NORTH MEOLS CHURCHTOWN. 3 



The parish has for its name North Meols. What may be 

 the precise etymological signification of the latter word is not 

 clear. Baines, in the History of Lancashire, says it is a Saxon 

 term, signifying sandhills. 



Quite a hundred years ago, probably for an undeterminable 

 earlier time, the sands of North Meols were noted for the 

 facilities they offered to invalids who looked to pure air and 

 sea-bathing as the chief means towards restoration to health. 

 The physicians of Manchester and other manufacturing towns 

 in South Lancashire, were accustomed to send their patients 

 hither. Churchtown was the primary destination, and thence 

 any who desired to dip in the sea were conveyed, when the 

 tide served, to the suitable localities then called the Hawes. 

 The reputation of the neighbourhood grew fast. The wealth 

 and the population of the cotton districts were constantly 

 augmenting. The visitors to Churchtown became more 

 numerous every season. Travelling two or three miles from 

 their lodgings before the water could be reached, and this 

 over rough and unformed sandy roads, was found to be a 

 serious inconvenience, and in these circumstances Southport 

 may legitimately be said to have had its origin. Some far- 

 seeing and enterprising man is generally at hand to play the 

 part of Columbus, though obscurely, when courageous adven- 

 ture offers promise of reward. About the year 1792,3 pioneer 

 arose in the person of a Mr. William Sutton, landlord of one 

 of the two inns then existing at Churchtown. To the amaze- 

 ment, and it would appear the amusement of his neighbours, 

 Mr. Sutton erected, on the spot at the Birkdale extremity of 

 Lord-street where the ornamental lamp-post now stands, a 

 hostelry and little lodging-house, which he called the " King's 



