Preston Pub Photo Study The Guild Merchant

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This modern estate pub has some importance for me in being the nearest to my home, and the only pub currently in the Ingol area of the city where I live. It is a tremendous bistro-pub located on the edge of a busy roundabout. There are three active pubs with ‘Guild’ in their names in Preston at present, and a fourth one that closed still has its sign set flush to the wall of the student flats where it was. As well as The Guild Merchant, there is The Guild, and the very new, pub sign-free Guild Ale House opposite the Town Hall. The lost pub is the Guild Tavern close to the bus station and Fishergate shopping street. In addition there is The Guild Hall shopping and arts centre. Guilds have special meaning in Preston. At one time, here as in many cities, traders, merchants, engineers and anyone with a skill or trade had to belong to a guild as proof of their ability to do the work they offered. Guild societies often used masonic style secret handshakes and initiation processes to test a potential member’s credentials. If you were going to be let loose on a church’s rococo archways and ceiling buttresses you had to show you knew what you were doing. Guild membership was a way of showing your credentials, just as presenting a CV and references works today. The Preston Guild was an overall umbrella organization established with royal approval, written into the town’s charter in 1179 by King Henry 2nd. Newcomers seeking work in Preston could not trade without approval from the central Guild. The Guild itself was renewed with a license to trade and construct at twenty year intervals, The event was celebrated each year with a major festival in the town, and even when the closed shop structured Guild was closed with trade open to all in 1790, the once in twenty years Guild festival continued on – Though not the only guild town from conception Preston was the only town to continue to practice the traditional celebration. Guild celebrations which have been held to the present day, (apart from during World War Two) have always drawn a great deal of tourism and big name entertainers, including famous tightrope walker Blondin in 1862. As the last Guild festival was in 2012 I have to wait until 2032 for the next, and my first. The pub name comes because the inn opened in the festival year 2012. The whole Guild concept reminds me of the trade guilds in Terry Pratchett’s Discworld novels set in Ankh-Morpork where everyone needs a license to trade including clowns, thieves and assassins. Maybe his central city was inspired by Preston. The Guild Merchant sign depicts two boat builders hard at work using their skills and knowledge to the max. It’s a very good sign, capturing their pleasure in their work. Arthur Chappell