World of Glass, Chalon Way East, St Helens - 01744 755150 sthelenstic@yahoo.co.uk

From c1593, into the early years of the 17th century, Prescot was home to the Prescot Playhouse, a purpose-built Shakespearean theatre.

During the 18th and 19th centuries it was at the centre of the watch and clockmaking industry. This ended with the failure of the Lancashire Watch Company in 1910. In later years BICC Cables was the main employer in the town.

The town was contained in the Prescot Urban District in the administrative county Lancashire from 1894. When the administrative counties were abolished in 1974 the district became part of the Metropolitan Borough of Knowsley in the metropolitan county of Merseyside.

The centre of Prescot has seven churches. Dominating the skyline is the 17th-century Prescot Parish Church of St Mary's. Tucked away behind St Mary's is the Roman Catholic church of Our Lady and St Joseph. Prescot Methodist Church celebrated its 100th anniversary in 2009, but the building has since been shut down indefinitely. The congregation continues to exist, however, meeting in the adjacent church hall, known as Prescot Methodist Centre. Also in the town are a Salvation Army church, an Elim Pentecostal church (Prescot Community Church), a Brethren Gospel Hall and the Zion Independent Methodist Church.

Places of worship shut down or relocated over the past 20 years include the United Reformed church, the Kingdom Hall (Jehovah's Witnesses) and an independent charismatic church called simply Prescot Christian Fellowship.

Prescot Museum houses a permanent exhibition about the history of clock- and watch-making in the town, and several temporary exhibitions per year. The Georgian building is now also home to Knowsley Council's Arts and Events Service.

On the edge of the town is the famous estate of Lord Derby, which includes Knowsley Safari Park.

In recent years, a number of cultural and arts events have been established in the town, including the annual 10-day Prescot Festival of Music and the Arts and an annual Elizabethan Fayre.

The Shakespeare North Trust was founded in 2007 to promote William Shakespeare's historic connection with the town, a subject currently being researched at Liverpool's John Moores University. Attempts to raise funds to rebuild the town's Elizabethan theatre have so far been unsuccessful.

Prescot's name is believed to be derived from the Anglo-Saxon preost "priest" + cot "cot", meaning a cottage or small house owned or inhabited by a priest, a "priest-cottage".