Bolton Reflections

Bolton has long been an important town in Lancashire. It was a centre for wool and cotton weaving in the Middle Ages and during the Industrial Revolution became a leading textile producer worldwide. The town grew rapidly in the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries and its population experienced both prosperity and privation, but the era left a legacy of grand civic buildings and cotton mills. As the cotton industry has declined in the twentieth century, with the last mills closing in the 1980s, modern Bolton has changed. Today’s town is greener, with much of its traditional industries replaced by service industries and redeveloped shopping centres and new retail parks.


Bolton Reflections features an exciting collection of historic and modern pictures that are individually merged to reveal how the area has changed over the decades. Each of the 180 pictures in this book combines a recent colour view of Bolton with the matching sepia archive scene. Through the split-image effect, readers can see how streets, buildings and everyday life have transformed with the passing of time. Local author Ray Jefferson presents this fascinating visual chronicle that ingeniously reflects past and present glimpses of Bolton.