LOOKING BACK: Fascinating Prescot building to get new lease of life

Cockpit House was built in 1774, as a particularly large and grand local example of a townhouse in what was one of the more exclusive areas of Prescot on the fringes of the old medieval town.

The building replaced an earlier Cockpit House on the site, with the name referring to there being a venue for cockfighting – and the gambling that went with it – on the site during the medieval period.

Prescot’s cockpit drew in gamblers from far and wide as it was one of very few in the Lancashire area and would have been part of the attractions during the town’s fayres.

Research suggests that a 16th century cockpit constructed of either stone or timber was located in the curtilage of the house. This means the cockpit will have existed at the same time as Prescot’s Playhouse, built in the 1590s and the earliest example of its kind outside of London.

Cockpit House was converted from a house into a bank in 1869, as a branch of the Warrington-based Parr’s Banking Company, with the ground floor converted to a banking hall with two large walk-in safes, and the upper floors possibly used as the manager’s accommodation or more probably offices and a caretaker’s flat.

Parr’s Bank gained important acquisitions of other banks from London and the Midlands before a further merger in the mid-20th century led to the formation of the modern-day National Westminster Bank. The NatWest bank moved to a purpose-built premises on Eccleston Street around 1980.

In 1982, the building was reopened as the Prescot Museum of Clock and Watch Making, before changing its name to Prescot Museum and moving location into the Prescot Centre in 2010.

Cockpit House was designated as a Grade II listed building in 1984 due to its special architectural and historic interest.