Prescot High Street Heritage Action Zone

Prescot was a market town known as 'a town of workshops' because of its diverse commercial activities that included all stages of watchmaking, pottery, coal mining and tool making. This diversity meant that for a long time it didn't rely on mass employers, until the 20th century when thousands were employed in wire and cable works and hundreds more employed in two separate printworks.

Prescot's High Street Heritage Action Zone focuses on Market Place, for centuries the commercial heart of the town, and home to its most important civic functions: the town hall, court leet and market hall. This area's commercial and civic decline date as far back as the second half of the 19th century, though the loss of the cable and printing industries caused substantial economic decline and the 1960s saw extensive demolition within the town.

Today the area has high vacancy rates and not enough to offer those visiting nearby attractions such as Knowsley Safari Park.

How the Prescot High Street Heritage Action Zone will help

With £1.5 million of government funding, delivered through Historic England, the project seeks to bring the Kemble Street cinema back into use as well as restoring the old Prescot Museum on Church Street.

Prescot will capitalise on this momentum with community engagement projects built around local priorities for health, wellbeing and social inclusion, ultimately establishing itself as a cultural hub and leisure destination.

Stay up to date

Below you can find just some of the progress being made in the Prescot High Street Heritage Action Zone. For more, follow us on Twitter @HistoricEngland.

• Work to The Red Lion pub is well under way, with fantastic historic reinstatement being undertaken
• Seven further buildings will benefit from works through the scheme and are in progress
• An expression of interest process for a cinema operator for the old cinema at 8-14 Kemble Street was successful, with further details to be announced very soon
• Local students have benefited from archaeological digs on sites around Prescot 

Working in partnership with

• Knowsley Metropolitan Borough Council