Lakeside: ten-pin bowling in Preston

One of two bowling entries here, and the one people mean by 'bowling Preston' most of the time.

Lakeside is a ten-pin bowling venue in Preston. It is one of two bowling entries in this directory, the other being The Level, which pairs bowling with crazy golf.

Bowling venues have a long history of changing brand while staying in the same building, which is why searches for bowling in Preston return several names for what may be one or two premises. This entry records the venue itself; operator branding changes.

The full indoor activity list is on the activities sheet.

Why this sits where it does

What decides where a bowling centre goes is the slab, not the street: length, a low ceiling over it, and parking that is already tarmac. Buildings of that shape were rarely built by the bowling trade and mostly inherited by it, which is why a lane block outlives the name over the door and why one address can appear under three operators inside twenty years.

Ten-pin bowling is the oldest format in this category and the one whose buildings show it. A bowling centre needs length and very little height, which suits a long shallow shed, and the British ones mostly date from a wave of building in the 1960s and again in the 1990s. Preston has two bowling offers, this one and The Level, which pairs lanes with crazy golf.

Getting there

Lanes are booked by the hour and a group arrives together, which is the practical reason parking decides the trip rather than a timetable: nine people in two cars, not nine bus fares. A booking made for a fixed hour also means the group cannot absorb a missed connection, which is the practical end of the argument.

The free alternative: Ashton Park

The free equivalent here is a different game entirely. Ashton Park, west of the centre in Ashton on Ribble, carries bowling provision and hard court space on the plainest and most heavily used sporting ground in the city. Crown green in the open air is not ten-pin, but it is what Preston offers outdoors against the same request.

Preston's other lanes are at The Level, which pairs bowling with indoor crazy golf and is therefore the more flexible of the two for a group that will not agree on one activity.