10 SCIENTIFIC SURVEY OF BLACKPOOL AND DISTRICT 



straight forward through the well-cultivated fields to Kirkham without a single 

 trace having been left on the ground. About midway within the long town of 

 Kirkham, the line of the Roman road falls in with the main street and continues 

 up to the windmill at the top of the town.' 



The whole description, too long to quote here, goes on to trace the road 

 through Clifton Church and thence to Fulwood, though, as he says, the 

 evidence for this portion is slight. 



Porter, in his ' History of the Fylde of Lancashire,' published in 1 876, 



completes the route sketched by Just in the above quotation, when he says : 



' At the shore margin of the warren of Fleetwood, there was visible 



about 40 years ago (i.e., 40 years before 1876) the abrupt and broken 



termination of a Roman road, which could be traced across the sward 



along the Naze below Burn Hall, and onward in the direction of Poulton.' 



These quotations would seem fairly conclusive were it not for the fact 

 that local archeological opinion has varied in a totally different direction since 

 they were written. 



J. Burrows, Esq., the present local representative of the Ancient Monuments 

 Board, writing to the author in January, 1934, said : ' With regard to Dane's 

 Pad, the only evidence that exists relates to a raised path, probably of neo- 

 lithic age, which stretched in Porter's days from near Weeton Railway Bridge 

 across the valley of the Main Dyke to Mythop. It has long since vanished. 

 . . . All the rest of the " Roman Road " from Ribchester to Poulton rests 

 on the imaginative accounts of Just and Thornber, both of whom were without 

 any status as observers. The rest of the authorities are mere quoters from 

 Thornber. The late Mr. Clemesha and I actually walked over the whole of 

 the alleged route, armed with the 6 inch Ordnance Survey Map, and nowhere 

 found the slightest resemblance on or under the ground of a paved road.' 



The finds referred to are the existence of a made road and the abutments 

 of a bridge across the Dow Brook close to Dow Bridge, together with the 

 ancient medicinal spring, which have already been mentioned, all palpably 

 very old and generally popularly assumed to be Roman. 



Whilst there is a conflict of opinion, the questions involved bear witness 

 to the only point really material to the subject — that there was in, and possibly 

 before the Romans came, a great elevated track, mound earthwork or causeway, 

 giving a dry and elevated road across the marshes, in those days feet deep in 

 water in parts, and that it connected the natural broken ridge running east 

 and west, through Kirkham with Poulton-le-Fylde and the peninsula on which 

 Fleetwood now stands. 



While this track may not account for the existence of these two old towns, 

 often referred to as the northern and southern ' capitals ' of the Fylde, there 

 can be little doubt that its presence has resulted in both their permanence 

 and importance throughout the intervening ages, until the draining of the 

 marshes, followed by the making of the railway, gave them a fresh lease of life 

 as railway junctions. 



There was undoubtedly another track of great antiquity across the area, 

 called locally Kate's Pad 2 , and theie would seem to be more general agreement 



2 See Map on page 59. 



