32 SCIENTIFIC SURVEY OF BLACKPOOL AND DISTRICT 



eccentric outer palisade. The monument is apparently to be dated fairly late 

 in the Bronze Age, and is unique in view of the fact that the actual wooden posts 

 and ditch-lining were found. They are preserved with the urns (which are 

 of a type found in the Pennines) at Preston Museum, and the sockets of the 

 posts have been appropriately marked by Mr. W. J. Varley. The monument 

 appears to be related to the emergence of a trans-Pennine route on to the 

 Lancashire lowlands. 



Cairns of uncertain date occur near South Shore, at Blackpool, as well as 

 near Hardhorn, Salwick and Weeton. Two ancient dug-out canoes have been 

 found near Preston, as also a group of human skulls. Marton has yielded 

 two skin-canoes, and Stalmine, Over-Wyre, a fibula and some other objects ; 

 these last finds may be of Roman, or perhaps pre-Roman date. Roman 

 pavement occurs near Kirkham and near Fleetwood, and a few other items, 

 including coins, have been found. There was a Roman Causeway from the 

 neighbourhood of Ribchester, through Kirkham and on to Little Poulton, 

 and, perhaps, Fleetwood. This was later known as Danes Pad, and consisted 

 of a lower path three yards wide composed of shingle, and hard enough for 

 horses, and a higher sandy one 10 yards wide for foot soldiers. A drainage 

 trench separated the two, and it is likely that the lower one was a prehistoric 

 trackway, especially as a number of the relevant finds made in the Fylde have 

 come from near it. Kirkham was a pre-Roman site, apparently adopted by 

 the Romans during a temporary military occupation. 



Like the remainder of the north-west of England, north Lancashire, including 

 the Fylde, was for a time in the possession of Celtic-speaking people. The 

 river name, Wyre, and the village name, Treales, are Celtic, and there are 

 others, with which another article is dealing. 



Athelfrith of Northumbria (613) conquered Lancashire south of the Ribble, 

 and a later king, Oswy, took Ribchester and north Lancashire. When Mercia 

 became the leading power it took Lancashire south of the Ribble, and this 

 distinction between the north and south of the county long maintained itself 

 ecclesiastically, the north remaining in the diocese of York until 1 541 . 



It is thought that the Danes attacked the Fylde between 869 and 894. The 

 Danes were defeated in the Ribble valley about 911, and a hoard of silver coins 

 at Overdale has been supposed to be the treasure of their army. In the Fylde 

 the Danes settled either near the shore (Warbreck, Norbreck, Anchorsholme), 

 or near the Roman Road which, as stated above, became known as Danes 

 Pad. The Wyre entry was also fairly densely occupied, as place names show. 

 Names ending in -ham and -ton, on the other hand, and some others, are 

 thought to point to settlements of earlier date by people from Northumbria. 

 The division into hundreds occurred in the late ninth century, when Danish 

 invasions were very active, and the hundred-name, Amoundemess (Agemunder- 

 ness in 930) is Danish. Lancashire is not mentioned as such in Domesday, 

 but Henry I. created the Honour of Lancaster in 1118, and this determined in a 

 general way the outline and extent of the county. 



At the time of the Domesday Survey a great deal of the Fylde was waste, 

 but the most settled part seems to have been in the later parishes of Bispham- 

 with-Norbreck, Carleton and Thornton, with eight, four and 10 ploughlands 

 respectively on the alluvial soils of the peninsula ; the first-named was in a 



