The feature was known as "The Fountain", a famous Padiham landmark when it was in its original position.

In 1937 the Fountain was moved to Whitegate Park where it remained until 1974 when it was transferred to an area outside Padiham Leisure Centre.

Last year its present resting place was determined and it is now in Memorial Park.

Looking at the picture, readers might like to know the large house on the left was once occupied by Dr Walker.

The building is part of the property known as Woodthorpe beyond which is one of the area's most interesting houses, Stockbridge House.

This latter building will feature in this series at some time in the future so I will not say anything now but Stockbridge is something of a gem.

The photo contains images of at least two people we can name. The man in the bowler hat, sitting on the steps of the Fountain, is James Birkit Wood, who had a grocer's shop in Pendle Street and the small boy, to Mr Wood's left, is his son, Harry.

In the days when traffic was much less than it is today a number of major road junctions became the sites of features such as the one shown here.

In Burnley they were well known as "gawmlesses", it is thought, because they were always standing in the middle of the road and asking for trouble!

The most well-known one in Burnley was that which stood at the junction of St James's Street and Manchester Road but there were others, for example at the junction between of Briercliffe Road and Thursby Road and where Westgate and Sandygate come together.

However, the one shown in today's picture is a particularly fine example of what we could call street furniture.

The equivalent in Burnley, none of which has survived in its original form, were merely gas lamps erected by Burnley Gas Company, shortly after it was founded in 1823.

The idea appears to have been that the lamps, larger and more ornate than usual street lamps, would serve as an advert for the product of the gas works.

The primary objective of that establishment, which made gas from coal and sold a number of by-products, was to provide gas for street lamps, though any householder near a gas main could pay to have gas installed into their premises.

The first to take advantage of this were the town's tradespeople, shop-keepers, hotel owners and eating houses among others. Seeing the relatively bright lights at one of the larger feature street lamps must have encouraged numerous people, who had previously used candles or oil lamps, to have gas installed.

In Padiham, as you can see, there is a lamp at the top of the structure, the lower part being a fountain.

The light would have been provided by gas and Padiham, like Burnley, once had its own private gas company.

It was set up as the Padiham Gas, Light and Coke Company in 1846, but in 1875 Padiham Local Board took it over.

According to Mollie Haines and Margaret Jones, who wrote a fine study of local government in Padiham entitled "Padiham Urban District Council, 1894- 1974", it was not until 1903 that the committee which ran the Gas Works became responsible for street lighting. At that time there were 352 lamps in operation, but they were not as elaborate as this one.

Getting back to the location of lamps like the one shown; not all street junctions were appropriate for the type of treatment you can see here.

It was necessary that space was available not only for the feature but also for the easy passage of horse drawn vehicles and particularly trams.

I do not know what you think but it is my opinion our streets would be much more interesting if features like the Padiham Fountain could be re-introduced.

Readers will be interested in knowing the Padiham Archive Fund, which has supplied the image and some of the information for today's article (special thanks to Coun. Bob Clark), is holding an event to raise funds for their work.

This will take the form of an evening of live music, featuring "The Grovers" and "Julian Clark" on Saturday. The event will take place in the ballroom at Padiham Town Hall from 8 p.m. until midnight. Tickets cost £5 each.