THE Boulevard in the heart of Blackburn's town centre has gone under many facelifts over the years.

Once home to a hustling, bustling bus station, Queen Victoria looked on from her statue at shoppers excitably coming into town to meet up with family, friends or start their day of work.

Before the bus station was put in place, the Boulevard was visited by the royals when King George V visited on July 10, 1913, where thousands of people lined the streets to catch a glimpse.

The highly regarded Dutton's beer was brewed along the Boulevard and was prominent in the town for decades.

However the business became part of the town's every changing history in 1964 when it was taken over by Whitbread and brewed its last beer in 1978, before being torn down in 1986.

If you hopped into a time machine in the 1970s and stepped out of Blackburn Railway Station now, you would not recognise the street as it is now.

On 22 September 2013, the Boulevard closed, to pave the way for the multi-million pound redevelopment of the Cathedral Quarter, which features chain restaurants, businesses and a cafe.

All bus services served an interim bus station on the former market site which officially opened on in May 2016.