AMOUNDERNESS HUNDRED 



BISPHAM 



part of the country.' At that time about fifty houses 

 were scattered along a mile of the sea bank from Fox 

 Hall northward, and the visitors numbered about 400 

 in the height of the season. They were largely from 

 Manchester. The attractions were then as now the 

 beach, the breeze and the bathing. Amusements were 

 provided by strolling players who gave performances 

 in a barn. 7 The development of the place was 

 hindered by the selfish policy of house-owners who 

 objected to the building of new dwellings lest their 

 existing houses should suffer for lack of visitors, 8 and 

 by defective communication, the only approach being 

 from Preston by roads unfit for vehicles. 9 



A 'commodious public room,' furnished with 

 books, magazines and papers, was erected about 1 800. 10 

 A free school was built in 1 8 1 7 " and a chapel of 

 ease to Bispham in 1821." About 1825 there were 

 three coaches to Preston daily and a daily postal 

 delivery. 15 An outbreak of cholera in 1832 raised 

 the reputation of Blackpool, which was quite free 

 from the plague." The Preston and Wyre railway 

 brought passengers to Poulton in 1840, and six 

 years later a branch line was formed to Blackpool 

 itself; a second and more direct line through Lytham 

 was opened in 1 861, and a third, through Marton, 

 in 1903 for the summer traffic. 



These facilities have brought a continuously in- 

 creasing number of visitors, and improvements in the 

 town itself have kept pace with the requirements of 

 the times. In 1847 water was supplied by the 

 Fylde Waterworks Company — since 1898 taken over 

 by a public board — and in 1853 gas was introduced 

 by the local board. The electric light is now used in 

 the principal streets. An electric tramway was 

 opened in 1885. The Parade or Promenade along 

 tie sea front, one of the original features of the place, 

 was extended and improved in 1870, when a formal 

 opening took place. More recently it has been 

 further extended and greatly increased in width, 

 and now has a length of over 3 miles. The North 



Pier was opened in 1863, the Central Pier in 1868 

 and Victoria Pier, South Shore, in 1893." The 

 tower, which was formed in 1891 and rises about 

 500 ft. from the ground, and the great wheel, about 

 zoo ft. in diameter, 1896, are other popular attrac- 

 tions. Raikes Hall, first built about 1760, 16 and the 

 residence of the Hornbys from 1834 t0 i860, was 

 for that time the principal mansion. It was after- 

 wards used in various ways, the grounds becoming 

 pleasure gardens. Claremont Park was formed in 

 1862. There are theatres and opera houses, winter 

 gardens and other places of amusement ; also markets, 

 hospitals, technical school and free libraries. The 

 cemetery, north-east of the town, was opened in 

 1873. 



South Shore, formerly a separate village to the 

 south of Blackpool," has shared in the growth of the 

 latter, and now forms one town with it. 



The Territorial force is represented by part of a 

 battery of the 2nd West Lancashire Brigade of the 

 Royal Field Artillery. 



Blackpool gives a name to one of the parlia- 

 mentary divisions of the county. 



The agricultural land remaining in the parish is 

 thus occupied lu : — 



that 



The county lay fixed in 1624 provided 

 Bispham and Norbreck should pay £z y. \d. and 

 Layton with Warbreck £z 6s. 6\d. when £100 

 was levied upon Amounderness. 18 The more ancient 

 fifteenth required £1 5 J. \d. and £l Js. z\d. 

 respectively, showing the same relative valuation. 19 



6 There were three editions : London, 

 1804 ; Kirkham, c. 1805 ; Preston, 1817 } 

 Fishwick, Lanes. Lib. It was a small 

 pamphlet of some fifty pages. He says : 

 'When I intended to visit it, with my 

 family, I neither knew, nor could learn, 

 any particulars respecting its appearance 

 or accommodations,' and desired to make 

 its merits better known. He states that 

 there was 'neither hedge nor tree in the 

 whole neighbourhood.' 



7 These particulars are from Hutton. 

 He 'frequently visited the adjacent 

 farmers for intelligence and found the 

 people extremely civil and very com- 

 municative.' He was not impressed by 

 the ' Lancashire Witches.' 



8 Thornber, op. cit. 216. 



9 Hutton considered the roads good, 

 ' safe and easy for the traveller,' but they 

 lacked milestones, so that owners of post 

 chaises were able to overcharge. Thornber, 

 on the other hand, referring to a little 

 earlier time, says : ' The highway to 

 Preston was unpaved — in winter and in 

 a rainy summer it was next to impass- 

 able ; in fact, about sixty years ago 

 [from 1837] the pack horse was the 

 only mode of conveyance for grain or 

 passengers from this quarter, and " Darby 

 and Joan " trotted to market and church 

 beguiling the way in family chat on a 

 sociable pillion ' ; op. cit. 208. In another 

 place (p. 293) he states that on account 



of the bad roads ' carriages were not then 

 in use ; in fact, carts in winter were laid 

 aside about home. Miss Bold, on her 

 way to Rossall Hall after her nuptials 

 with Fleetwood Hesketh, esq. [1759], 

 travelled attended by her bridesmaids on a 

 palfrey covered with silver net trappings, 

 a coach even at that period being too 

 cumbersome for the soft nature of the 

 highways, which were neither paved nor 

 coated on the surface with gravel.' 



A Manchester and Blackpool coach 

 was advertised in 1783 ; Roeder. 



10 Preface to Hutton, Descr. of Black- 

 pool (ed. 2) ; Baines, Lanes. Dir. ii, 

 528. 



11 Thornber, op. cit. 230. 



12 Ibid. 231-3. An attempt had been 

 made as early as 1789 to provide a church 

 building, but had failed ; ibid. 209. The 

 morals of the people were low ; ibid. 

 203-4. Some illustrative anecdotes are 

 given, ibid. 74, 77-9. Smuggling was 

 carried on ; pp. 205-6. 



13 Baines, Dir. ii, 528 ; in winter the 

 post came every other day. ' Mr. Cooke, 

 an American loyalist who was driven 

 from his home during the revolutionary 

 wars to labour for a livelihood at Black- 

 pool, was the originator of this post, 

 which commenced by travelling to Kirk- 

 ham three times each week during the 

 season. ... Mr. Cooke was for many 

 years the Beau Nash of Blackpool ; he 



243 



died in 1820 and was buried at Bispham ' ; 

 Thornber, op. cit. 237. 



14 Ibid. 225. A description of the 

 place about 1830 is given in Whittle's 

 Marina, with a view. 



15 Steamers sail in the season not only 

 for short pleasure trips but for the Isle of 

 Man, Barrow and other places. 



16 Tradition relates ' how a Mr. Butcher 

 of Blackpool suddenly sprang into conse- 

 quence from comparative poverty and 

 commenced the building of Raikes Hall 

 to the astonishment of his neighbours, 

 who, ignorant whence the necessary 

 funds were obtained, conceived with some 

 probability that his constant visits to 

 the sea shore had been rewarded by the 

 discovery of the wealth of three sisters 

 lost in a vessel which was wrecked about 

 the time upon the coast. . . . His son, 

 a wretched hypochondriac, as if conscious 

 that he had no title to the wealth he in- 

 herited, shunned the light of day and was 

 tormented with the horrible fancy that 

 an industrious cordwainer had taken up 

 his abode and laboured at his daily task 

 within his body, which (in his depraved 

 imagination) he supposed to be of glass ' 5 

 Thornber, op. cit. 259. 



17 The first house was built there in 

 1819 ; Thornber, op. cit. 344. 



17 a Statistics from Bd. of Agric. (1905). 



18 Gregson, Fragments (ed. Harland), 



23. 



" Ibid. 19. 



