Читать книгу History of the Fylde of Lancashire - John Porter - Страница 13
Оглавление“A, of the parish of B, in the county of C, maketh Oath that D, of the parish of B, in the county of C, lately deceased, was not put in, wrapt or wound up or Buried, in any Shirt, Shift, Sheet, or Shroud, made or mingled with Flax, Hemp, Silk, Hair, Gold, or Silver, or other than that which is made of Sheep’s Wool only. Nor in any Coffin lined or faced with any cloth, stuff, or anything whatsoever, made or mingled with Flax, Hemp, Silk, Hair, Gold, or Silver, or any other material but Sheep’s Wool only.
“Dated the ... day of ... in the xxxth year of the reign of our Sovereign Lord, Charles the second, king of England, Scotland, France, and Ireland, etc.
“Sealed and Subscribed by us, who were present and witnesses to the Swearing of the above said affidavit
(Signatures of two witnesses.)
“I, ..., esq., one of the King’s Majesties Justices of the Peace for the County above said, do hereby certify that the day and year above said A came before me and made such affidavit as is above specified according to the late Act of Parliament, entitled An Act for burying in Woollen.
(Signature.)”
The foregoing statute was amended two years later, and the modified enactment continued in force for some time, when it was repealed. In the registers of old churches, such as Bispham, Poulton, Kirkham, and St. Michael’s-on-Wyre, where they have been preserved, notices of burials according to this regulation during the two years it was in operation, may be seen; and amongst the records of the Thirty-men, or governing body of Kirkham, is an entry of expenses incurred when they went “to justice Stanley” to obtain his authority to “demand 50s. for Tomlinson’s wife buried in linen,” contrary to the law.
Three years from the accession of James II., his repeated attempts to curtail the civil and religious liberties of his subjects had so far incensed them against him that William, Prince of Orange, was invited over to free them from his rule. In 1688 James abdicated the throne, and the following year William and Mary were crowned at Westminster. Annexed is a list of the gentry residing in the Fylde from the reign of Henry VIII., to their accession, as prepared from original records and private manuscripts:—
Allen of Rossall Hall.
Ambrose of Ambrose Hall.
Bradley of Bryning.
Bradshaw of Preese and Scales.
Butler of Rawcliffe Hall.
Butler of Layton and Hackensall.
Clifton of Westby.
Eccleston of Great Eccleston Hall.
Fleetwood of Plumpton.
Fleetwood of Rossall Hall.
Hesketh of Mains Hall.
Kirkby of Upper Rawcliffe.
Kirkby of Mowbreck.
Leigh of Singleton.
Longworth of St. Michael’s Hall.
Lowde of Kirkham.
Massey of Carleton.
Molyneux of Larbrick Hall.
Parker of Bradkirk Hall.
Rigby of Layton Hall.
Sharples of Freckleton.
Shuttleworth of Larbrick.
Singleton of Singleton.
Singleton of Staining Hall.
Stanley of Great Eccleston Hall.
Tyldesley of Fox Hall, Blackpool.
Veale of Whinney Heys.
Westby of Rawcliffe.
Westby of Mowbreack and Burn Halls.
James II., when force of circumstances had driven him into exile, left a considerable number of supporters behind him, chiefly amongst the Roman Catholics, who were not dilatory in devising schemes for his re-establishment. On the 16th of May, 1690, Robert Dodsworth deposed upon oath, before Lord Chief Justice Holt, that the following Popish gentry of the Fylde, amongst others, had entered into a conspiracy to restore James, and that they had received commissions as indicated for the purpose of raising troops to carry out the enterprise:—Colonel Thomas Tyldesley, son of the late Sir Thomas; Captains Ralph Tyldesley, son of the late Sir Thomas; Thomas Tyldesley, of Fox Hall, nephew to the two preceding; Richard Butler, of Rawcliffe Hall, and Henry, his eldest son; Thomas Westby, of Mowbreck Hall, and William, his third son, who was designated a lieutenant; and Lieutenant Richard Stanley, of Great Eccleston Hall. Nothing is recorded as to the result of the above information, but in 1694 Sir Thomas Clifton, brother to Cuthbert Clifton, of Lytham, was arraigned, with several more, on a charge of treason in connection with a reported Jacobite plot, but was acquitted, as also were those with him. During the course of the trial, Thomas Patten, of Preston, as witness to the loyalty of Sir Thomas Clifton to the existing government, stated that “in 1689 he received orders from the Lord Lieutenant to secure several Popish gentlemen, and that amongst them Sir Thomas Clifton was one who was taken and brought prisoner to Preston upon the 16th day of June in that year; that Sir Thomas being a very infirm man and unfit to be carried so far as Manchester, which was the place where the rest of the Popish gentlemen then made prisoners were secured, he undertook for Sir Thomas, and prevailed to have him kept at his (Patten’s) own house in Preston, where he continued prisoner, and was not discharged until the January following, at which time all the gentlemen were set at liberty; that during Sir Thomas Clifton’s confinement he expressed to him much zeal and affection to the present government, saying how much the persons of his religion ought to be satisfied with their usage, as putting no difference betwixt them and other subjects save the public exercise of their religion, so long as they themselves would be quiet, and protested for himself that he could never endure to think of practising any change.” Further Mr. Patten affirmed “that he knew Sir Thomas’s disposition to have always been peaceful and quiet.” During the time that James II. was engaged in inciting the Irish nation to espouse his cause and furnish him with an army to invade England and regain his throne, Thomas Tyldesley, of Fox Hall, prepared a secret chamber in that mansion for his reception. The disastrous battle of the Boyne, however, in which James was vanquished by William, Prince of Orange, and King of England, crushed all hope of future success in the fallen monarch, and at the earliest opportunity he escaped to France. In 1715, during the reign of George I., his son, the Chevalier de St. George was proclaimed king in Scotland under the title of James III. The earl of Mar and several other influential supporters of the Stuarts assembled a large force and marched southwards; on arriving at the border five hundred of the Highlanders refused to proceed further, but the remainder passed through the northern counties as far as Preston. Here they were besieged by the loyal troops under Generals Carpenter and Wills, who stormed the town and forced the rebels to an unconditional surrender. Many of the leaders were executed, whilst others were incarcerated for various terms; the general treatment of their unfortunate followers may be gleaned from the journal of William Stout, of Lancaster, in which it is written:—“After the rebellion was suppressed about 400 of the rebels were brought to Lancaster Castle, and a regiment of Dragoons was quartered in the town to guard them. The king allowed them each 4d. a day for maintenance, viz., 2d. in bread, 1d. in cheese, and 1d. in small beer. And they laid on straw in stables most of them, and in a month’s time about 100 of them were conveyed to Liverpool to be tried, where they were convicted and near 40 of them hanged at Preston, Garstang, Lancaster, etc.; and about 200 of them continued a year, and about 50 of them died, and the rest were transported to America.” Thomas Tyldesley, of Fox Hall, died in 1715, just before the outbreak of the rebellion, but his son Edward, who succeeded him, joined the rebels. For this act of treason he was put on his trial, but escaped conviction and punishment through the favour of the jury, by whom he was acquitted in spite of clear and reliable evidence that he had entered Preston at the head of a company of insurgents with a drawn sword in his hand. After the capitulation, when the king’s troops had entered the town and were marching along the streets, many men from our district, who had congregated on Spiral’s Moss, armed with fowling pieces and implements of husbandry, joined their ranks, and a huge duck-gun belonging to a yeoman named Jolly, from Mythorp, near Blackpool, was instrumental in doing good service to the besiegers by slaying one Mayfield, of the Ashes, Goosnargh. The rebel had secreted himself behind a chimney on one of the houses, and was engaged in picking off the loyal soldiers as they made their way along the thoroughfare below. His murderous fire was at length put an end to by a charge from the famed gun of Jolly, whose keen eye had detected the assassin in his hiding place. Jolly himself appears to have had an aversion to causing the death of a fellow-creature in cold blood, even though a rebel, and the credit of the shot is due to a soldier, whose own weapon failed in reaching the object. The Rev. W. Thornber tells us in his History of Blackpool, that the family of the Jollys, for many years, treasured up the wonderful gun, and that the tale of its exploit was circulated far and wide in the neighbourhood of their home. From the remarks of the Rev.—Patten, who accompanied the army of the Chevalier, as chaplain to General Forster, we learn that those who joined the insurgents in Lancashire were chiefly Papists, and that the members of the High-church party held aloof, much to the disappointment and chagrin of General Forster, who, in his anger, declared “that for the time to come he would never again believe a drunken tory.” Edward Tyldesley, Henry Butler, of Rawcliffe Hall, and his son Richard Butler, were the most distinguished personages amongst the small body of men belonging to this section who openly espoused the cause of the Pretender. The paucity of the recruits attracted by the insurgent standard from our neighbourhood is easily to be accounted for, when it is remembered that for many years the county of Lancashire had enjoyed an immunity from strifes and disturbances, so that the inhabitants of the rural districts, such as the Fylde, had settled down to the cultivation of the soil, and would care little to assist in a work which as far as they were privately concerned, could only terminate in the devastation of their fields, and, probably, in the ruin of many of their households. Especially, in 1715, would the people be disinclined to take part in or encourage insurrectionary and warlike proceedings, for in that year extraordinarily bountiful harvests had rewarded their labours, and general prosperity had taught them the blessings of peace.[44] After the rebellion of 1715 many Papists registered their estates and the respective yearly values thereof, according to an Act of Parliament passed in the reign of George I., and amongst the number may be observed the names of sundry local personages as:—
| Annual Value. | |||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Sherburne, Sir Nicholas, | of Carleton, Hambleton, and Stonyhurst | £1210 | 6 | s. | 3½ | d. | |
| Butler, Mary, | ⎱ | wife and only child of Rich. Butler, who died in gaol, | 100 | 0 | 0 | ||
| Butler, Catherine, | ⎰ | 537 | 0 | 0 | |||
| Butler, Elizabeth, | of Kirkland, afterwards the third wife of Henry Butler, of Rawcliffe, | 11 | 10 | 0 | |||
| Butler, Christopher, | second son of H. Butler, of Rawcliffe, | 10 | 19 | 6 | |||
| Brockholes, John, | of Claughton, etc., | 522 | 19 | 1 | |||
| Clifton, Thomas, | of Lytham, Clifton, etc., | 1548 | 16 | 10½ | |||
| Clifton, Bridget, | 3 | 10 | 0 | ||||
| Blackburne, Thomas, | of Wood Plumpton, | 1 | 6 | 0 | |||
| Blackburne, Richard, | of Stockenbridge, near St. Michael’s, | 21 | 2 | 0 | |||
| Hesketh, William, | of Mains, | 198 | 3 | 4½ | |||
| Hesketh, George, | brother to W. Hesketh, | 13 | 6 | 8 | |||
| Hesketh, Margaret, | widow of Thos. Hesketh, of Mains, | 57 | 0 | 0 | |||
| Singleton, Anne, | of Staining and Bardsea, | 76 | 15 | 10 | |||
| Stanley, Anne, | widow of Richard Stanley of Great Eccleston, | 118 | 15 | 0 | |||
| Swartbreck, John, | of Little Eccleston, | 23 | 15 | 0 | |||
| Tyldesley, Edward, | of Fox Hall, and Myerscough, | 720 | 9 | 2 | |||
| Tyldesley, Agatha, | half-sister of Edward Tyldesley, | 52 | 10 | 0 | |||
| Threlfall, Cuthbert, | of Wood Plumpton, | 31 | 12 | 6 | |||
| Westby, John, | of White Hall, St. Michael’s, | 119 | 11 | 1 | |||
| Westby, John, | of Mowbreck, | 230 | 5 | 1½ | |||
| Westby, Thomas, | ⎱ | bros. of J. Westby, of Mowbreck, | 20 | 0 | 0 | ||
| Westby, Cuthbert, | ⎰ | 20 | 0 | 0 | |||
| Leckonby, William, | of Leckonby House, Elswick, etc., | 79 | 11 | 6 | |||
| Walley, Thurstan, | of Kirkham, | 12 | 0 | 8 | |||
| Charnock, Anne, | of Salwick, | 1 | 4 | 0 | |||
| Knott, Thomas, | of Thistleton, | 20 | 0 | 0 |
Prince Charles Edward, the son of the former Pretender, landed in the Hebrides, in 1745, with a well-officered force of two thousand men, and after defeating Sir John Cope, seized the city of Edinburgh and commenced his march southwards. Crossing the border, he passed through Lancashire, and arrived at Preston with an army barely six thousand strong. At Preston he met with an enthusiastic welcome, the church bells were rung, and loud cheers greeted the proclamation of his father, the Chevalier, as king of Great Britain and Ireland. His sojourn in the town was brief, and on the 27th of November the rebel troops set out for Manchester, inspirited by the lively strains of “The King shall have his own again.” Arriving at that city, they continued their march towards Derby, where, on receiving the news that the Duke of Cumberland was at Lichfield on his way to intercept them, Prince Charles Edward hastened to beat a retreat, and on the 12th of December re-passed through the streets of Preston, the wearied feet of his followers keeping time to the doleful but appropriate air of “Hie the Charlie home again.”
The battle on the moor of Culloden, in which the rebel army was defeated by the Duke of Cumberland, finally decided the fate of the House of Stuart, and after experiencing many hardships, Prince Charles Edward escaped across the channel into France. James, the son of Edward Tyldesley who took part in the insurrection of 1715, served in the army of the Young Pretender. During the excitement and alarm produced by these rebellions, silver spoons, tankards, and other household treasures, were deposited for safety in a farm house at Marton; cattle and other farm-stock were driven to Boonley, near Blackpool, whilst money and articles of jewelry were buried in the soil of Hound Hill in that town. The Scots who accompanied Prince Charles were so renowned for their voracious appetites that the householders of the Fylde prepared for their expected visit by laying in an abundant supply of eatables, hoping that a good repast, like a soft answer, would turn away wrath. Mr. Physic, of Poulton, was an exception to the general rule, and having barricaded his house, determined vigorously to resist any attack of the rebels either on his larder or his purse. Hotly pursued by the Duke of Cumberland in their retreat towards Scotland, the insurgents were quickly hurried through the country, but some of the stragglers found their way to Mains Hall, where they were liberally provided with food by Mrs. Hesketh. It is probable that these rebels formed part of the number of Highlanders, who were afterwards captured at Garstang, and that one of them was the bare-footed Scot who seized the boots of John Miller, of Layton, dragging them from his feet with the cool remark—“Hout mon, but I mon tak’ thy brogues.” William Hesketh, of Mains, had considered it prudent to secrete himself on the warren at Rossall until the excitement had subsided, as in some way or other he had been mixed up with the former outbreak, and wished to avoid any suspicion of having been implicated in this one also. At the sanguinary and decisive battle of Culloden, two notorious characters from Layton and Staining were present; one of them, named Leonard Warbreck, served in the capacity of hangman at the executions following the rebellion, whilst the other, James Kirkham, generally known as Black Kirkham, was a gallant soldier, remarkable for his giant-like size and immense strength. The country people near his home were wont to declare that, for a small wager, this warrior carried his horse and accoutrements round the cross at Wigan to the astonishment and admiration of the by-standers. One incident of these times, reflecting little credit on this neighbourhood, but which, as faithful recorders, we are bound to relate, was the journey of Henry Hardicar, of Little Poulton, to London, a distance of two hundred and thirty-three miles, all of which he travelled on foot, solely to gratify a morbid taste by witnessing the legal tragedies performed on Tower Hill. “I saw the lords heided” was his invariable answer to all inquiries as to the wonders he had seen in the metropolis. In this rising, as in the earlier one, the inhabitants of the Fylde evinced their prudence and good sense by remaining as nearly neutral as their allegiance to the reigning monarch would permit them. Those insurgents who found their way into the district were treated with kindness, but no encouragement was given them to prolong their stay, either by professions of sympathy or offers of assistance in their insurrectionary enterprise.
We have at last come to the end of the long chain of wars and disturbances which from the period of the struggles between the Houses of York and Lancaster, had exercised their baneful influence on the territory and population of the Fylde, and are now entering on an era of peace and unbroken prosperity. The small water-side hamlets of Blackpool and Lytham put forth their rival claims to the patronage of the inland residents,—
“And had their claims allow’d.”
In 1788, Mr. Hutton described the former place as consisting of about fifty houses and containing four hundred visitors in the height of the season. This historian also informs us, that the inhabitants were remarkable for their great longevity, and relates the anecdote of a woman who, forming one of a group of sympathising friends around the couch of a dying man, exclaimed—“Poor John! I knew him a clever young fellow four score years ago.” Lytham, also, attracted a considerable number of visitors during the summer, and for many years was a more popular resort than Blackpool. In Mr. Baines’s account of Lytham, published in 1825, we read as follows:—“This is one of the most popular sea-bathing places in the county of Lancashire; and if the company is less fashionable than at Blackpool, it is generally more numerous, and usually very respectable.”
A list of the Catholic Chapels and Chaplains, together with the number of their respective congregations, in the county of Lancaster, was collected in 1819, and subjoined are enumerated those situated in the Hundred of Amounderness:—
| Place. | Chapels. | Priest. | No. of Congregation. | ||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Preston | 2 | Revd. | ⸺ Dunn | ⎫ | 6,000 |
| ” | ” | ⸺ Morris | ⎬ | ||
| ” | ” | ⸺ Gore | ⎪ | ||
| ” | ” | ⸺ Bird | ⎭ | ||
| Alston Lane | 1 | ” | ⸺ Cowburne | 400 | |
| Fernyhalgh | 1 | ” | ⸺ Blakoe | 500 | |
| The Hill | 1 | ” | ⸺ Martin | 450 | |
| Claughton | 1 | ” | ⸺ Gradwell | 800 | |
| Scorton | 1 | ” | ⸺ Lawrenson | 350 | |
| Garstang | 1 | ” | ⸺ Storey | 600 | |
| New House | 1 | ” | ⸺ Marsh | 600 | |
| Cottam | 1 | ” | ⸺ Caton | 300 | |
| Lea | 1 | ” | ⸺ Anderton | 400 | |
| Willows | 1 | ” | ⸺ Sherburne | 600 | |
| Westby | 1 | ” | ⸺ Butler | 300 | |
| Lytham | 1 | ” | ⸺ Dawson | 500 | |
| Poulton | 1 | ” | ⸺ Platt | 400 | |
| Great Eccleston | 1 | ” | ⸺ Parkinson | 450 | |
| Total | 16 | [45]12,650 |
In 1836 the first house of Fleetwood was erected, and in a few years the desolate warren at the mouth of the Wyre was converted into a rising and prosperous town. The rapidity of its early growth may be inferred from the following paragraph, extracted from a volume on Lancashire, published during the infancy of this new offspring of the Fylde:—“As a bathing place, it possesses very superior attractions: hot water baths, inns, and habitations of all kinds have sprung as if by magic on one of the most agreeable sites it is possible to imagine, very superior to any other in Lancashire, admitting, as from a central point, excursions by land and water in all directions, amongst some of the most beautiful scenery in the empire. A couple of hours steaming takes the tourist across Morecambe Bay to the Furness capital, and into the heart of a district of surpassing interest. Charming indeed is Fleetwood in the height of the summer, with its cool sands, northern aspect, and delightful prospects. First there is a noble bay in front, an ocean of itself when the tide is in; and when it is out offering firm sands of vast extent, for riding or walking.” Sir Peter Hesketh Fleetwood, bart., of Rossall Hall, lord of the manor, and founder of the town to which he gave his name, was returned on four occasions as one of the parliamentary representatives of Preston:—
MEMBERS OF PARLIAMENT FOR PRESTON.
1832.—Peter Hesketh Fleetwood, and the Hon. Henry Thos. Stanley.
1835.—Peter Hesketh Fleetwood, and the Hon. Henry Thos. Stanley.
1837.—Peter Hesketh Fleetwood, and Robert Townley Parker.
1841.—Sir Peter Hesketh Fleetwood, Bart., and Sir Geo. Strickland, Bart.
The year 1840 was an auspicious one in the history of the Fylde. On the 25th of July, the Preston and Wyre Railway, running through the heart of this district, was completed and declared open for traffic. By its means the farmer became enabled to convey his produce to the extensive market of Preston; and Kirkham, Poulton, and Garstang were no longer the only towns accessible to our agriculturists for the sale of their crops. The early appreciation of the utility and benefit of the line is apparent from the rapid increase of its traffic, as shown by the annexed tables, in which the official returns of passengers and goods for the week ending Dec. 14th, 1842, and the corresponding weeks of the four succeeding years are stated:—
| Week ending Dec. 14th, 1842. | 911 | Passengers. | £65 | 10s. | 5d. |
| Goods. | 62 | 8 | 1 | ||
| 127 | 18 | 6 | |||
| Corresponding week in 1843. | 1105 | Passengers. | 88 | 1 | 6 |
| Goods. | 140 | 11 | 9 | ||
| 228 | 13 | 3 | |||
| Corresponding week in 1844. | 1601 | Passengers. | 139 | 4 | 6 |
| Goods. | 163 | 18 | 11 | ||
| 303 | 3 | 5 | |||
| Corresponding week in 1845. | 1997 | Passengers. | 144 | 12 | 1 |
| Goods. | 234 | 13 | 4 | ||
| 379 | 5 | 5 | |||
| Corresponding week in 1846. | 2820 | Passengers. | 243 | 19 | 0 |
| Goods. | 308 | 18 | 5 | ||
| 552 | 17 | 5 |
At the present date, 1876, the average weekly traffic on this railway and its branches to Lytham and Blackpool, amounts in round numbers to £1,200 for passengers, and £800 for goods.
The Preston and Wyre Railway was amongst the earliest formed, and the impression made on the natives of this district, who had been accustomed to the slow-going coaches, must have been one of no little amazement, when, for the first time, they beheld the “iron horse” steaming along the rails at a speed which their past experience of travelling would make them regard as impossible. The following lines were written by a gentleman named Henry Anderton, a resident in the Fylde, on the opening of the railway:
“Some fifty years since and a coach had no power,
To move faster forward than six miles an hour,
Till Sawney McAdam made highways as good,
As paving-stones crushed into little bits could.
The coachee quite proud of his horse-flesh and trip,
Cried, ‘Go it, ye cripples!’ and gave them the whip,
And ten miles an hour, by the help of the thong,
They put forth their mettle and scampered along.
The Present has taken great strides of the Past,
For carriages run without horses at last!
And what is more strange,—yet it’s truth I avow,
Hack-horses themselves have turned passengers now!
These coaches alive go in sixes and twelves,
And once set in motion they travel themselves!
They’ll run thirty miles while I’m cracking this joke,
And need no provisions but pump-milk and coke!
And with their long chimneys they skim o’er the rails,
With two thousand hundred-weight tied to their tails!
While Jarvey in stupid astonishment stands,
Upturning both eyes and uplifting both hands,
‘My nags,’ he exclaims, betwixt laughing and crying,
‘Are good ’uns to go, but yon devils are flying.’”
The fares on the Preston and Wyre Railway at its commencement were:—
| 1st class. | 2nd class. | 3rd class. | ||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Preston to Fleetwood or Blackpool | 4s. | 6d. | 3s. | 0d. | 2s. | 0d. |
| Preston to Poulton | 3s. | 6d. | 2s. | 6d. | 1s. | 6d. |
| Preston to Kirkham | 2s. | 0d. | 1s. | 3d. | 0s. | 9d. |
| Preston to Lytham | 3s. | 0d. | 2s. | 6d. | 1s. | 6d. |
Until the opening of the branch lines to Lytham and Blackpool respectively, in 1846, passengers completed their journies from Kirkham and Poulton to those watering places by means of coaches. Three trains ran from the terminus at Fleetwood to Preston on each week-day, and one on Sunday, a similar number returning.
In consequence of the severe distress prevailing throughout the country, a proclamation was issued by Her Majesty for a General Fast to be held on Wednesday, the 24th of March, 1847; and from the public prints of that date it is evident that the occasion was observed with great solemnity in our division—the shops of the different towns were closed during the whole of the day, the streets were quiet, the hotels deserted, whilst the churches were crowded even to overflowing. This distress was caused by an almost complete failure in the potatoe harvests; and at that time these necessary articles of diet were sold at 26s. per load in the local markets, whilst meal, also scarce, rose to 52s. per load.
In September of the same year, the Fylde was honoured by a passing visit from Queen Victoria and the late Prince Consort, who arrived at Fleetwood in the Royal Yacht on their return journey from Scotland to London. An address was presented by Sir P. H. Fleetwood, bart., the Rev. St. Vincent Beechey, Frederick Kemp, esq., James Crombleholme, esq., and Daniel Elletson, esq., on behalf of the inhabitants of Fleetwood, and received by Lord Palmerston, who promised that it should be laid before the Queen. In the course of a few days an acknowledgment was received from the metropolis. In Her Majesty’s book, published in 1868, and entitled “Leaves from our Highland Journal,” these diarian entries relating to the above event appear:—
“Monday, September 20th, 1847.
“We anchored at seven in Fleetwood Harbour; the entrance was extremely narrow and difficult. We were lashed close to the pier, to prevent our being turned by the tide; and when I went on deck there was a great commotion, such running and calling, and pulling of ropes, etc. It was a cheerless evening, blowing hard.”
“Tuesday, September 21st, 1847.
“At ten o’clock we landed, and proceeded by rail to London.”
In 1860, a project was launched for a comprehensive scheme of water supply for the towns of this district; a company was established, and, in the session of 1861, an act of parliament was obtained “for incorporating the Fylde Waterworks Company, and for authorising them to make and maintain waterworks, and to supply water at Kirkham, Lytham, Blackpool, Fleetwood, Poulton, Rossall, Garstang, South-shore, and Bispham, in the county palatine of Lancaster, and to shipping at Fleetwood and Lytham.” The act granted power to take the water from Grizedale Brook, a tributary of the Wyre, which rises in Grizedale Fell, one of the Bleasdale range, and, flowing through the gorge or pass, called Nickey Nook, divides the township of Nether-Wyersdale and Barnacre-with-Bonds, and falls into the Wyre a mile or so before that river reaches Garstang. A dam or embankment, upwards of 20 feet high, 70 feet wide at the base, and 12 feet wide at the top, was raised across the valley, converting the upper portion of it into a reservoir. At the west end of the reservoir, below the embankment, is a culvert, through which the water passes to a guage, where a stipulated quantity is turned into the brook, and the rest enters the pipe for the Fylde. Twelve miles of twelve inch pipes carry the water to the service reservoir at Weeton. The course is down Grizedale, under the railway, through Greenhalgh Green, Bowgrave, leaving Garstang to the right, then past Catterall Mill, through the grounds of Catterall Hall, and onward to the east of St. Michael’s, through Elswick, to Weeton. The service reservoir, situated on the most elevated ground, called Whitprick Hill, in the township of Weeton, has a diameter at the base of 400 feet, and at the top 468 feet. The embankment is at the base 70 feet in diameter, and 12 feet at the top, with a puddle trench in it, varying from 8 feet 8 inches to 6 feet wide. To the south a 10 inch main takes the supply of water for Kirkham and Lytham; and from the west side a main of similar size takes the water for Fleetwood and Blackpool, the supply for the former place branching off near Great Marton, and going by Bispham and Rossall. The Weeton reservoir was formed capable of containing fifteen million gallons of water. An additional pipe, running from Weeton through Singleton, Skippool, and Thornton, to join the Fleetwood main at Flakefleet, near Rossall, was laid in 1875; and a new reservoir, to hold 190,000,000 gallons, is in course of formation at Barnacre, above Grizedale.
