carts and later buses up the hill. A suggestion to throw an arch across at the bottom to span the dip to Frogmore Street and Frog Lane was put forward in December 1856 but it was not untiil 1863 that the council officially considered the possibility of such a viaduct at that spot. Despite complaints by the inhabitants of Frogmore Street, that they would be 'bridged out of existence', the viaduct was finally completed in 1870.

Wallace, Gromit and Sean the Sheep, Florists Shop Window, Friargate, Preston. The only one missing is Preston the Dog!