Listen to local historian Paul Smith talk about the date inscribed on the stone steps.
As you walk beyond the large house that was built by Edward and Margaret Gardner in 1741 and look on the other side of the high street, you will see an attractive double fronted 18th century house.
Alongside this dwelling, there is another old property which has some old stone steps at the front of the wall. And in these stone steps you will see the remains of a date stone, which is said to have being removed from an old pub called the bowl alley that was demolished nearby.
The bowl alley, by the way, stood in front of where that brick property is there, and the high street was a lot more narrow.
It's been renovated completely in the 1890s, and it would've been a plain building separated from the pub by a narrow ginnel. That's why it was called the bowl alley. It was used as a skittle alley.
They used to play skittles in it. So the date stone from that is said to be this here.
The three sandstone steps you see on this building are 18th century mounting steps (or mounting blocks) used to help people mount and dismount a horse or a cart.
The steps were originally in the yard of the Bowl Alley pub for patrons to mount their horses from. When portions of the High Street were redesigned in the 1890s, the Bowl Alley was demolished, and the steps were moved to their current position today.
This page is part of Garstang Heritage Trail