The spire is an icon in railway circles and appears in so many classic photos taken in the days of steam.

Few people visiting Preston will be able to ignore St Walburge's Roman Catholic Church. Towering 309 ft above the city, its spire is the tallest of any parish church in England with only the spires of Salisbury and Norwich Anglican Cathedrals reaching higher. Standing in the Maudland district of the city, close to the site of the 12th century Mary Magdalen leper hospital which gave the area its name, it is truly a building at Preston’s historic heart.
St Walburge's was made to be noticed. The Jesuits commissioned it in 1847, at a time of supreme religious confidence, not long after the Catholic Emancipation of the early 19th century had seen many of the legal restrictions on Catholic observances lifted. As Lancashire's population burgeoned with the arrival of many Irish immigrants fleeing the Potato Famine, the Catholic community went from strength to strength. More than 8000 people committed to pay £1 a year to fund the construction of the church and they wanted a building to be proud of.

Their architect, Joseph Aloysius Hansom, did not let them down. A man of considerable ingenuity, who, by the time of the commission, had already designed the 'Patent Safety Cab' or 'Hansom Cab' as it was later known and founded the famous 19th century journal The Builder. Hansom really pulled out all the stops with St Walburge's, giving Preston a building that is still hailed as one of England’s most extraordinary churches today.