Things you didn't know about... Lancashire

Lancashire, a good place to meat

The term sirloin steak is said to have originated during King James I's three-day stay at Houghton Tower near Blackburn in 1617. Presented with a princely loin of beef, the story goes that James was so enamoured of his hosts' generosity he felt obliged to draw his sword and knight the beef with the utterance, "Arise Sir Loin".

Lancashire, a Rolls-Royce of a county

In 1904, at the Midland Hotel in Manchester, car salesman Charles Rolls met with engineer and car maker Henry Royce. Rolls liked Royce's hand-built car so much the two men formed a legendary partnership. The first Rolls-Royce cars were produced in Cooke Street, Hulme.

Lancashire—immortalised by the Beatles

The Beatles' A Day in the Life lyric, "four thousand holes in Blackburn, Lancashire" arose from John Lennon reading a Daily Mirror article reporting "one-twentieth of a pothole for every resident" in the streets of Blackburn.

Lancashire waged war on alcohol

Joseph Livesy founded the teetotal Temperance Movement in 1834 at the Black Bull Hotel in Preston, Lancashire.

Lancashire is famous for its fighter planes

Britain's famous World War II bomber, the Avro Lancaster, was produced at the Chadderton aircraft factory near Oldham. Today Lancashire is home to Warton Aerodrome and BAE Systems Samlesbury, which produce the Eurofighter Typhoon and F-35 Joint Strike Fighter.

Lancashire towers above its rivals

Opened in 1894, Lancashire's Blackpool Tower cost ?290,000 to design and build, using 5 million bricks and over 2,500 tonnes of steel. The 158 m-tall tower is designed so that if it ever did collapse it would fall into the sea.

Lancashire makes its culinary mark

Lancashire's culinary heritage includes: fag pie (figs, sugar and lard); Bury simnel (fruitcake-type biscuit); nettle porridge (stinging nettles and meal); rag pudding (suet with minced meat and onions); scouse (Liverpool stew); throdkins (oats, lard, bacon, syrup); Eccles cakes (puff pastry, currants) and, of course, Lancashire hot pot (meat, onion, potatoes).

Back of the net for Lancashire

Lancashire is Britain's most successful footballing county. Its teams have won 51 league titles, 44 FA Cups and seven European Cups. Of the 12 clubs that originally founded the Football League, six hailed from Lancashire.

Lancashire: the visionary county

The Society of Friends, later better known as The Quakers, was founded in 1652 by George Fox. Fox was inspired by a vision he had on Pendle Hill. He looked out across Lancashire and saw "a great multitude waiting to be gathered in by God".

Lancashire banishes the cold

In 1859 Beecham's opened the world's first factory for medicine production in St Helen's, producing the famous Beecham's Pills laxative and Beecham's Powders for colds and flu. By 1913 the company's Lancashire factory was producing a million pills per day.