Qualla: Blackpool Tower

Blackpool Tower: Introduction

Thu, 28 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Nilfanion, CC BY-SA 4.0. On 22 December 1894 the Norwegian barque Abana, sailing from Liverpool to Savannah, was caught in a storm off the Lancashire coast and mistook a brand-new Blackpool landmark for a lighthouse. The captain steered toward it. The ship was driven onto the sands at Little Bispham. The crew survived; the Abana did not, and her timbers still surface at low tide. The thing the captain thought was a lighthouse had only opened to the public seven months before. Inspired by Gustave Eiffel's tower in Paris, raised by Lancashire architects James Maxwell and Charles Tuke and the Manchester engineers Heenan and Froude, Blackpool Tower stood 518 feet over the seafront, then the tallest man-made structure in the British Empire.

Read more: Blackpool Tower on Qualla

Image: Nilfanion | CC BY-SA 4.0

Blackpool Tower: Built on Stubbornness

Thu, 28 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Rept0n1x, CC BY-SA 3.0. The Blackpool Tower Company was set up in 1890 by London-based Standard Contract & Debenture Corporation, which had bought an aquarium on Central Promenade with the intention of building an Eiffel replica on top of it. John Bickerstaffe, a former mayor of Blackpool, became chairm...

Read more: Blackpool Tower on Qualla

Image: Rept0n1x | CC BY-SA 3.0

Blackpool Tower: 30,602 Blocks of Hardwood

Thu, 28 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Craig Sunter from Manchester, UK, CC BY 2.0. The Tower Ballroom, designed by Frank Matcham and opened in 1899, was built to keep visitors inside the building once they had paid to come in. The sprung floor measures 120 feet long and is made up of 30,602 blocks of mahogany, oak and walnut, fitted by hand. From 1930 until 197...

Read more: Blackpool Tower on Qualla

Image: Craig Sunter from Manchester, UK | CC BY 2.0

Blackpool Tower: Polar Bears and a Lion Called Wallace

Thu, 28 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Stuart Jamieson, CC BY-SA 3.0. Beneath the Tower, in a basement modelled on the limestone caverns of Derbyshire, was Dr. Cocker's Aquarium, Aviary and Menagerie - an attraction that pre-dated the Tower itself, having opened in 1873. The aquarium held 57 species of fresh and salt water fish, the largest tank ho...

Read more: Blackpool Tower on Qualla

Image: Stuart Jamieson | CC BY-SA 3.0

Blackpool Tower: A Circus That Floods

Thu, 28 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit FromTheElectricComic, CC0. Tower Circus opened the same day as the Tower itself, 14 May 1894, and has not missed a season since - one of the longest continuously running circuses in the world. Frank Matcham designed the present interior in 1900, slotting a 42-foot ring between the Tower's four iron legs. T...

Read more: Blackpool Tower on Qualla

Image: FromTheElectricComic | CC0

Blackpool Tower: A Visual Reporting Point

Thu, 28 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Tony Hisgett from Birmingham, UK, CC BY 2.0. During the Second World War, the crow's nest was removed and the structure repurposed as an RAF radar station known as RAF Tower. After Bickerstaffe family ownership ended in 1964, the building passed through EMI, Trust House Forte, First Leisure, and Trevor Hemmings' Leisure Par...

Read more: Blackpool Tower on Qualla

Image: Tony Hisgett from Birmingham, UK | CC BY 2.0