' AMOUNDERNESS : A REGIONAL SURVEY OF THE FYLDE 1 1 



as to its origin as a Roman engineering feat, but its general route only is known 

 as, although Thornber said in 1837 that large stretches of it existed in the 

 then memory of living man, it was across the peat marshes, and, being a kind 

 of ' duck-board ' walk elevated above the water on piles, the peat cutters have 

 entirely removed it. Porter says that it ran across the mosses of Rawcliffe, 

 Stalmine and Pilling, and Mr. Burrows, the present authority, says that it ran 

 from the high ground near the ends of Aldwath (the old name for the ford 

 which existed near the site of Shard Toll Bridge) towards Cockerham. 

 Being of a lighter construction than Dane's Pad, and therefore liable to 

 destruction at points along its route from time to time, it is quite evident that 

 it would not influence the original planning of the Fylde to anything like the 

 same extent. A description of the earliest road system of the area would, 

 however, be manifestly incomplete without its mention. 



Two other ancient roads, of which only traces remain and almost certainly 

 of Roman origin, crossed the area in a north-westerly and south-easterly 

 direction, the one connecting Lancaster with Preston, and the other Lancaster 

 with that ' Clapham Junction ' of the Roman transport, Ribchester, or to give 

 it its Roman name, Rigodunum. It is only necessary to add that, of the Roman 

 bridge shown on the route of the more easterly road, only the abutments 

 remain. Their authenticity is, I understand, quite unimpeachable. 



Those parts of the general history of the Fylde, from the close of the Roman 

 occupation to the more settled periods following the Stuart wars of succession, 

 are one long series of growth and expansion of a particularly fertile and naturally 

 prosperous district. But these settled periods were unfortunately alternated 

 with barbaric destruction by one invader after the other, beginning with the 

 Danes and persisting with distressing regularity to the days of the Roundheads, 

 Cavaliers, Jacobites and Royalists. The fact that the district was so much less 

 affected by the spirit of the Reformation can perhaps be accounted for by it 

 being peopled to a large extent by persons of the Roman Catholic faith, and 

 therefore Jacobite sympathies undoubtedly accounted largely for this and for 

 the fact that settled and uninterrupted opportunity to make the most of the 

 fertility of the soil and the mild and equitable climate, was only possible fairly 

 late in its history. 



How things stood at the time of the Norman Conquest may be seen fairly 

 clearly from the fact that all the local place names in the Doomsday Book 

 (that wonderful prototype of all modern regional surveys) represent places 

 existing to-day, and, moreover, if we accept the Fylde Coast pleasure resorts 

 of recent creation, those still of the greatest importance. Only two churches 

 are mentioned (three in the whole of Amounderness), those at Kirkham and 

 St. Michaels Wyre, but a third at Poulton-le-Fylde was erected very soon 

 afterwards, even if it were not in building at the time. 



' The rest are water ' says the Doomsday Book, and, if the areas attached 

 to each ' vill ' in carucates is totalled and subtracted from that of the region as a 

 whole, it will be seen how very large a proportion that water was. The 

 Romans had doubtless begun the work of clearing the forests and draining 

 the marshes, but it was not completed for a long time. Since then 

 many valuable screen plantations have been planted and come to maturity, 

 but much still needs to be done in this direction, and the preservation of that 



