The Fylde and Wyre Antiquarian

A Quartet of Old Lytham Photographs (or, as the case might be, three old photographs and one greyscale painting)

2010-06-16T00:01:00.001+01:00

Please Note: The numerous projects with which we're involved (sleeping, drinking, and eating being some of the top priorities) have, once again, got the better of me so, for the time being at any rate, this board is taking another breather. No doubt we'll be back again before too long. In the meantime the forum's still open for business and Wyre Archaeology's relentless destruction of Lancashire's green and pleasant fields continues apace. Here's the last posting for now, but keep dropping back every so often won't you, because I'm sure we'll return eventually.

Let’s stick with facts this week and keep the speculations/pointless asides under wraps. People have been complaining, apparently, that I take our local history far too flippantly. Oddly enough, these complaints don’t appear to have originated from anybody who’s tracked down an Iron Age settlement or Roman road recently, but who’s checking? History belongs to everyone, I suppose, even those who consider it to be a matter of life and death, so, tongue out of cheek again sharpish; here’s the serious version of events.
This is Lytham Hall. (Was that formal enough, do you reckon?)

Work began on the building in 1751 from the designs of ‘Carr of York’, and was completed in 1764. The Manor of Lytham itself was originally held by Earl Tostig (King Harold’s rebellious brother killed at the battle of Stamford Bridge in 1066) before being granted by the Lord of Woodplumpton (Richard Fitz Roger) to the Monastery of Durham in 1190. (Is everyone following this closely? There might be questions at the end. Probably not…but you never know.)
The site of the hall became the monks’ priory, but was abandoned before the dissolution reached town, the prior renting the manor off in 1539 to somebody called Thomas Dannett (I don’t know who he was…go and check out the genealogical sites if you’re that interested) on an eighty-year lease.
In 1554, well before the lease had actually expired, Thomas Holcroft (whoever he was as well) bought the manor from the crown.
Green Drive Lodge, shown below (er…obviously) was one of the two gatehouses to Lytham Hall.

The Clifton family (of Lytham Hall…or did I mention that?) also owned nearby Witch Wood on the edge of the estate. The wood, unfortunately, wasn’t frequented by mysterious brunette maidens without their cuddies on (Steady…you’re degenerating into flippancy again! Ed) but was actually named after one of the family’s favourite horses. The Witch’s burial place is marked by a gravestone, and has spooked many an unwitting rambler.
Onwards, to the launch of Lytham lifeboat.

In 1839 John Rye, following the loss of several fishing vessels in Clovelly, founded the Shipwrecked Mariners Society. From 1851 the society operated lifeboats at Lytham, Portmadoc, Hornsea, Tenby, Llanelly, Teignmouth, Rhyl and Newhaven but eventually became two separate organizations, one concentrating on rescuing lives while the other helped bereaved families.
In 1854 the Society transferred its lifeboats to the R.N.L.I.
And finally for this week, the all important (and extremely serious) donkey rides on Lytham Beach.

According to John Porter’s ‘History of the Fylde’ (published in 1876) during the nineteenth century slightly more upmarket races, involving the pick of the local farmers’ horses, were held on the Green every Whit Monday.
The races took place on the sward between the windmill and an old limekiln approximately one mile north towards the hamlet of Saltcotes. Porter records that: “These races, which are described as having being very fair contests, were kept up for many years. The prizes competed for were saddles, bridles, whips etc.”
There…honour satisfied -- an entire article without one flippant remark. Hopefully that should keep those dour antiquarians with nothing better to complain about quiet for a few days at least.

A Brief History of St. Michael’s Church…at St. Michaels (Part Two)

2010-06-09T00:01:00.000+01:00

Last week we ended (perhaps a bit abruptly but who’s checking) with a mention of various mediaeval bits of stained glass in the Butler Chapel.
The Butler Chapel, itself, was founded in 1480 by John Butler of Rawcliffe Hall.
Worth a mention at this point is the gargoyle carved into the exterior window boss of the Butler Chapel. Unfortunately the weather hasn’t exactly been gentle with the sandstone, but it’s still quite clear that this hooded peasant has his feet planted firmly against the wall above his head, his arms down by his ears and his big, bare ar…bottom exposed to the general public.

Exactly why the Butler Chapel windows are decorated in this manner is a mystery. One possibility is that the figure’s an acrobat whose robes have ridden up in mid-performance. (Yeah…right.) Another is that, because windows were positioned above garderobes (or poop chutes) in mediaeval times, our peasant might be performing his ablutions away from the congregation. (And onto a nearby grave…)
Whatever the truth, it’s certainly a cheeky performance. (Copyright Mediaeval Jokes Shane Richie Inc.)
Sticking with the Butler Chapel a bit longer, I’d just like to throw this image into the scrum.

We’ve no idea who this is meant to be. Is it some king or other? Possibly a bishop? Perhaps even old Butler himself? Whoever it is, there’s a few of these heads about, looking considerably more kempt than the rest of the carvings, so perhaps they’re relatively modern? If anybody reading this knows who they’re meant to be…well, you know where the comments box is.
Onwards and upwards, and St Michael’s church tower was built about two decades earlier than the Butler Chapel, in 1459 when John Singleton donated forty shillings for the building of a steeple.
He also donated ten shillings towards the bells, one of which, dated 1458, most likely resulted from this donation. According to the ‘Victoria County History’: “There may be portions of an older structure in the north wall of the chancel and at the west end of the south aisle adjoining the tower, the masonry of which may date from the thirteenth century.”
Yeah, we reckon that’s about right, although the masonry is probably earlier even than that. Pre-conquest, we’d hazard a guess at. The stonework of the tower clearly shows that it was built onto an earlier ground floor structure and, as the diagram showing the church’s layout below demonstrates, said structure is/was/always has been crooked to the main body of the church.

Those dates are the ones supplied by the Victoria County History incidentally, not necessarily ours. However, invariably, when you get a tower (or at least the lower half of tower) built skewed to the main body of a church like that, it’s because the tower (or rather the lower part of it) was originally a much earlier, less architecturally aesthetic church in its own right, the main bulk of the church being tagged to it later.
Usually.
It’s probably much the same in this case, the lower part of the tower possibly being the original pre-Norman Saxon church from which the village of St Michael’s takes it name. In fact, if you look in the churchyard, there’s a sundial standing on the base of what would once have been the churchyard cross.

Take a look at that base. Three steps, see? That’s typically Saxon, is that. (They’re a bit on the knackered side too, having been stapled together with big iron bolts if memory serves, testament to how worn they’ve become over the centuries.)
Similar to St. Helen’s (the parish church of Garstang), in 1856 during repairs to the plasterwork in St Michael’s sanctuary an early fourteenth century mural was discovered. Despite being damaged the faint image of Mary’s haloed head (along with those of several apostles) can still be seen watching Christ’s feet as he ascends into heaven. Unfortunately, when we went to take a photograph it was bucketing down outside and the church itself was in pitch-blackness. So we didn’t bother.
I think (and you can correct me if I’m wrong about this) there are a few words in English accompanying the scene, indicating that the text was taken from the King James Bible. The fact that it was whitewashed was probably down to Cromwell or someone, so perhaps St Michael’s did bear direct witness to some turbulent history after all.
On which uplifting note, it’s time to stop.

A Brief History of St. Michael’s Church…at St. Michaels (Part One)

2010-06-02T00:01:00.001+01:00

Pevsner, the British travel writer -- by which I mean he travelled around Britain and wrote about it, not that he was British and travelled abroad writing about foreign places…although he was British…and he might even have travelled abroad and written about foreign places for all I know…look, you’ve either heard of him or you haven’t, so bear with me on this -- once described St. Michael’s Church (in St. Michael’s, of course) as: “A typical late mediaeval North Country church.”
Which shows what he knew, because it’s a damned sight earlier than late mediaeval.

In fact, St. Michael’s was the only church in the Wyre to be mentioned by name in William the Conqueror’s big fat ledger of ill-gotten gains the Domesday Book (although there are actually several other churches around the district referred to in brief…just not by name) making it early mediaeval rather than late.
The vicars’ board inside the church confirms this by listing its ministers all the way back to 1196, so it’s at least 800 years old, you see, and probably more.
Because of its long history you’d naturally expect to find plenty of relics in situ, so let’s start with the door on the north side of the chancel, which dates back to the Norman period, or about 1,000 years ago for anybody who doesn’t know about these things…quite a long time when you stop to consider it.

Imagine the history that arch has seen. The Wars of the Roses, Vikings, Cromwell fighting the Royalists, the Jacobites rampaging through the churchyard with their swords rattling and their kilts flying…or possibly none of those things, because St Michael’s is a bit of a quiet nook really when I stop to think about it. Nonetheless, it’s stood through all those various historic events, as well as the Spanish Armada, Henry VIII and his six wives, Agincourt et al…even if it didn’t witness them personally.
The pointed arch, regardless of Pevsner’s somewhat dismissive attitude, of course, is typical of early mediaeval/Norman architecture.
Tradition dictates that the site of the church is even older. Tradition generally does with these matters, although on this occasion it’s probably right.
One of the earliest remaining sections is the bricked-up lancet window near the front door. Like the leper’s squint at St. Helens this window was originally used to pass alms to lepers outside.

Let’s talk about lepers for a moment, because they’re always good for a laugh (so long as you don’t know any lepers personally, of course, in which case it’s not an amusing matter at all really). If the disease wasn’t horrific enough by itself, lepers throughout the Middle Ages were considered unclean by those more fortunate.
They were forced to wear distinguishing clothes, rattle clappers and carry bowls to warn people of their approach (a bit like football fans nowadays, with their distinctive football strips, clappers and KFC boxes…only not as menacing).
Originally healthy people pitied them, but, as the problem became more widespread, the church, with its usual tact, declared that leprosy was God’s punishment against sinners. Lepers soon fell into the same category as Jews, prostitutes, homosexuals and witches (all terrible affronts to decent human beings, I’m sure you’ll agree).
Naturally such an attitude only applied to peasant lepers, aristocratic lepers being regarded as martyrs.
Interestingly, perhaps, according to Father Martinus Cawley (no relation to Father Jack Hackett), civic authorities during the mediaeval era regarded lepers as ‘legally dead’ giving them (the civic authorities that is) free reign to confiscate lepers’ goods.
However, we’re digressing.
Returning to St. Michael’s church, another early relic is the piscina, which sits on the right of the altar, (its something you put holy water into, I believe, and not the vicar’s personal loo as the name might suggest) along with the pedestal found on the east wall which, apparently, once contained an effigy of Saint Michael himself (neither of which we have a photograph of).
Even some of the stained glass windows have a long-standing legacy. The roundel in the Butler Chapel, for example, is Flemish and dates from the sixteenth century. We haven’t got a photograph of that either, apparently, but I have drawn it up.

Typical of the Wyre’s farming heritage this romantic scene depicts a couple shearing sheep. (It could have been worse.) Documents inform us that the window was originally one of a set of three…although what became of the other two we couldn’t say.
At the bottom of the picture is the word Junius (meaning June), the month when shearing generally took place. It’s accompanied by a crayfish, which probably represents the astrological sign of Cancer (June 21st to July 22nd).
Another fragment of old glass found in the Butler Chapel depicts a shield and dates from the fourteenth century.
This article’s going on a bit longer than I thought it would. Time for a seven-day break to gather our meagre wits before part two.

A Bevy (albeit a small one) of Over Wyre Postcards

2010-05-26T00:01:00.000+01:00

It’s time, we reckon, for some old photographs of t’other bank of t’ Wyre (where the night ghasts live). First up, St. Mary’s in Hambleton before it was rebuilt in 1973.

As early as 1567 an Episcopal Chapel existed on the site, but there might even have been a chapel of ease to Kirkham there at a much earlier date. Inside St. Mary’s, apparently (and I say “apparently” because I’ve never actually been inside to find out) hang reproductions of two mediaeval documents recording the ‘granting of the manor of Hambleton by Henry the Third to Geoffrey the Crossbowman in 1228’ and the manor being ‘passed to Geoffrey’s son, Robert of Shireburn’ in 1244.
The churchyard (similar to a number of other churches Over Wyre) is surrounded by a ditch, suggesting that it was erected on a pagan site.
At the top of the hill to the rear of St. Mary’s runs an ancient, sunken track. Although used as a drove road during the mediaeval period, it predates the Romans having been originally constructed as a sunken way by the ancient Celts. Just for the record, this sunken track seems to be part of the Romano-Brtitish Nateby to Bourne via Stanah route.
Next up, we have the somewhat unusual sundial above the porch of St. John the Baptist, Pilling. (We might have written about this before. I can’t remember now, but it’s worth re-mentioning all the same.)

The sundial was placed there in memory of Reverend George Holden, a former vicar. Holden’s claim to fame was that he invented the ‘Tide Tables’ still in use today.
Another famous vicar of St. John’s (possibly infamous) was Reverend Potter, a pugilistic, drunken enthusiast of wreck salvage who, following the death of his first wife, remarried a young girl from the village the father of whose illegitimate child had never been revealed. (We’re not saying anything).
St. John’s itself was built in 1721 to replace the older chapel at Newers Wood (part of which constitutes the rear wall) but is nowadays redundant.
From churches to pubs (a natural progression if ever there was one) and the Seven Stars, one of the two watering holes in Stalmine that were around in mediaeval times (although, obviously, the photograph isn’t as old as all that).

The fact that two pubs stood in such close proximity to each other in such a small village suggests that an unofficial market was held between them. (Either that or the locals had a bit of a drink problem.) The other hostelry (the Pack Horse Inn) stood on the ground currently occupied by the post office, the counter of the latter being originally the Pack Horse’s bar.
St. Oswald’s (behind the trees in the photograph) was rebuilt in 1860, it’s ancient ceiling, decorated with signs of the zodiac, being destroyed in the process. One item that did survive was the cross near the porch, its base being typical of a Sixth-to-Eleventh Century keeill cross.
And finally for this week, because we don’t want to tire everyone out, a rather excellent old image of the Shard Hotel (originally the Shard House).

As you’ve probably gathered, the building itself predates the bridge, having been built in 1766 on the site of the old ferryman’s cottage.
At one time a small gravestone stood in the car park (to be honest it might still be there, we’re not sure…it was the last time we looked), giving rise to much speculation amongst the visitors. The grave actually belonged to a faithful dog that drowned whilst saving the life of its owner who’d accidentally fallen into the river.

In for a Barracking

2010-05-19T00:01:00.000+01:00

We didn’t know about this until Steve Bird pointed it out to us. We’ve written before about Wilfred Owen and the hutments at Rossall Point – about how in 1859 Fleetwood became an army town and how the squaddies were accused of trampling down fences and destroying farm property. What we didn’t realise was that part of the original barracks is still standing.
Take a look at this:

This is one of two remaining walls belonging to the aforementioned barracks down a back alley running parallel to Beach Road. It might not be very attractive, perhaps, but it is historically interesting, especially when you stop to consider that at the start of the First World War it was actually occupied by this lot:

We were quite impressed by the size of the wall. The barracks never looked that large on the map. Whether Wilfred Owen ever wandered around inside the enclosure or not, we couldn’t say for certain (we suspect he did) because he lived officially down Bold Street (and for a short time on Lord Street as well).
Whatever the case, here’s the first edition Ordnance Survey map showing exactly how large (and complicated) the barracks were.

Here’s another shot of the wall.

High, isn’t it? And heavily defended! Those are gun slots up near the top. They get narrower towards the outside, allowing maximum room for manoeuvre by the riflemen behind them (who, presumably, had some sort of gantry to stand on…unless they were just extremely tall) and minimum chance for any stray enemy bullets to get through.
Oddly enough, the walls appear to have been built, or rather rebuilt, several times. The lower bricks are mainly pre-frogged affairs placing them, if memory serves, in the early Victorian period. Higher up there are your traditional frogged and hard-baked Victorian bricks, whilst at the top a layer consistent with World War II defences seems to have been added. We’re not sure about the entire life history of the barracks, when it demolished and why etc. so we’re just going off what we could actually see.
Round the corner on Beach Road there’s another relic from Fleetwood’s military past, denoting the corner of the barracks themselves.

That’s a War Department stone, that is. There’s another one in the front wall of the North Euston Hotel if anyone fancies a look. You might be able to make out W.D. No. 2 carved into this one, and what appears to be a benchmark. It isn’t a benchmark. It’s the War Department logo. It looks like a benchmark because, well, benchmarks were established by the Ordnance Survey mob, who basically worked for the War Department surveying Britain’s ordnance…er…obviously.
Anyhow, there you go…worth a quick gander if you’re into that sort of stuff.
One last photograph, showing another section of the remaining walls, this time over a hollow section of ground where the foundations to keep it level, as can be seen, were rather large. It’s surprising what’s still left around Fleetwood that we thought had long since gone.

A Beginner’s Guide to the Danes’ Pad (Part Four)

2010-05-12T00:01:00.000+01:00

Okay, in parts one to three we covered the route of the Danes’ Pad as recorded on the Ordnance Survey maps…whether it actually existed or not.
Now that we’re beyond Poulton (to the north) it’s time to write about the speculated routes heading towards Fleetwood and/or Preesall.
William Thornber, whose transaction we’ve relied on quite heavily through the previous three sections, reckoned this: “I rather fancy that the agger ran past Poulton on to the Town-fields near Little Poulton Hall, having only a branch to Poulton Hill. On the high ground of the Town-fields there is a track of an ancient road, which evidently was gravelled over the low lands, and this road leads by a curious cut through the banks of the Wyre to the Shard, or as anciently written, Aldwath, or the old Ford, so denominated before 1300.”
Aldwath (it’s Norse, and it mean, as Thornber correctly states, the Old Ford, which suggests that it was old when the Vikings turned up) is interesting. The cuttings are clearly Roman (or at least Romanesque) and appear to be linked to the Celtic settlement at the nearby Gymkhana field at Skippool by a road (probably the Danes’ Pad, but that’s not for me to say).
An aerial photograph (which we’ve misplaced and can’t unfortunately find again) clearly showed said buried road running from said gymkhana field (where Bronze Age, Iron Age and – albeit alleged – Roman finds have all turned up in the past) to said cuttings.
Regardless of Thornber’s assertion, however, he then continues to claim that the Danes’ Pad actually ran along the west bank of the Wyre to the Bergerode, marked on old maps, between Bourne Hall and Stanah.
(It might be an idea if you’re trying to follow this to check the map we posted at the end of last week…unless we’ve been told by the authorities to take it down again, of course, in which case you’ll just have to make do.)
Let’s take a step backwards.
In ‘The History of St Chad’s Church’ J. Scott Ashton mentions that: “At one time the (Poulton) churchyard was partly surrounded by a ditch.” This ditch might (and it’s a BIG might, but let’s continue) have surrounded a Roman camp/fortlet. Two copper coins of Hadrian and a large medal of Germanicus were discovered nearby at the back of Poulton market place and, according to Ted Lightbown’s ‘The Danes’ Pad: Roman Road to Nowhere’, in the 1970s, Alan McLerie traced the course of a cobbled track running across Poulton golf links. At the Civic Centre it continued across the Breck, passing through the ground once occupied by the railway station.
In September 1852 at the railway station on the Breck a Domitian coin was unearthed.
If you did what I suggested a few moments ago and double-checked the map supplied at the end of last week, you’ll probably have realised by now that none of this has any connection with Thornber’s suggested route via Stanah to the Bergerode.
However, after disappearing under the golf course, this particular road reappears at Tarn Gate Farm in Thornton, where an agger (and it is there because I’ve seen it) can be seen running towards Amounderness Way.
Jim Plummer also claimed to have found the road beneath the golf course using a probe. What neither historian seemed to realise, however, was that this track was originally known as Ardelles.
Let’s have a quote from the ‘Gazette & Herald’ of 1950: “In Tarn-road, Thornton a signpost says ‘Links Gate – footpath to Poulton’ thus giving a modern title to a path old folk call ‘Ardelles’. Our ‘Town Clerk’ for 26 years, Mr. Bowman called his home ‘Ardelles’ and, before it was built, an application was made to Quarter Sessions to get the footpath diverted so that the present approach could be made. Previously the path reached Tarn-road through Tarn Gate Farm, a couple of hundred yards nearer the railway.”
In fact, Ardelles’ name, despite sounding French, is more likely to have originated from a couple of fields marked on the tithe maps as lying beneath the southern end of the golf course through which the road ran. These fields were named respectively ‘Little Hard Hill’ and ‘Rough Hard Hill’. See, Ard’ill…Ardelle? Obvious when you know, isn’t it?
All matters considered, as old and buried as this particular road might have been when it was investigated, it’s unlikely to have been the Danes Pad…although that’s just a personal opin ion, I should add, and I could be completely wrong.
Let’s go back to Thornber’s preferred route, of Stanah to Bourne. And because I’ve gone for way to long without a break, let’s have a picture:

That’s Town End Farm, that is…or rather was, because it’s gone…and it’s actually a drawing, of course. Ken Emery gave me a photograph of the place a few years ago, from which the drawing was copied, but then I lost said photograph so, for the time being, this’ll have to do. Whatever the case, in 1935 at Town End Farm (er…see above) a cobbled track measuring roughly ten feet in width was unearthed.
A number of people have taken this to be part of the Danes’ Pad. (I can’t help thinking it must have shrunk a bit from when Thornber measured the Mythop end of the road at twenty yards across.)
Anyhow, Town End Farm originally stood just south of West Drive. Back in the 1990s Ken Emery interviewed Mrs Marjorie Lang: "…a charming nonagenarian whose family used to live at Town End Farm. She recalled, as a young woman, a slight depression roughly ten feet wide running northwards in a straight line from the farm towards the western flank of Bourne Hall hill.”
In 2005 at Bourne Hill itself, Wyre Archaeology unearthed an Iron Age track constructed from split, water-washed pebbles, measuring roughly eight feet in width and banked on either side by bright orange clay.
Ted Lightbown’s book also informs us that: “In the orchard at Bourne Hall…Walsh claimed to have uncovered what was taken to be a Roman road. It comprised large cobbles or setts “such as were usually used in the construction of roads at the time.””
It doesn’t take a massive leap of the imagination to suggest that all three of these roads are actually different sections of the same one. None of them, therefore, would be, strictly speaking, Roman. At best they’re Romano/British, part of the Celtic route running from Bourne to Nateby. Once again, the Danes’ Pad appears to have reached a dead end.
Let’s take a step backwards again.
Working on the assumption that the Danes’ Pad, instead of heading north along the Fleetwood peninsula, crossed the Wyre at either Aldwath or Bulker (possibly both if Gary Thornton’s discovery of a Roman coin behind Skippool Yacht Club indicates that there was a road to the cuttings on either side of the creek) it would then have continued along the east bank, following High Gate Lane to Preesall. Thornber believed there to be traces of a Roman fort on the top of Preesall Hill.
Hold on a minute…let’s have a photograph of Gary’s coin just for the record shall we? (It also helps to break up this increasingly long-winded monologue.)

In 2005 the now late Brian Pinney showed us a fragment of soft chalky pottery discovered in his garden at the base of Preesall Hill. Naturally we had it independently identified just to confirm ourselves, which, of course, it did. It was part of a Roman military mortarium. Whether there was a Roman fort or not on the top of the hill, the Roman army had certainly been active in the area.
All of which brings us to the summer of 2008, when Wyre Archaeology excavated a suspected agger running alongside (although not quite parallel to) High Gate Lane at the rear of Stalmine.
There’s the agger below, look. Admittedly on the photograph it looks more sunken than raised, but that’s an optical illusion cause by the shadows. (The photograph incidentally was taken by Ivan Carey from Frank Smith’s plane.)

The agger itself (once opened) was found to be covered with a smattering of stones. The original surface, presumably, had been recycled in the nearby (relatively) modern road. The discovery of the ‘V’ shaped ditch running alongside the agger confirmed it as being Roman.
Again, just for the record, here’s our cross section of said agger and ditch:

Admittedly we only had time to cut across part of the road and one of the ditches, but there was clearly another ditch on the opposite side of the agger as evidenced by a darker line of grass running parallel to the first.
David Ratledge of the Historic Highways Department was with us for the excavation, and he seemed convinced by what we’d unearthed. In fact, he went so far as to say that this was probably the only genuine Roman military road, as far as he was concerned, that had been found in the Fylde and Wyre beyond the Dowbridge to Preston route.
The question is, was it the north end of the Danes’ Pad?
And the answer? I couldn’t honestly say…although roads always have a tendency to lead somewhere, and you can’t help wondering where this particular highway was heading to the south.
But enough! We’re all exhausted now. One last photograph of the male contingent of the Wyre Archaeology excavation quad for your own quiet perusal. I’m off for a brew.

From right to left: Ed Shone, Dave Hammond, Gary Thornton, David Ratledge, Dave Hampson, Ken Emery, Chris Clayton (in the hole), Colin Bliss and, not forgetting yours truly, of course…

A Beginner’s Guide to the Danes’ Pad (Part Three)

2010-05-05T00:01:00.000+01:00

At the end of last week we left you, somewhat pessimistically perhaps, contemplating the improbability of the ‘ridge’ at Mythop being the Dane’s Pad.
According to William Thornber’s transaction, from this point onwards the road passes over the next hill from Weeton, crosses a valley and then runs through a dyke (be warned, I’m not in the mood for stupid remarks appertaining to this particular sentence in the comments boxes) near Benson’s Farm in Staining. Apparently horseshoes and piece of iron were, in Thornber’s day, extracted annually from the ground in this area…although exactly what that proves, seeing as none of them seem to exist any more, is again open to question.
Convinced about the existence of the agger, however, Thornber writes (or rather wrote): “I have measured it and found its breadth at the crown about twelve yards and its base twenty.”
Twenty yards? That’s sixty feet, isn’t it? That’s a sizeable agger even by Roman standards. Sounds like an ancient version of an American freeway to me.
Thornber adds that: “There are no signs of ruts and I doubt whether any wheel carriage was used thereon, whilst I can prove that sledges were.”
(Should be interesting.)
As evidence he next cites a broken sledge dug out of the agger, which in his day could be found leaning against the farm gates. (The sledge, that is, not the agger…that’d be impossible I’d imagine.) The sledge was made of ‘rude oak’, weather-beaten and joined together by cross pieces at the top and bottom where they were mortised. An illustration would have been good, but, true to form, Thornber failed to supply us with one.
“Here also…” the pugilistic parson goes on (and on, and on, not unlike this article), “…was found another amulet. It is small, oblong and a foreign white, soft marble.”
If there are any Roman experts reading this (and, to be honest, I’m not holding out a great deal of hope out here, but it’s got to be worth a try) and if Thornber’s description of the ‘amulet’ sounds vaguely familiar to you, please let us know, because it’s got us totally stumped.
Next up, Thatchplat Bridge (nowadays known as Chain Bridge, although, it should be noted, not by me personally because I haven’t got a clue where it is…no doubt I’ve crossed it numerous times in the past, but I didn’t pay it enough attention at the time to wonder if it was Chain Bridge, Thatchplat Bridge or London Bridge), which (because no doubt you’re as lost as we are now) is shown on the map below.

Chain Bridge was the site of a discovery in 1996 of two Roman coins.
The trouble is…well…look at it. It’s miles away from where the Danes’ Pad ought to be. Again, this is hardly ‘proof beyond doubt’ that our Roman road actually existed…although continuing northwards beyond this point, the final stretch as recorded on the Ordnance Survey map, towards Puddle House Farm near Poulton, does have the following aerial photograph (borrowed from the Lancashire Historic Highways website, which used to be run by our old friend and Roman road expert David Ratledge, so it carries some weight) to testify to its existence:

And that, as far as the Ordnance Survey’s concerned, is that.
It’s worth adding at this point that not so long ago we came across a selection of high status Roman military artefacts dug up from a field somewhere in Poulton. A number of them were equestrian-related, and where there are horses (especially saddled-up Roman military ones) there’s usually a road involved.
We’re not supposed to talk about these finds, unfortunately.
We’re not supposed to talk about a lot of our local history, for various reasons, to be honest. I’m dead against censorship, myself. Without such information local historians can’t possibly reach proper conclusions, and, in this particular instance, the location of the field might well prove the existence of the Danes’ Pad once and for all. Then again it might not, but without the information we’ll never know.
Anyhow, I’ll keep my gob shut as requested and carry on.
Beyond Poulton the route becomes even more speculative, some suggesting that (as we said a couple of weeks ago) it ran towards Fleetwood, others insisting that it ran towards Preesall.
Here’s another map (I’m seriously going to get into trouble with the Ordnance Survey at this rate…apologies in advance if I’m carted off to prison before completing this article) showing the salient points along both routes.

Because there’s still a lot of ground to cover here, it might be best if we take another break. We’ll return (if you haven’t given up the will to live, that is) in another seven days’ time for the final (yes…it really will be the ‘final’ this time) instalment.

Almost Forgotten

2010-04-29T15:23:00.003+01:00

Time for a short break from our Dane's Pad ramble, by way of another posting courtesy of John Steventon's Outside the Wyre series. Cheers John.

Few things are as sacred as burial places. Let enough time go by,though and things change, customs are forgotten, and the word 'sacred' can lose its meaning. As Historians, we may wonder how the past can be forgotten, plowed over, or nearly lost completely to human memory. The truth is, stuff happens.

In the past there have been plagues, war, and just plain hard times to erase whole chapters from our history. Hungry people aren't going to have the same moral compass as those who have plenty. The poor farmer may see a burial mound as just another place to grow corn, and see a place like Stonehenge as a source for free stone. We look at these acts with horror, but as Antiquarians we must work with what we have. Like it or not, but each day the book of History moves on, often written over past pages.

For some time now we have had written history, recorded for posterity. Even the written record can be flawed, and even words carved in stone can be lost. Word of mouth becomes our living history, but stories change, and sometimes the people who know the words pass on before they can find someone who cares enough to hear them.

Stuff happens.

Not everyone cares about the past. Many have enough worries in the day to day business of life. Our history can be meaningful, sometimes important, and often just amusing anecdotes. Those of us who care should remember though that in the long run, nothing is sacred, and nothing lasts forever.

I went for a hike yesterday, here in Ohio, USA, looking for signs of Native life. I found a few pieces of flint that showed me that once upon a time a budding civilisation once thrived here. Thousands of years of history lay here, nearly forgotten. I was in a deep ravine, surrounded by trees, and could almost imagine what life was like back then, in a time before roads and buildings dotted the landscape. I climbed higher, knowing that was where my native hunters would have walked, looking out over the land for game, enemies, or just a nice view. I wanted to see things from their perspective.

High atop the deep shadowy ravine I found a little clearing where the sun peeked through. It shone upon weather beaten stones that were struggling to remain upright. Upon the stones were names and dates carved upon them over 160 years ago, some much longer.

A few people know they are there, but the steep path up the hill has almost returned to brush. There is no sign at all of a church, a village, or civilisation at all. Upon some of the stones are the names of local towns, so perhaps these were people of prominence, once upon a time?

The latest dates were in the 1850's, well within recorded history, and not too long ago for their families to have forgotten them. Yet forgotten they are. Only Nature Herself places flowers upon these graves.

This experience was a not too subtle reminder that time moves on, and even the most sacred of places can return to the soil. It is no surprise then that the world of History can have so many mysteries, so many unanswered questions. Some answers can still be found, though, by simply going for a walk. :0)

A Beginner’s Guide to the Danes’ Pad (Part Two)

2010-04-28T00:01:00.000+01:00

Heading northwest from Ribby Brow we reach Great Plumpton, or thereabouts, where (according to William Thornber’s ‘Lancashire and Cheshire Historical Society’ transaction dated to 1851 again), on July 20th 1820, a cooper coin of Vespasian was dug up…or at least, one was dug up nearby…which proves nothing really, but it was probably worth a mention.
Going back to Ted Lightbown’s ‘The Danes’ Pad: Roman Road to Nowhere’, in the early 1970s Manchester University’s Department of Archaeology were responsible for: “…two trenches…cut across the alignment at grid references SD 377 342. This showed that the line of the road lay some 30 metres to the west of that suggested on the Ordnance Survey maps. In both sections the actual road surface had been heavily damaged by modern ploughing, as the core of the road lay only 25 centimetres below the top soil. However, the existence of the road was shown by the presence of a clay platform some 5.2 metres wide by 25 to 30 cm thick, resting on the natural dark brown clay.”
The road terminated in a pair of one metre wide ditches.
Is everybody following this? Probably not, but let’s have another map half-inched from Lancashire County Council, showing the general area.

Right…anybody spot the real problem with the 1970s excavation site, yet? If you look closely you might be able to see that the dig was carried out worryingly close to (if not directly over) a now-missing farm track. A few hundred feet either way along our yellow line might have discovered something less contentious…or possibly not.
Whatever, let’s move on.
Next stop, Weeton, where William Thornber suggests (or rather ‘suggested’, because he’s been dead for absolutely ages now) that the Danes’ Pad is/was in a ‘cop’. We’re not sure what a cop is/was either. It was possibly an earthen bank, possibly a copse, possibly a policeman who was unaware that a Roman road was passing through him -- Thornber tends to be vague at the best of times. This ‘cop’ lay in a hollow before the rise of the hill to Thomas Jolly’s house, which would, no doubt, have been invaluable information if Thornber had actually bothered to tell us where Thomas Jolly’s house was located. Unfortunately, nowadays, nobody knows where it was, other than: “…we here, crossing the highway to Mythop and the valley, have a sight of the highest ridge on the whole line, indeed so large and bulky as well worthy of the skill of a railway contractor.”
Still not exactly enlightening, although Thornber adds: “I have before me an amulet which was dug out from the base of this agger so near that it might have been dropped into the water by some marching soldier.”
Other artefacts presumably found in this area also mentioned by our less-than-precise antiquarian are “…a heavy brass celt without a loop and two small thin iron shoes without a slut.”
Er…yes…we wondered about that as well. Presumably ‘a slut’ refers to the lip of upturned iron on the horseshoe’s edge that helps secure it to the hoof.
Thornber supplies us with a drawing of said artefacts. (Pity he couldn’t have supplied us with a map of Thomas Jolly’s house, really, but you can’t have everything.) This is his illustration:

Exactly what made him think these were Roman artefacts, rather than from any other period, I’m not quite sure, but let’s move on…we’ve got a long journey ahead of us yet.
Now then, Mythop where the following 1960s photograph clearly shows a dark line running across the fields, which many have taken to be the Danes’ Pad. It’s on the right alignment, but again…is it proof? (I’m not sure what I’m asking you lot for. I personally don’t have an opinion either way.)

In 1984 the Blackpool & Fylde Historical Society obtained permission from the farmer at Mythop Hall to examine his land. (Ted Lightbown furnishes us with the following grid reference: SD 372 349, on the off chance that you want to double check.) The society excavated a small ridge that followed the line of the Danes’ Pad on the map.
The diagrams don’t, to be honest, look much like a roman road to me. In fact, by this point the evidence ‘against’ the Danes’ Pad is seriously starting to stack up, I reckon. None-the-less, we’ve borrowed these from Ted Lightbown’s book to illustrate the point:

Exactly why the Blackpool and Fylde Historical Society didn’t place a trench across the edge of the feature to ascertain if a ditch surrounded it, I couldn’t say. Roman roads always have ‘V’ shaped ditches, and the discovery of one (preferably two) might have provided the excavators with the evidence they required. Even so, the cross sections illustrated above have about as much resemblance to a Roman agger as Pablo Picasso does to one of his self-portraits.
A lack of evidence, of course, can’t be taken as evidence in its own right, but the case in favour of the Danes’ Pad appears to be crumbling fast.
Which is where we’re going to leave matters for another seven days.

A Beginner’s Guide to the Danes’ Pad (Part One)

2010-04-21T00:01:00.000+01:00

Somebody (I forget who for the moment) once said that to copy text from a single book is plagiarism, whereas to copy it from two is research. With that in mind, we’ve gone out of our way to track down original transactions for the following article, talk to various individuals and even dig holes in fields, just to prove that we haven’t lifted everything from Ted Lightbown’s ‘The Danes’ Pad: A Roman Road to Nowhere.’
We did, I must admit, use Mr Lightbown’s excellent (and I’d go so far as to say ‘definitive’) work on this subject for the basis of what’s about to follow, and we can only apologise to him for the rather third rate version we’re presenting here. If you want to study this subject further then we heartily recommend that you track down the aforementioned book (if you haven’t got a copy already, and I’d be surprised if you haven’t because just about everyone I know seems to have one somewhere) and give it a read. Like we say, it is the definitive work on this subject, and, it goes without saying, considerably better than our rubbish.
In the meantime, if you’re content for now with a hastily scribbled, less-scholarly attempt to summarise what is, to put it simply, a complicated subject, then stick with us and we’ll try our best.
Right, where to begin?
The Danes’ Pad is beyond doubt the most disputed of the Fylde and Wyre’s Roman roads…or non-Roman roads as the case might be. Even the placement of its possessive apostrophe is in question. Should it be Danes’ Pad (plural), Dane’s Pad (singular) or just Danes Pad (impersonal, non-possessive and slightly confusing)? Richard Watson, whose opinion we sought out personally a couple of years ago, believed that the whole road was nothing more than a long forgotten storm beach. Others claim it was robbed-out by Victorian road builders for its gravel (although there doesn’t appear to be any documented evidence for this).
Whatever the case, the Danes’ Pad allegedly ran, according to the Victorian antiquarians William Thornber and John Just (not to mention the cartographer’s at the Ordnance Survey, who they somehow managed to convince), from Dowbridge Fort just outside Kirkham, in a northwest arc to Puddle House Farm just south of Poulton.
The following aerial photograph (borrowed from Google Maps…we’re not sure if we’re infringing copyright here, but when Google stops infringing the copyright on our books, we might review the matter) shows the route according to the Ordnance Survey maps in yellow, and our ‘possible route’ beyond Poulton and Dowbridge in red dots. (The yellow bit at Stalmine requires some further explanation, but you’ll have to wait until we get there.)

Where the Danes’ Pad heads beyond Poulton has been the cause of even more heated debate, some optimistic historians claiming that it headed to the mythical Portus Setantiorum at Fleetwood (this was Thornber’s original contention, although he later seemed to change his mind), others insisting that it crossed the Wyre and continued to a Roman fort on Preesall Hill. Others still don’t think it ever existed, but was just the romantic imaginings of a drunken fantasist (possibly several).
Whatever the case, it’s always good to throw the topic into a room of antiquarians who haven’t been supplied with enough beer, and see how long it takes before fists start to fly.
Time for a map (the first of several, no doubt), this one showing the entire route as recorded by the OS.

It might be worth opening this up in a separate window and keeping it open, because we’re going to be using it quite a lot.
Let’s start at the southern end of the road, at Dowbridge, the known, excavated Roman fort. Leaving the west gate of Dowbridge Fort, the Danes’ Pad (allegedly) runs towards…well, here’s what a transaction from the Historic Society of Lancashire and Cheshire written by William Thornber has to say: “In excavating for the new workhouse at Kirkham, traces were found indicative of a road which were noticed by Mr Thompson, clerk to the board of guardians.”
Cunliffe Shaw (author of the fascinating ‘Men of the North’, but that’s a different matter) adds to this when he mentions in ‘Kirkham in Amounderness’ that his father had told him he’d seen the roman road: ‘…exposed during the trenching at the old workhouse grounds. It had a hard gravel surface, was about 25 feet wide, and was curved with cobblestones. A horseshoe, similar to Roman horseshoes, was found in the gravel.’
Ted Lightbown (buy his book -- it’s got a lot more stuff in it than this article, believe me, and it’s better written) mentions that the second workhouse in Kirkham was on the site of the present day health centre at Moore Street.
Our next port of call along the route (heading west at this point) is Ribby Brow, nowadays covered by the circular reservoir that resembles the Teletubbies’ house in the photograph below. (Cheers to Frank Smith, Wyre Archaeology Pilot, incidentally, for supplying said photograph.)

You might be wondering what those lines are that I’ve drawn all over it. Well, the yellow one, or the first half of it at any rate, running from the bottom right hand corner to about the centre of the reservoir, is the route as described by the Ordnance Survey. It changes direction beneath the reservoir itself, apparently, and follows the blue line to the centre top of the photograph.
Hold on, here’s another map (I said there’d be a few of them) just to illustrate what we’re talking about:

Yes, I know that looks a bit manic, but it’s the Victorian Ordnance Survey map overlaid on the Modern Ordnance Survey map (because various bits and pieces of the landscape have changed in the interim) courtesy of Mario Maps run by Lancashire County Council. Hopefully you can see the route of the Roman Road changing direction in the aforementioned location.
Now, I need to explain the continuation of the yellow line on our photograph, don’t I? Well, that’s another conjectured route.
Several years ago, the now sadly late Neil Thompson pointed out to us what appeared to be an agger running northwest from the corner of the field highlighted on Frank’s photograph with a big red arrow. Unfortunately, although true to form, we didn’t have our camera on us at the time. This ‘agger’ followed the alignment of the Danes Pad if said conjectured Roman road continued in a straight line beneath the reservoir from Kirkham…as in our yellow scribble. However, it did not follow the route that William Thornber and John Just claimed. (Did that make sense? I hope it did, because I’m not going to repeat it.)
If anyone happens to be passing that particular corner in the near future, could you possibly take a photograph of the suspected ‘agger’ for us? It’s clearly visible, or at least it was a couple of years ago. Whether or not it’s the Danes’ Pad, of course, remains a matter for conjecture.
That’s enough for one week. Part two to follow in seven days’ time.

The Life and Times of Charlie Cairoli…an extremely potted biography

2010-04-14T00:01:00.001+01:00

A lot of people have a thing about clowns. Not in a good way. For reasons best known to psychoanalysts (and possibly not even them) the white-faced, bulbous-nosed, baggy-panted bas…er…buffoons are often regarded as the stuff of nightmares. There is a name for the condition – Coulrophobia, apparently. Many have been used in horror movies simply because, well, let’s be honest, they’re disgustingly ghastly.
However, not even the most psychotic of clown-o-phobics could possibly hate Charlie Cairoli, at one time, quite possibly, the most famous clown in the whole of Britain, if not the World. He was loved both in the ring (careful) and in everyday life.
Let’s have a photograph of him shall we?

There he is look, the famous Blackpool Tower Charlie-Chaplin look-a-like, accompanied by his substantially less well-known, morbidly made-up sidekick. Throughout his career Charlie had four white-faced companions, respectively Paul Freeman, Paul King, Paul Conner and Charlie Cairoli Junior, explaining why the adverts generally read: “Charlie Cairoli and Paul.”
Here’s another photograph of the great man himself, this time doing his bit for Women’s Lib.

Charlie was born Carletto Cairoli in Milan on February 15th 1910. He made his performing debut at the early age of seven. Following a stint with his father at the Cirque Medrano in Paris, followed by a short tour of Europe, the Cairoli family joined the Tower Circus in 1939.
Charlie remained there for thirty-nine years. He might not have been the first clown in the Tower, but he certainly stayed the longest.
I think. Somebody might have lasted longer than him actually, but I’m not in the mood for researching today. Whatever the case, he eventually died in 1980.
It’s time for a shot of the interior of the Tower Circus, just to set the scene, I reckon.

The Tower Circus wasn’t the earliest circus in Blackpool by any means (that honour goes to a big top that once stood on the site now occupied by the Grand Theatre) but it was certainly the most impressive, as the painting of it above illustrates.
Every show would end with a spectacular display of fountains in which the ring would fill with water.
Charlie Cairoli was also famous for his musical ability.

The clarinet (yes, I know he’s holding a trombone in the photograph, but I couldn’t find one of him holding the clarinet so it’ll have to do) was one of his favourite instruments, so much so in fact that he had a glass mouthpiece especially moulded for his own.
Years later, a friend of ours (who shall remain nameless for reasons which will become clear as this tale unfolds) was a budding, if not terribly enthusiastic, clarinettist herself. As a way of encouraging her to practice, her father bought the afore-mentioned mouthpiece. Unfortunately, one evening, following a drunken teenage binge, our anonymous friend collapsed onto the bed where she’d left her clarinet and, being a bit on the hefty side, shattered the mouthpiece into pieces.
Charlie Cairoli fans are no doubt reeling in horror round about now, so perhaps it’d best if we ended this article with one final photograph of the Tower Circus in full swing.

There’s nothing like a pack of small yappy dogs being mistreated to cheer people up, is there?

WITCHES!

2010-04-07T00:01:00.000+01:00

We’ve been here before, but it’s ground worth re-covering briefly to set the scene for the rest of this article. According to the Lancashire County Quarter Sessions (check them out at the records office if you want) in 1627 ‘Dorothie, wife of Thomas Shawe of Skippool’ stood accused of practising witchcraft. (Remember now? Probably not, but we’re digressing.)
Such indictments were never made lightly, King James’ hatred of all matters relating to the dark crafts having resulted several years previously in one of Lancashire’s darkest hours.
Which is what this article’s really about.
However, more background first.
James I considered himself a bit of an expert on witches (well, his mother was Mary Queen of Scots and she was a witch and a half if ever there was one, especially if you happened to be protestant). In fact he wrote a book about witches and how nasty they were, entitled ‘Demononlogie’. It wasn’t exactly a flattering portrait.
In 1590 three hundred witches were accused of plotting James’ death, allegedly using such diabolical props to attain this goal as melting wax effigies of him.
Hold on, let’s have a picture of James himself, shall we, to ascertain why everybody loathed him so much?

There he is, look, bearing an abnormally inbred similarity to Charles I, but there you go, such is the divine right of kings, as James himself claimed in another of his bestsellers.
With Christian theologians backing James all the way (if not actually inspiring him, because James loved a good bit of P.R.) understandably witchcraft was taken very seriously amongst the general populace.
Take a look at this.

That’s a drawing of what’s known as a witchpost (or, at any rate, a section of a witchpost because the original was considerably longer and had more carvings in it), found embedded in one of the walls at Mains Hall when the place was being renovated a few years ago. Adele Yeomans showed it to us when we visited. Such devices were stuck into walls by priests to keep witches at bay, although exactly how they worked is a bit beyond me.
Anyhow…returning to our tale, Dorothie’s neighbour -- Dorothie being the woman in Skippool, in case you’d forgotten, which, by coincidence, is just across the creek from Mains Hall, so, who knows, the witchpost might have been meant for her – where was I? Oh yes, Dorothie’s neighbour William Wilkinson, insisted that she was ‘a witch and a demdyke’, claiming: “Thou art a witch…God bless me…I am affrayed for my wife, children and goods…”
What became of Dorothie we don’t actually know, because we’ve never bothered following up the records, but the mention of ‘demdyke’ makes this an opportune moment to get back to our subject for this article proper, that being the famous, or rather infamous, Lancashire Witch Trials, not just because of their importance in the history of the county, but also because of their somewhat surprising connection to Thornton Cleveleys.
Give us a few moments to get my breath back here. After that last sentence I’m knackered.
Right, the trial took place at Lancaster Castle and was unusual for such cases because Thomas Potts, the court clerk, recorded it all in his ‘Wonderfull Discoverie of Witches in the Countie of Lancaster’.
You want a drawing of Lancaster Castle now as well, don’t you? Well, you’ll have to make do with the gatehouse, because I haven’t got enough time to draw up the whole building.

The whole sorry affair began when Alizon Device encountered a certain John Law (a peddler from Halifax) early one morning and asked him for some pins (as you do). Law, apparently, refused and, unfortunately, suffered a stroke immediately afterwards, which he blamed on Alizon. (As you would.)
Along with her mother Elizabeth, and her brother James, Alizon was summoned to court on March the thirtieth 1612 (as she should have been) where she quickly confessed to having sold her soul to the devil (as one might). Her brother, true to the spirit of siblings the world over, went on to explain that Alizon had also bewitched a local child. (Nowadays there’s a legal term for that. It’s called being a b****rd.) Elizabeth then claimed that her own mother, Demdyke, had a mark on her body -- proof if proof were needed that Satan had been sucking her blood.
Now, as everyone knows, where’s there’s one witch at work there are always others lurking in the shadows or, preferably, dancing naked on some blasted heath (or at least, that was the theory put about by the church back in those days).
When questioned about Anne Chattox, head of the family who’d allegedly stolen one pound’s worth of goods from the Device’s home at Malkin Tower in 1601 (a terrible crime as I’ve no doubt you’ll agree) Alizon saw an opportunity for revenge.
Matters soon spiralled out of control, as often happens between feuding families. Claim led to counter claim and, to cut a long story short, eleven people ended up swinging from the gallows.
Amongst other accusations between the two warring families were diabolical murder effected by means of effigies moulded from clay, cavorting with familiars (namely the family dog), causing sickness, and most heinous of all, in the case of Anne Chattox, turning Robert Nutter’s beer sour.
On August the twentieth 1612, as already mentioned, ten people in all were hanged at Lancaster Castle. (I know…I know…I said eleven, but we’ll get round to the other one in a moment.) These included Jane Bulcock, John Bulcock, Amie Williamson, Elizabeth Device, James Device, Katherine Hewitt, Alice Nutter (pay attention to her), Anne Redfern, Isobel Robey, and Anne Whittle (a.k.a. Chattox).
Margaret Pearson was also found guilty of witchcraft and was sentenced to one year in prison.
Jennet Preston was hanged at York (making eleven in all, see?) and Elizabeth Southerns died in prison awaiting trial.
The illustration below is based on a contemporary woodcut depicting the final few moments of several of the ‘witches’. (The trial itself, as evidenced by the drawing, became an overnight sensation.)

All of which brings us back to the Wyre and Alice Nutter’s connection with Thornton Cleveleys.
The drawing below is based on a photograph taken during the 1880s.

It shows a relatively building-free Victoria Road, with the Cleveleys Inn on the left…or rather more like the centre-left…and the summer residence of a certain Major Nutter, descendent of Alice Nutter (one of the aforementioned witches, of course) on the right.
Major Nutter carried some considerable influence around Cleveleys back in those days, which is where Nutter Road and Rough Lea Road (Roughlee Hall in Pendle, according to the Victoria County History, being Alice’s home) derive their names.
Another of Alice’s descendents, Elizabeth Nutter, donated the font at Christ Church on Meadows Avenue in Thornton, on July the thirteenth 1874.
Not a massive link, it must be said, but one that amply provided us with this excuse of an article and no doubt wasted a few harmless minutes of our reader’s time.

Gravestones and Devils’ Hooves

2010-03-31T00:01:00.000+01:00

Not so long ago, it seems, down at Fluke Hall in Pilling, close to where microlite pilots latterly gathered in droves and unemployed youths from Knott End raced untaxed cars for want of better sport, two ancient gravestones could still be seen standing proud on the beach.
They dated to the 1650s and appeared to record the final resting place of C. Dickonson and Margret his wife.
Naturally we went for a look. This was a couple of years ago, it should be noted, and we travelled there in the informative company of the now sadly deceased Headlie Lawrenson and Neil Thompson.
Let’s have an illustration of how the graves originally appeared, shall we?

According to Sobee’s ‘History of Pilling’ (the bible of the Pilling Historic Society):

“There is a story that a ship was wrecked on the sands and some sailors managed to get ashore and were received into a cottage. The sailor’s had the plague and the inhabitants of the cottage caught it and all died and were buried there.”

To account for the apparent un-holiness of the burial ground Sobee concocts the following theory:

“The most probable story is that the Dickonson family lost father and mother and the children brought the stones across the sands from the ruins of Cockersand Abbey to mark the spot where they had buried their beloved parents.”

Nothing, however, is ever straightforward and Headlie related to us an alternative narrative, one that he’d discovered himself in a handwritten manuscript by the late Reverend Charles Sherdley.
According to the reverend’s version of events, in 1717, when Newers Wood Chapel was being demolished, a certain Mr. She Dickinson (don’t ask – it’s an odd Christian name, we know, but then, as we’ve mentioned before, the good folk of Pilling have some very odd ways) helped himself to the above-mentioned gravestones, his intention being to use them as lintels in his barn at Sandside Farm.
Pilling farmers have always been years ahead when it comes to recycling.
Unfortunately She’s relatives weren’t as amused by the idea as he was. To make matters worse, on several occasions the stones allegedly turned of their own accord in a supernatural fashion.
Following a heated debate with ‘tha missus’ about potential maintenance and other matrimonial matters, our industrious farmer loaded the gravestones back onto his cart and promptly dumped them on the foreshore, where they remained in perpetuity or, at least, until the new sea defences, despite protestations from local historians, swallowed them up.
And, just for the record, here’s an illustration of the aforementioned new sea defences in all of their monotonous glory:

From the site of the buried gravestones (now just a mound of rubble shielding Pilling from encroaching tides) the observant visitor can see some of the more ancient sea defences snaking like a giant green draught excluder across the landscape.
These serpentine banks are even more visible alongside the Pilling Marsh road where, until comparatively recently, they were regularly climbed by safety conscious sheep when the tide usurped their grazing land. Even today the odd lone ram can be spotted gazing from one such summit, ignorantly seasoning itself on the salted marsh grass that gives our local lamb butties their exceptional flavour.
Another oddity in this vicinity worth a mention is the ‘Pilling Enigma’, on the off chance that we haven’t mentioned it before…which we probably have, but who’s checking?
Back in the July of 1970 a number of suspected ancient graves were discovered at Beech House in Pilling. Neil kindly pointed the location out to us from where we stood on the foreshore, although, if the truth be known, we wouldn’t be able to recognise the particular field from its identical neighbours nowadays.
The county archaeologist was called in (for the Pilling Enigma that is, not because Neil was pointing out fields to us) and one hundred and eighty five pits were recorded, thirty of which were excavated with the enthusiastic help of some local volunteers.
Archaeological socialism! That would have suited our old hero Allen Clarke down to the ground. In fact, we can picture him now, up to his shoulders in soil, sleeves rolled up, waistcoat unbuttoned, pipe hanging jauntily from his lips with a pennant of blue smoke coiling upwards into the crisp Pilling air.
As it transpired the layout of the graves closely resembled an Anglo Saxon burial ground, although there were no actual traces of human remains. Headlie naturally had his own theory. “Tham’s lilly-ya, tham is,” he knowledgeably informed us as he leant on his stick. “Defensive pits wi’ sharp stakes inth’ bottom, what ’ud impale any unt’ward invaders. Sum oft’ pits still ’ud wicker on ’em what would ’uv camoo-flaged t’oles.”
We suspect he was right, although we’ll probably never know now, which is why the whole adventure was recorded in the Over Wyre Journals (by the Headlie himself) as the Pilling Enigma.
At nearby Broadfleet Bridge, Headlie assured us, could (and indeed still can) be found the only ‘genuine devil’s hoof print’ in the whole of Great Britain, a reminder of the rather long-winded occasion when the Cockerham schoolmaster outwitted Lucifer himself.
Time for another illustration:

The story’s been related before, in more than enough detail, courtesy of a famous (locally if nowhere else) poem, but recognising that our reader/s probably suffer/s from somnambulism here’s our abridgement.
As the devil wrought havoc around Cockerham the residents appointed the schoolmaster their champion and sent him packing to the churchyard where he confronted his foe. Here he was informed that if he couldn’t outwit the devil within three questions, the demonic one would transform and disappear with the mangled remains of the now panicking tutor.
Understandably, perhaps, the schoolmaster thought long and hard before venturing (somewhat uselessly as it transpired): “How many dewdrops are on that hedge?” The devil quickly calculated the answer, so the schoolmaster upped the stakes a notch and continued with: “How many stalks are in that wheat field?” (You can sense a certain chain of thought in the schoolmaster’s methodology here, can’t you?) The devil promptly set about the wheat with his scythe, and, once again unsurprisingly, soon arrived at the answer. By now the schoolmaster was running low on ideas, but nonetheless suggested, with a lump in his throat:

"Now, make me, dear sir, a rope of your sand,
Which will bear washing in Cocker, and not lose a strand."

Naturally the devil gave it his best shot, but, presumably not being conversant with advanced scientific reasoning, the results disintegrated and the poem, not before time, concluded:

The devil was foiled, wroth, and gave him a shaking;
Up he flew to the steeple - his frame a-quaking,
With one horrid frig - his mind very unwilling,
He stride to the brig o’er Broadfleet at Pilling.

We weren’t sure what ‘one horrid frig’ meant, so we checked through our dictionaries and then decided that it might be best to steer clear of an explanation on this family friendly board. However, the imprint of the devil’s hoof can still be found on the east wall of Broadfleet Bridge, if you use your imagination.
According to the rhyme the devil’s next stride took him to Blackpool where he resides to this day. We could make some suggestions as to the name under which he’s currently operating, but it might be better if we didn’t.

Trading Places (Part Two)

2010-03-24T00:01:00.000Z

Last week we were discussing the Tudor ports of Wardleys and Skippool.
Well, when I say ‘discussing’, it was actually me rambling on about Queen Elizabeth and Queen Mary and Edward VI mostly, with a brief mention of Wardleys and Skippool thrown in at the end. Nonetheless, now that we’re all up to speed, we might as well continue.
We were (much like our own reader, no doubt) intrigued by the reference to ‘tallow and flax’ in Porter’s ‘History of the Fylde’ (if our reader can remember that far back), so we decided to conduct some research into the matter.
Tallow, apparently, is rendered fat processed from suet that remains solid at room temperature. It can be stored for long periods of time without having to be refrigerated, making it ideal for overseas transportation. Its primary function is to lubricate stuff such as gun cartridges and leather.
Unfortunately we don’t a picture of any solid, rendered fat, so here’s a photograph of John Prescott instead:

(There’s probably a serious infringement of copyright going on with that image now, because I’ve nicked it from some random site or other, but seeing as Google Books appear to be able to infringe copyrights without repercussion nowadays, who cares?)
Flax, on the other hand, is a plant that grows up to three and a half feet in height, the fibres of which are used in fabrics, paper, soap, medicines, dyes and fishing nets.
So there you go.
Fancy a photograph of some flax by way of illustration? Fair enough. We’re already infringing copyright with the Wigan pie-eater above, so, in for a penny in for a pound, eh? (Cheers Wikipedia…or whatever site I nicked this photograph from):

Where was I? Oh yes…Bulker ford (now long since fallen out of use) originally connected the two creeks together.
The photograph below, by Frank Smith (Wyre Archaeology pilot) shows Skippool Creek from the air…just about:

Bulker’s cuttings can still be found just beyond Skippool yacht club as you head towards Ramper Pot. We’ve posted photographs of them before on this board, so if you’re interested you might want to search through our previous articles. (Although you probably won’t.)
Looking across the river at low tide from this point, it’s possible to see the remains of the ford itself sloping down into the water from the far bank. (We haven’t posted a photograph of that one either, because, perhaps unsurprisingly, we couldn’t find anywhere on the web to half inch one from.)
In order to reach Bulker Ford from Skippool’s quayside, almost certainly a road would have run along the brow behind what is nowadays the yacht club. By way of confirmation that such a road existed, in 2009 Gary Thornton (coincidentally the treasurer of Wyre Archaeology) discovered an Elizabethan shilling in the aforementioned field. We’ve illustrated both sides of this coin below.

Right, before we go any further, as always when we’re covering metal detector finds on this board, it’s worth pointing out that Gary Thornton was given permission by the landowner before he set about his investigation. It’s also worth adding that any unauthorised metal-detecting in said field will be dealt with through the courts, a course of action that generally results in the confiscation of the trespasser’s equipment plus an extremely heavy fine and, possibly even, the loss of several front teeth. On top of which, it’s really not worth running the risk anyhow, because Gary’s already scoured the field from top to bottom and the possibilities of further coins coming to light now are nonexistent.
You have been warned.
The chances are that Wardleys back in the Tudor period, unlike Skippool, was a privately owned affair. However, ships at both quays would have had to use nearby Poulton when it came to their customs and excise. (Keep the more obvious jokes about me being overweight and in need of some exercise myself etc. to yourself, will you?) It might seem odd to us nowadays that Poulton could even be considered a port, but back in Elizabethan times the ‘Skippon Flu’ – that’s the continuation of Skippool Creek inland -- reached well beyond the Breck. By all accounts it was considerably wider back then as well. So much so in fact that shipbuilding was in progress on its banks.
William Thornber mentions the practice when discussing an area of Poulton known as Angell’s Holme. As his ‘History of Blackpool and its neighbourhood’ tells us:

"These meadows lie adjoining the Horse Bridge, where boats formerly were built.”

Graham Evans in his excellent book ‘Skippool: Old Port of Poulton-le-Fylde’ adds that:

“Thornber mentions the HORSEBRIDGE (on the site of the present Poulton Golf Club, where Horsebridge Dyke flows before joining the main dyke at Skippool).”

A quick glance at an old map of the area confirms that the Horsebridge stood at the location suggested by Graham Evans. The Angell’s Holme mentioned by Thornber, however, appears on the first edition Ordnance Survey Town Map of Poulton (published in 1890) close to the railway bridge on Tithebarn Road. Here another branch of the Skippon Flu flowed beneath ‘Black Horse Bridge’, so whether Thornber was referring to this particular location or to the site suggested above we honestly couldn’t say.
Whatever the case, Tudor ships were generally ‘carvel-built’, which basically involved starting with a keel, then building a skeleton of wooden beams and frames on top. Next planks were nailed into position, often the hulls being lined with a layer of lead to guard against shipworm. (Not to mention radiation…although that wasn’t particularly a problem back in those days.) Lead was quite expensive, so at other, more frugal times, thin boards covered with tar and hair (don’t ask where the hair actually came from) would have been used instead.
For merchant ships, such as those most likely under construction in Poulton, ensuring the correct tonnage was all-important. A calculation known as Baker’s Old Rule (presumably because it was old, and had been thought up by somebody called Baker) was employed to calculate how much weight could be stowed onboard before the ship split at the seams and headed down to Davy Jones’ Locker.
For anybody interested in such matters (and, sadly, there’s bound to be somebody out there who is), the equation ran ‘Keel (times) beam (times) depth of hold (equals) carrying capacity’.
As to the type of vessels being built at Horsebridge Dyke, the most probable, it seems, would have been flyboats, one of which we’ve illustrated below, based on a drawing held by the National Maritime Museum. (No copyright infringement for once. We’re back on track now.) These had a tonnage of between thirty-five and one hundred.

Some local historians have implied in the past -- although it should be noted that there’s no evidence, documented or otherwise, to back the claims up in any fashion, so don’t even try to sue me -- that Skippool and Wardleys were both implicit with the slave trade (or ‘Black Gold’ as it was, apparently, known amongst the local wits). Certainly Lancaster and Liverpool made huge financial gains from this immoral practice, so it’s conceivable that some of the less scrupulous traders from the Wyre benefited as well.
The first Englishman to transport slaves back from Africa was a certain John Lok, a Londoner needless to say, who in 1555 carried five slaves home from Guinea to England. Similarly, William Towerson, another Londoner…obviously…also brought slaves into the country in 1557. John Hawkins of Plymouth, however, is generally acknowledged as the pioneer of the English slave trade, running what became known as the Triangular Trade Route, a journey designed to make a profit at every stop. (A bit like our local taxi drivers, only not quite as unethical.)
John Hawkins was Francis Drake’s cousin, as well as the great-grandson of Eleanor of Lancaster, so, despite living in Plymouth, he could in some respects (from an ancestral point of view at any rate) be considered a local lad.
Not exactly something to be proud of, it must be said.

Trading Places (Part One)

2010-03-17T00:01:00.000Z

Let’s have some general background to get us in the mood for this article shall we? Yes, I know. We don’t usually cover this sort of stuff, opting instead for our own particular brand of claustrophobic parochialism, but there you go. You’ll just have to grin and bear it for now.
When Henry VIII corpulently shuffled off this mortal coil in 1547, Edward VI (his offspring to Jane Seymour…not to be confused with Dr. Quinn, Medicine Woman) replaced him. Edward’s reign was brief but remarkably busy, marked by social unrest, military withdrawals and the establishment of the Anglican Church as the only official religion in Britain, making Edward himself Britain’s first genuine Protestant monarch.
Not bad going for a nine-year-old brat.
At least, that’s what certain royalist, flag-waving historians would have us believe. In reality, Edward was a puppet in the hands of the regency council led by Jane’s Seymour’s dad.
The painting of Edward by Hans Holbein below shows how inadequately equipped he was to deal with being king. (And this was painted when he was fourteen…er…possibly.)

Unfortunately for Mr. Seymour the puppet’s strings broke, so to speak, in 1553 when Edward dropped dead at the age of fifteen, allegedly naming his cousin Lady Jane Grey as his heir on his deathbed.
Lady Jane Grey (not to be confused with Sarah Jane Smith on Doctor Who) was only a child herself, and considered to be as malleable as Edward had been.
Understandably, perhaps, Edward’s two half-sisters, Mary and Elizabeth, were not best pleased by all this, and the succession was heavily disputed. Lady Jane Grey managed a total of fifteen days on the throne before the Privy Council dismissed Edward’s will out of hand, ‘bowed to popular opinion’, lobbed her head off and proclaimed Mary queen instead.
This wasn’t a particularly good choice, on the whole, unless, of course, you happened to be catholic. Unfortunately Elizabeth, her sister, wasn’t, and she soon found herself imprisoned for supporting Protestantism.
The new monarch now set about vigorously undoing most of Edward's religious reforms, burning three hundred dissenters at the stake in the process (far more, intriguingly, than the number of Catholics subsequently murdered by Elizabeth, but who’s counting…certainly not the Catholics it would appear), and earning herself the nickname of ‘Bloody Mary’.
It’s all swings and roundabouts in politics, of course, and when Mary followed her half-brother to the grave in November 1588, Elizabeth naturally stepped into the persecutory breach. The painting below shows Elizabeth (also known as ‘Good Queen Bess’ for reasons best left between herself and her courtiers) in a contemplative mood (in which she bears a more than a passing resemblance to Fanny Craddock in our opinion).

Elizabeth’s mother, Ann Boleyn, had been executed a couple of years after Elizabeth’s birth. This led to Elizabeth being declared illegitimate. Not that such matters held any chuck with the politics of monarchy. With the aid of her trusty counsel (led now by William Cecil, otherwise known as the notorious Baron Burghley), she re-established the Anglican Church, set about oppressing Catholics and launched a number of poorly resourced military campaigns in the Netherlands, France and Ireland, with spectacularly disappointing results.
Military matters improved, however, with a bit of help from the weather, when she defeated the Spanish armada in 1588, and, despite the continuous ups and downs of the country’s ecclesiastical politics (of which the average Fylde and Wyre peasant was growing extremely wearisome, no doubt, by this point) she led Britain into stability, helped forge a sense of national identity and is generally regarded nowadays as one of the country’s most popular monarchs. Eventually she kicked the bucket in 1603 still a virgin, bringing an end to the Tudor era once and for all.
Nonetheless, under Elizabeth’s rule international trade improved considerably, all of which (you’ll be glad to know) brings up back to the Wyre, and in particular the Tudor ports of Wardleys and Skippool.
Actually, come to think of it, we didn’t really need that lengthy introduction. Never mind, it’s too late now.
John Porter in his ‘History of the Fylde’ informs us (with regard to both Skippool Creek and Wardleys Creek) that:

“…as early as 1590/1600, William and James Blackburne, of Thistleton, carried on an extensive trade with Russia, and there can be no doubt that their cargoes of merchandise, most likely flax and tallow, were landed on the banks of the Wyre at those ancient harbours.”

Let’s have an aerial photograph of Wardley’s Creek, shall we, courtesy of Frank Smith (Wyre Archaeology pilot):

It’s on there somewhere, honest.
The quayside at Wardleys can still be seen to this day, although not particularly clearly, it should be said, unless you’re standing on the deck of a boat entering the creek itself, or you’ve broken into the private house in whose back garden it stands and have been chased by the owner’s dog off the end of the wharf and are now hanging precariously above the mud.
Fortunately, we’re cheeky buggers and asked permission for a gander. We’re also untidy buggers, so we lost the photograph we took. However, we did draw up the following illustration of the aforementioned quay for one of our books, so you’ll have to make do with that for now:

As you can probably see, carved Roman numerals, once used to indicate the level of the tide, can still be read vertically down its face.
Right, you’ve suffered enough for one week! Part two in seven days’ time.

The Ups and Downs of Edwardian Cleveleys

2010-03-10T00:01:00.000Z

Have a look at this for a moment, will you?

The chances are you’ve no idea where that photograph is located.(Actually it’s located at Phil’s house in Rossall…probably in a suitcase under his bed…but that wasn’t what I meant.) If you look closely, you might be able to make out the sunken gardens which, up until the revolting, Jetsonesque revamp of Cleveleys promenade recently, were sunk into, er, well, into Cleveleys promenade actually.
And that, in case you’re still wondering, is an aerial view of Cleveleys Pleasure Beach.
Believe it or not such a place did exist once, occupying the stretch of ground between Beach Road and Jubilee Gardens.
The same site nowadays is occupied by the Leisure and Cinema Complex, I think. For many years following the Pleasure Beach’s demolition the field lay fallow, proving popular as a venue for galas, circuses, Jubilee Days and gypsies with nowhere better to park their caravans. (The latter have now taken to annoying the residents in Preesall -- how come travellers never actually want to travel anywhere?)
Long before the Pleasure Beach was built, the field was occupied by a windmill...but that's another story.
Anyhow, as you’ve probably gathered, the Pleasure Beach (not exactly a rival to Blackpool’s, but interesting in it's own ramshackle sort of way nonetheless), along with the sunken gardens and the Edwardian shelters and all the other fascinating and historic stuff, is now long since gone.
On the off chance that you still don’t believe it was ever there, however, here’s another view of it, this time from a pedestrian's point of view, looking towards the Traveller’s Rest.

According to some contemporary advert or other for the place, (there whereabouts of which we've currently misplaced so we're working from notes here) the amusements consisted of: “A roller coaster, dodgems, slot machines, a helter-skelter, a carousel and Daredevil Shows.”
Unfortunately we’re not informed of what the daredevil shows consisted…possibly, if modern day Cleveleys is any reflection of its own inglorious past, some old biddies on Zimmerframes dicing with traffic, almost invisible (and certainly unheard) in the blue miasma of petrol fumes and screeching clutches.
The roller coaster sounds fascinating, though. No-one ever believes us when we tell them there was formerly a Big Dipper in Cleveleys, so here’s the proof of the pudding, for all those doubting Thomases/Thomasinaseseses:

It’s not exactly the clearest photograph ever produced, perhaps, but it is an historically fascinating one, as it’s the only image we’ve ever seen showing the Big Dipper from ground level. It's doubtful that the Blackpool Tourist Board lost any sleep over its construction, but back in the early 1940s this must have been an impressive sight towering over the relatively subdued streets of Cleveleys.
Nowadays, if it was still there, which it isn’t, it would probably be mistaken for the relics of a gasometer.

Whatever Happened to Cockersand Abbey? (Part Two)

2010-03-03T00:01:00.000Z

In case you’ve forgotten (which you probably have, and I honestly can’t blame you) we were just about to enlighten our reader/s (at the end of the last section of this article) as to why our old friend Bob Parkinson reckons that the cross in Thurnham Churchyard originated in the canons’ cemetery at Cockersand Abbey.
So, Bob’s theory then follows the cross’s line of succession from the dissolution, the time at which Cockersand’s lands and buildings were bought virtually lock, stock and barrel by John Kitehyn for the princely sum of seven hundred and nine pounds, eight shillings and six pence.
Later, John’s daughter married Robert Dalton of Thurnham Hall and the cross: “… presumably then became the property of the Dalton family and it may have been moved when a church was built at Thurnham.”
Bob’s reasoning behind the original location for the cross runs: “My opinion is based on the excavations which were carried out at the Abbey in 1923-1924, where the report and plan of the excavation states that a shallow well-like depression was found in the canons’ cemetery. I consider this could be the original site of the cross.”
As it happens, we have in our possession a photograph taken of the excavations mentioned above, which we’ve reproduced as a drawing below. (It’s an old photograph, well out of copyright…as indeed any pre-1940 photographs are…but we don’t like treading on toes, and it was a long weekend, so I drew it up just to avoid any trouble.)

This was back in the days when archaeologists wore suits and waistcoats to work, rather than wellies, jeans and anoraks. Very smart lot, they were…not like the slovenly buggers we get nowadays who can’t even be bothered investing in a decent trench-coat, let alone trimming their beards and polishing their fob watches.
Sorry…where was I?
Oh yes, two documents that survive to this day, both dating to 1536 (the year of the abbey’s first attempted repossession), are the ‘Survey of Possessions of Cockersand Abbey’ and the ‘Inventory of Goods and Chattels at Cockersand Abbey’. Unfortunately the start of the latter scroll is now missing. Both could well be described as catalogues for potential purchasers.
The Survey of Possessions records that there were six bells in the steeple (their whereabouts nowadays, of course, are unknown), four ‘in accord’ and two ‘out of accord’, or ‘out of tune’ if you prefer.
Mention is also made of lead on the steeple (last suspected location, some backyard or other in Fleetwood, no doubt), the Lady Chapel (for the ladies…), King John’s Hall (not as impressive as it sounds, to be honest, being it a lowly cottage with a ‘thak’ or thatched roof, one end of which had pathetically caved in), the dormitory (for dormice), one ‘payne’ (or side) of the cloister, the high garner (something to do with the top shelf of the herb cabinet I think) and a structure known as ‘thentree’ (otherwise pronounced, in Over Wyre speak, as ‘the entry’) situated between the church and the Lady Chapel.
The Inventory lists a number of smaller items that were up for grabs. These included a chalice and silver-gilt paten weighing fourteen ounces (destined for scrap by the sounds of it), a suit of red damask (don’t ask because I don’t know…what mediaeval monks got up to in their own cells is no concern of mine), a ‘foxe’ suit of ‘braunched’ silk with crimson velvet crosses (I’ve no idea what braunched silk is, but the suit was apparently ‘foxy’ so it must have been good), the abbot’s seat (presumably his throne and not his actual rear end…although by this stage of affairs they were probably selling anything), two large brass candelabras, a wooden lectern, thirty choir stalls (fourteen of which, local legend would have it, are now preserved in Saint Mary’s at Lancaster), nine windows in the chancel (at the bargain price of four pennies a foot) and even an illustrated gravestone that had originally belonged to one of Cockersand’s late abbots (it’d look good with a waterspout sticking out of the top of it in Charlie Dimmock’s garden, would that).
The windows in the Lady Chapel weren’t quite so pricey as those in the chancel, being sold at only two pennies per foot, although the paving tiles, which must have been embellished in some fashion or made of gold or something, were considerably more costly at twenty pennies.
The list goes on, but special mention, perhaps, should be made of a copper-gilt crosier-staff. Legend claims that this particular artefact was stashed away in a secret location until such time as the political situation was deemed safe enough for it to be removed from its secret location and put back on display to the world, the aforementioned secret location being kept secret and secretly handed down through successive generations of its secret guardians.
Or something like that.
The ‘Processional Cross’ (illustrated below) eventually turned up on the Dalton Estate (we’re saying nowt), had the figure on its left arm replaced because it was missing, was cleaned and polished thoroughly, and was eventually handed over to Thurnham church, where it remained until being loaned to the County Museum (not sure which one…probably Lancaster) some years ago.
True to form, it appears, the museum never gave it back.

As Bob recalls: “It does seem a shame that the cross is no longer used. In my younger days I carried the cross at Thurnham Church in services, processions and funerals.”
One other item that seems to have found its way to Thurnham Hall, and was believed to have belonged to Cockersand Abbey, was a carved wooden chest, described in John Swarbrick’s transaction…the one that we mentioned last week with the long winded title that we don’t want to repeat.
As he informs us: “At Thurnham Hall I have seen a large, richly carved sixteenth-century chest, which may have been the work of a Flemish carver. It is stated on a comparatively modern inscribed metal plate to have been the property of the canons of Cockersand Abbey, and it is said to have contained the old charters and title deeds.”
Whether the chest is still in residence at Thurnham Hall nowadays or not we’ve been unable to ascertain. Anybody reading this who happens to know one way or another…answers to the usual address please…or in the comments box below, we’re not fussy.
Whatever, John Swarbrick furnishes us with the following description: “At one end of this chest is a representation of a figure holding a small church with a steeple, which it is suggested might be the old Abbey church.”
As fascinating an article as it is, we’re going to differ with this last interpretation, as you might expect of us.
Recently we came across a couple of old photographs of said chest, detailing several of the panels, all of which illustrate biblical stories. For example, one panel, which, at first glance, we mistakenly thought was the Madonna and Child, and at second mistakenly, once again, interpreted as some big bosomed Dr Who assistant bouncing a very large jelly baby in her lap, is actually an illustration of the infant Moses being lifted from his wicker basket amongst the bulrushes.
It’s an Old Testament story…go and read it if you don’t know what it is.
As always, we’ve illustrated the panel mentioned in John Swarbrick’s article – the panel with the bloke holding the church that he reckoned was part of Cockersand Abbey that is – below.

The first thing that struck us about the figure in question was what appears to be a large, pointed tail hanging over his shoulder. Well, it is, isn’t it? Go on, tell me you can’t see! It’s either that or he’s cuddling a giant squid.
We could be wrong, of course, but it seems likely to us, under the circumstances, that this is a representation of the devil; Old Beelzebub, Lucifer, Satan, Spring Heeled Jack, Russell Brand, or whatever other pseudonym he’s currently going under.
That being the case, the illustration/carving would almost certainly relate to the third temptation of Christ (go and look it up in the New Testament you ignoramuses), in which Jesus is escorted by Satan/Lucifer/Brand/Aspel et al, to the Temple of Jerusalem and advised to take a flying leap from the steeple. (I’ve had similar requests from a number of people myself, although it’s usual the end of North Pier rather than the Temple of Jerusalem.)
Therefore, we write with conviction (and a certain amount of self-congratulatory pomposity) that the idea of the carving representing the ‘abbey church’ is most definitely wrong.
Perhaps.
Whatever the case, several more bits and pieces from Cockersand Abbey are said to have survived the dissolution, the largest of these (once again, according to local legend) being the vestry at St. Helen’s in Churchtown.

Just to be awkward, we’ve illustrated the vestry above.
Whether the legend is true or not, the vestry is an obvious addition to the main church building, one that appears to have been browbeaten into its present location.
There are probably other odds and bobs associated with Cockersand Abbey still around, and, as always, if you know of any yourself we’d be delighted to hear from you. For now though, I’ve prattled on enough, so it’s time to end this article and have my breakfast.

Whatever Happened to Cockersand Abbey? (Part One)

2010-02-24T00:01:00.000Z

We’ve posted a number of articles about our local monks and their exciting tonsures and stuff over the last couple of months. And why not? It’s been a long winter and there’s been nothing better to do. But now it’s time to discuss the final days of Cockersand Abbey, it’s ultimate downfall and what became of all those interesting ecclesiastical knickknacks that you’d normally associate with such establishments.
Where to start? Well, as you might expect, Cockersand Abbey fell victim to Henry VIII’s monastic reforms, otherwise known as ‘The Dissolution’ – or, to put it another way, the legalised plundering all the land and goods from religious establishments for his own back pocket. It wasn’t the only abbey to succumb to the subjugation, of course, all the other monastic houses of England and Wales ending up much the same way.
Let’s have a drawing of Henry, shall we? This is going to be a long article, I can tell, and we could do with some pictures to break it up a bit.

Cockersand Abbey had started life in the twelfth century as an infirmary, developed over time into a windswept, religious hostel for peasants, and had also dabbled in local cattle farming around the Wyre during the course of its four hundred year history.
Fifteen of its residents, according to Brian Marshall’s excellent book ‘Lancashire’s Mediaeval Monasteries’ were ‘poor men who were given bed and board of the charity of the house.’
A further ten lived outside the abbey, but still relied on the charity of the monks, and a final five, known as ‘corrodians’ (for reasons never explained, unfortunately), lived on site ‘by arrangement with the abbot having paid in advance.’
In 1529, not long before Henry’s assault, a certain Robert and Marie Lounde of Skerton, apparently, reached an agreement with the abbot so that they could live at Cockersand Abbey, for life, for the sum of five pounds, six shillings and eight pence annually.
In return for this payment they were given their own house, which was nice, as much ‘torf’ as they could eat (torf being blocks of dried peat to put on the fire, as anybody who’s been reading this board for the last few years will no doubt tell you), a ‘milk cow provided by the abbey’ (presumably for milk rather than as a pet), eight white loaves, eight grey loaves (which were similar to brown loaves but, presumably, not as brown, and similar to white loaves, but a bit more grey), six bottles of ale (which doesn’t seem much, I have to be honest), ‘victuals and meat from the kitchen daily,’ and ‘flesh and fish at noon and night as appropriate.’ (For ‘flesh’ read ‘more meat’ and stop being so saucy.)
All in all it seemed like a bargain. Unfortunately their idyllic, if not windswept, lifestyle was cut short abruptly ten years later when the abbey was surrendered to the crown and dismantled piece by piece.
Despite owning land all over the Wyre, Cockersand Abbey, allegedly, wasn’t actually rich. As Brian Marshall informs us: “Under the provisions of the Act of Suppression of 1536, any house with an income below £200 per year was to be closed…Cockersand, with a net income of one hundred and fifty seven pounds fourteen shillings and half a penny fell clearly within the group…”
The abbey, however, managed to earn itself a last minute reprieve through what appears to have been some creative accounting. (It’s amazing how account books can seemingly rewrite themselves when the taxmen aren’t looking.) According to an article entitled ‘The Abbey of St. Mary of the Marsh at Cockersand, by John Swarbrick’, published in the 1923 Transactions of the Lancashire and Cheshire Historical Society: “…the canons contended successfully that their income exceeded £200 and that consequently their house could not legally be dissolved as a lesser monastery.”
In actual fact, following the initial assessment, the income seems to have leapt to a much more impressive two hundred and eighty two pounds, seven shillings and eight pence annually, making it (perhaps surprisingly all matters considered) the third richest religious establishment in Lancashire, beaten only by Furness and Whalley.
Unfortunately, Henry hadn’t finished yet.
A further act of Parliament in 1539 (which effectively finished off every last monastery in Britain) brought Cockersand to its monastic knees. On January the 29th of that year, Robert Poulton (the abbot), along with twenty-two canons, signed the official document of surrender in return for a pension, and almost four centuries of ecclesiastical history was ended in a single stroke.
Or rather twenty-three strokes.
The place was demolished and the red sandstone blocks carted off…mainly, it ought to be said, by opportunistic landowners who hadn’t held much chuck with the monks in the past. Even today ornate carvings and dressed stone blocks that once constituted the abbey can still be seen incorporated into the outbuildings of local farms.
Little of the original structure now remains, other than the aforementioned infirmary chimney illustrated below…

….and the octagonal chapter house (which, as you can probably see, isn’t particularly octagonal any longer) which is also shown below…as, in fact are all the illustrations in this article.

Some artefacts from Cockersand’s heyday, however, seem to have survived beyond Henry’s suppression. According to Robert Parkinson (or, as we at Wyre Archaeology know him, Bob) writing in the Over Wyre journals, the stone cross in Thurnham churchyard is one such artefact.
In Bob’s own words: “It is said that the cross could have stood in the centre of the cloister at Cockersand but I am of the opinion that it is more likely to have stood in the canons’ cemetery, between the chapter house and the presbytery.”
The cross can be found, apparently, (and we can’t confirm this because we’ve never been, but we’ll take Bob’s word for it because he’s a sound sort of bloke): ‘to the left when entering the church grounds from the lych gateway’.
We’ve illustrated it, as you’ve probably gathered by now, below.

It stands approximately eight feet in height, with an additional four feet of octagonal steps at the base.
At which juncture it’s become apparent that this article is going to be considerably longer than we originally anticipated.
With that in mind, it’s time for a short break (seven days should suffice) before we return for part two.

The Infamy Game

2010-02-17T00:01:00.001Z

We’ve mentioned a few of the Fylde and Wyre’s more famous exports before, but now it’s time to turn to the dark side, and where better to start than with the most evil man in the whole universe ever? Yes, I’m talking about John Simm, the bloke who on New Year’s Day made thousands of eight-year-old girls (and quite a few overweight middle-aged divorcees as well I suspect) burst into tears all at once when he killed David Tennant so that he could nick his role in Hamlet.

All right, not the best portrait in the world, I admit…in fact he’s got more than a touch of the Julian Clarey’s about him, but who cares? This is the Master we’re dealing with here, not the masterpiece. (Copyright Giles Brandreth Psuedo-Intellectual Jokes Inc. 1873.)
John Simm was actually born in Yorkshire, but had the good sense to escape to Nelson in Lancashire when he was only a couple of years old. Eventually he found his way to Blackpool and, at the age of sixteen, attended Lytham St Anne’s college. (That’s the same college Michelle went to, incidentally…although in her case it was a bit earlier than 1986, I have to be honest.)
His acting credentials are quite impressive, it must be said, ranging from appearances in ‘Rumpole of the Old Bailey’ to ‘Cracker’. In more recent times he’s been carving a niche for himself as temporally-challenged characters; firstly as Sam Tyler in ‘Life on Mars’ (the series that brought us the immortal – not to mention immoral – line: ‘We’re making about as much progress as a spastic in a magnet factory!” What? Don’t blame me! Blame the BBC scriptwriters for that one) and secondly taking over the aforementioned role of the Master in Dr. Who from Derek Jacobi.
But before we end up writing his entire Curriculum Vitae, let’s move on.
Now, everybody knows that Albert Pierrepoint, the last hangman in Britain, retired to Fleetwood following his final execution, don’t they?
Except that he didn’t.
He retired to Southport actually, and possibly never went near the Fylde and/or Wyre in his life.
However, the last hangman in Britain did retire to Fleetwood.
Confused? Hardly surprising really, because regardless of the numerous books, plays and television spectaculars written about Pierrepoint, he wasn’t actually the last hangman in Britain at all.
That somewhat dubious honour goes to a bloke called Harry Allen.
Let’s have a picture of Albert Pierrepoint for comparative reasons then shall we?

Hard to believe that he made a living by hanging criminals, isn’t it? Especially considering that he looks like a cross between an elderly Stan Laurel and a hamster.
Like Simm, Albert Pierrepoint hailed from Yorkshire, but had the good sense to get out before it was too late. Whilst living in Failsworth, Manchester, he ran a pub called the 'Help the Poor Struggler'. I know…sick, or what? But sadly true.
He took over the role of public executioner in 1932 from his father (his granddad having held it before him – it’s a good job nepotism wasn’t a hanging offence), but relinquished it in 1956. The last hangman of all was in fact two people, those being Robert Stewart and Harry Allen.
Both officiated at the last hangings in England, in August of 1964.
It was Harry who retired to Fleetwood, so let’s have a picture of him now as well, to avoid confusion.

Looks very dapper, doesn’t he? Apparently he always wore a waistcoat, bow tie and bowler on the job. Obviously he didn’t want the victim to be scandalised by a scruffy appearance in his last few moments.
Harry passed away in August 1992 (not long after Pierrepoint, coincidentally), which was a pity, because I can think of a number of idiots around Fleetwood who wouldn’t be particularly missed if he’d given them a demonstration of his craft from the flagpole on the Mount.

The Return of the Samuel Fletcher

2010-02-10T00:01:00.001Z

It’s time for an update concerning one of our previous stories, and for once it isn’t bad news. This makes a pleasant change in the world of Fylde and Wyre antiquarianism, it must be said; most of our news items unfortunately containing such words as ‘redevelopment’, ‘destruction’, and/or ‘sadly passed away’.
Remember way back on the dumpty-umptyeth of whatever (don’t ask me – I can’t remember dates…it was last year sometime whatever the case), when we went to visit Shirley Matthews (granddaughter of the famous Allen Clarke) at Little Marton Mill, followed by an enjoyable afternoon spent in the company of Ann and Bruce Allen?
No, I didn’t think you would.
Well, that’s what we did regardless, and Bruce (a former shipwright from Newcastle) explained to us his problems with the Samuel Fletcher, Blackpool’s historic oar-propelled lifeboat, which, at the time, was in considerable disrepair, having been turfed out of its shed at Stanley Park for reasons of…well…redevelopment as it happens.
Back then Bruce was searching for a place to keep said lifeboat free from vandals, idiots and redevelopers, where he could work on the rotting hull and bring the boat back to its former glory.
That was then.
As you’ve probably gathered, the problem with relocating the Samuel Fletcher has now been solved, as the following cutting from the Evening Gazette testifies. (If you’re having difficulty reading the print at this size, as always, just click on the image for a larger version):

Yes, you’re right, we have been a long time about posting this. To be honest we didn’t buy this specific edition of the Gazette and had to wait for a couple of months before we found somebody who still had a copy to lend us. (Fortunately my mum keeps hold of this sort of thing, because she knows what I’m like.)
Anyhow, that’s not quite the end of the tale.
Shortly afterwards our old friend Phil Barker (of Barkers Butchers – excellent sausages and beef pies available -- and Rossall Beach Co. dot UK fame) managed to get his hands on a signed, first-edition copy of Allen Clarke’s ‘The Story of the Blackpool Lifeboat’, which, amongst other stuff, includes photographs and information about the Samuel Fletcher…naturally.
Phil, because he’s that sort of bloke, decided to have the book reprinted (with Shirley Matthew’s permission, of course) – not for business or profit, you understand, but simply to ensure that the late Allen Clarke’s work was firmly back in the public domain.
The photograph below shows a certain handsome, young antiquarian (watch it) holding his own, personal copy of the aforementioned book (cheers Phil):

Look, no insulting comments, okay? Everybody needs to dream a bit (and let’s face it, nobody else is going to ‘Big’ me up), so if you feel inclined to make personal remarks about my hair/nose/whatever then I’ll be forced to change the photograph for one of Phil Harding in his shorts. And before you say, “That’d be an improvement”…believe me, it wouldn’t!
Anyhow, copies of ‘The Story of Blackpool Lifeboat’ are now available. I’m not sure where exactly, but if you drop by Barkers Butchers on Green Drive in Rossall to make enquiries, no doubt they’ll supply you with one.
And buy a couple of sausage rolls while you’re there, because they’re excellent.

The Weekend Review

2010-02-06T12:02:00.008Z

First up, a quick advert for the latest collection of Wyre Archaeology Excavation Reports, this time covering the winter of 2008 to the winter of 2009. Not quite as thick as the previous one this, due to the fact that last year was probably the wettest digging season ever on record, but still a good read I reckon, if you're interested in what we were up to in our wellies and stuff...

Available now on-line (get a Pay Pal account for crying out loud!) at:

http://www.lulu.com/content/paperback-book/wyre-archaeology-excavation-reports-volume-two/8079935

...or, alternatively, you can order a copy at the next Wyre Archaeology meeting.

Speaking of books, here's a review from the 'Rural Life Magazine' (cheers Anthony) of our second Fylde and Wyre Antiquarian book. Again, it's only available on-line at the moment...although there might be some in the shops, I'm not totally certain...I've lost track of this lot now. And again, alternatively, you can order a copy if you'd prefer at the next Wyre Archaeology meeting. (As always, click on the image if you want to read it properly.)

Actually there might be some in the shops. I'd have to contact my distributor (otherwise known as Gary) to find out. Whatever, here's the address to buy one if you have your own Pay Pal account:

http://www.lulu.com/content/paperback-book/another-slice-of-the-fylde-and-wyre-antiquarian/6573124

Finally, a clipping from last week's Evening Gazette. It's actually about the Fleetwood Civic Society and the wall around the Mount, but I get a mention in it (cheers Tom) and I know how desperate my fans are to get hold of anything even remotely connected with me (apparently it's a requisite when practising voodoo), so there we go:

Up to Our Ankles in Lud

2010-02-03T00:01:00.000Z

There are some excellent old names, shrouded in the enigma of dead languages, dialects and atrocious spellings, to be found in crumbling documents. Take the following references to several long lost places around Churchtown, for example, hidden between the pages of the Cockersand Chartulary:

“Pro quibus concessione et confirmacione praedictis: praedicti Abbas et Conventus pro se et successoribus…”

What? You don’t want the Latin version? We’re supposed to translate it for you, is that it? How bone idle can you get? Okay…hold on while I put on my deciphering head:

“Indenture of Covenant witnessing that John, son of John, the tailor of Kirkland, granted and confirmed to the Abbot and Convent of Cockersand and to their successors, that they should wholly take forever the dead wood in Kirkland…”

…bear with us on this, there is a point…

“…according to the intent and purport of the charter granted to them by Sir William de Lancaster, and the deed of gift of the said John, the tailor of Kirkland, and that they should carry away the same…”

…hang on in there folks, we’ll reach it eventually…

“…whenever and whithersoever it should be most convenient, or to their greater profit and advantage, without let or hindrance. In return for this concession, the said Abbot and Convent granted to the said John and to his heirs, liberty to make improvement in certain parcels of wood, waste and pasture in Garstang…”

…I know, I know, you don’t have to tell me, but it is in here somewhere…

“…within the bounds of Kirkland, to wit, in a plot of wood and pasture running widthways between Ounespool…”

…ah, there’s the first one…

“…and Pilling Moss, and commencing lengthways at Humbilscough…”

…there’s another…

“…along the moss southward to Wyre, along Wyre to Ounespool, and so up Ounespool northward to the said John's land, along his meadow and arable land to the aforesaid boundary of Humbilscough. Also in four acres of wood and waste, lying lengthways in divers plots, from the site of the said John's manor to the gate called the Ludyate…”

…right, that’s it, that’s what we’re after…

“…leading towards Howath bridge, to wit, below his hedges and arable land…”

…stop, stop! That’ll do nicely pig!

Right, Ounespool and Humbilscough, as recorded in our twelfth century document, are easily translated as Anne’s Pool/Ainspool and Humblescough, both of which are still around today. (And both of which contain some fascinating prehistoric earthworks, I might add, as demonstrated by the aerial photograph of the Humblescough lakeside settlement below...trust me, it is on there somewhere.)

But Ludyate…well now, there’s the puzzle.
‘Yate’, of course, is the old pronunciation of ‘Gate’(but you knew that already, didn’t you?) as in a road leading to somewhere, said ‘somewhere’ generally being tagged on before the ‘yate’ itself. (Watery Gate round the back of Beacon Fell, for example, means the road that leads to the water. See, there is some sense to all this.)
So where did Ludyate/Ludgate run, and what was the Lud to which the ‘yate’ was running? (And don’t say it’s in London as an answer to the first part. Yes, there is a Ludgate in London, but obviously it doesn’t stretch all the way to Churchtown in Lancashire, so try not to overstretch yourselves just yet.)
Well, by following some of the clues scattered throughout the document, we can assume that Ludyate ran from Garstang to Kirkland (or Kirklund as the chartulary has it, another interesting name, more about which shortly).
Now then, Howarth (or Howath as the document calls it) at that time covered Bonds, because Bonds didn’t exist, and as the Victoria County History informs us: “Howarth Bridge over the Wyre shows that Howarth extended over all Bonds, though the name is now applied to the southeast corner.”
Howarth Bridge, therefore, was basically the main bridge in Garstang, which in the mediaeval period had a couple of big towers on it apparently, but that’s another story.
So, we have an ancient ‘yate’ running from Garstang Bridge to Kirkland, which was Kirklund back then, which means the ‘church in the scared grove’, (kirk – church, lund – a sacred grove…it’s that simple really) which was probably St Helens, as shown in the photograph below, but we can’t be certain about that, but whatever the case it smacks of Christianity built over an antique pagan site, all of which brings us, circuitously, back to Lud.

So who, or what, was Lud?
There are a couple of possibilities. Let’s start with the first one, because that’s generally the best place to start.
Everybody’s heard of the Luddites, yes? The textile workers who went round destroying mechanical looms during the industrial revolution, led by the fictitious Ned Lud (shown in the illustration below)?

The only problem with them is, they started in 1811, and seeing as our document is dated to the 1190s, they’re unlikely to be connected to it. Let’s put them aside and try something else.
There’s a Lud mentioned in the bible. According to the Book of Genesis he was Noah’s grandson. Now, I realise that Churchtown can be boggy and damp and miserable at the best of times, but the chances of the ark coming to rest on Mount Catterall are so remote that we might as well discount this one as well.
Here’s a slightly more plausible connection. According to Geoffrey of Monmouth, Lud was a pre-Roman king of Britain, the eldest son of King Heli, and is commonly associated with Lludd Llaw Eraint of Welsh mythology, as well as Nuada Airgetlám, the king of the Tuatha Dé Danann, (or the Isle of Man as it’s more commonly known).
He might also have been connected with the Romano-British god Nodens...apparently.
Yes, you’ve heard of Nodens before, haven’t you? That’s because we’ve mentioned him ourselves in our ‘History of the Wyre from Harold the Elk to Cardinal Allen’. Here’s what we said at the time:

“In the eighteenth century two figurines of the little known Romano-Celtic deity Mars Nodens were unearthed at Cockersands. Mars Nodens was connected with a healing cult and was possibly a sea god. Unfortunately the finds are once again missing, which is a pity as, to the best of our knowledge, there are no other known depictions of Mars Nodens anywhere in Britain.”

Coincidence? I don’t know what you’re asking me for. I haven’t got a clue. King Lud, it seems, is credited with also founding London, which explains their version of Ludgate, but that’s a bit outside our region so let’s not bother going there.
Right, another possible version of lud can be found amongst the Votyaks of Russia (which is even more distant now that I come to think about it) and refers, quite simply, to a sacred grove where sacrifices were performed. Luds, apparently, were surrounded by fences, with a fire and tables for sacrificial meals in the centre. The ceremonies were usually conducted on an ancient tree dedicated to a deity.
Again, coincidence? Kirklund? And again, I haven’t got a clue, but it makes you think, doesn’t it?

Off to the Gillows

2010-01-27T02:34:00.000Z

When it comes to manufacturers of quality furniture there are few names to rival that of Gillow and Co. of Lancaster, and, no doubt, our reader will have heard of them already -- especially if they watch the Antiques’ Roadshow, because various examples of Gillows’ work crop up from time to time on it, usually at extremely high prices.
“What’s this got to do with the Fylde and Wyre Antiquarian?” you might be asking. “After all, you said it yourself – Gillows of Lancaster, the clue’s in the name there. Lancaster might be just up the road from the Wyre, admittedly, but, strictly speaking, it’s still not part of it.”
All right, keep your hair on baldy! I’m just getting to that. You see, what a lot of people don’t realise is that Robert Gillow (born 1704, died 1772, founder of Gillow and Co. of Lancaster) was actually a Singleton lad.
He didn’t hang around for long, ‘emigrating’ to Lancaster in 1720 to begin his apprenticeship as a joiner. Nonetheless, he was Singleton born, and that’s good enough for me. So stop being pedantic and grow up.
Let’s have a look at one of his pieces, shall we? This is a mahogany bookcase (or, at any rate, a drawing of mahogany bookcase, because we weren’t sure how the copyright stood) originally belonging to Mrs Hutton Rawlinson who purchased it from Gillows of Lancaster on the eighteenth of June 1772.

So, what do we know about Robert Gillow’s early years, as a fully-fledged Fylde-born-un? Well, his father, allegedly, played a part in the Jacobite rebellion and was, by way of consequence, locked up in Lancaster Castle, where Robert joined him so as to be close at hand if necessity called. (He didn’t join him in the castle, obviously, just in Lancaster in general.)
Right, I’m quoting from some website or other here – possibly Wikipedia, I’m not sure, I should have taken better notes: “…Robert Gillow's education in carpentry began during his time as a ship's carpenter. He is also credited with having travelled to the West Indies and brought back one of the first recorded shipments of mahogany into England.”
Fancy a drawing of some chairs, the finely carved details of which, like the bookcase, have been lost due to the fact that I couldn’t be bothered spending time drawing them up properly?

Gillow’s first venture into business was in 1727, when he went into partnership with a fellow apprentice called George Haresnape. The business didn’t last long. Three years after it had been set up, it was closed again, Haresnape finding more suitable employment in Liverpool as a slave trader.
Undaunted, Gillow opened his own cabinet making firm close to the Judges’ Lodgings on Castle Hill. The building’s still there, as the illustration of the entrance below sort of testifies:

In brief then, otherwise we’ll be here all day, when Robert Gillow died in 1772, his sons Richard and Robert (he might have been good with mahogany, but he was lousy at inventive names) continued the business, the latter running Gillows’ London branch on Oxford Street.
By this point Richard had also apparently trained up an architect, who designed several notable Lancastrian building, including the Customs House on St George's Quay. In turn, when Richard shuffled off this mortal coil in 1811, his son, also Richard (still not terribly inventive with those names there) took over the business.
Gillows continued to grow, specializing in outfitting liners such as the Lusitania. Good old Queen Vicky also commissioned a few bespoke pieces and during World War I, they made munitions boxes from aeroplane wings and propellers.
Gillow and Co are credited with inventing the Davenport (for Captain Davenport no less), the billiard table (not, as far as we can tell, for Captain Billiard) and the expandable dining table.
Early pieces of work are stamped with the words: ‘Gillows Lancaster’ or ‘Gillow Lancaster’, and later pieces are stamped with ‘Gillow and Co’ or just the plain old, vanilla-flavoured ‘Gillows’
In 1903 the business was finally merged with S.J. Waring, and eventually taken over and closed in 1961.
During its time, however, Gillow and Co. was famous enough to appear in works by Thackery, one of Gilbert and Sullivan’s operettas, and some novel or other by Jane Austin.
There’s even a pub named after the original Robert, so we’ll end with an illustration of said building and a pint of Speckled Hen raised in his honour:

Taking Stock

2010-01-20T11:14:00.000Z

Take a look at the photograph below and see if you can tell what it is (and if anybody says, it’s my kitchen door, they’ll be banned from this board for life…or until the X Factor’s removed from our television screens, whichever is longer):

Want a clue? Well, it’s the wrong way up for a start. It would more normally have been seen lying lengthways rather than upright.
Still none the wiser? I can only assume you wouldn’t make much of a detective then, seeing as the following photograph (which has been in view all the time) is a dead giveaway:

Yes, it’s a set of stocks – or to be more precise, Poulton Stocks. That’s probably the chairman of Wyre Archaeology’s grandfather incarcerated in them. Come to think of it, it might even be the chairman of Wyre Archaeology himself.
“So what are you doing with the wooden section of Poulton stocks in your back garden?” I hear you ask. (I heard somebody ask it anyway. Too many long nights with only the cats for company has that effect on me.)
To be honest, Paul Bradshaw -- remember him? He’s the bloke from Bodkin Hall whose front drive we completely obliterated a couple of years back -- was having a clear out of his workshop. “Everything must go!” the council told him. So, go it did…into the back of a van and straight round to my place, which was very good of him I thought.
Exactly how long the stocks had been in his workshop it’s hard to say, so we did a bit of investigating.
Poulton stocks, apparently, were constructed in 1351. Don’t ask me where we got that particular year from, because I can’t remember now, but we got it from somewhere, so it must be right.
The two large oak leg fastener bits (one considerably more knackered than the other, it should be said) in our back garden aren’t that old of course. No, according to John Porter’s History of the Fylde published in 1876: “…the wooden portion has been recently renewed” so, we weren’t entirely certain whether these were the ones that were replaced, or the ones that replaced the ones that were replaced because the stocks in Poulton now appear to be relatively modern.
They’re certainly the ones that appear in the photograph above, right down to the holes where the chains were originally attached. Unfortunately, because the photograph’s Victorian, and because 1876 falls smack bang in the middle of Victoria’s reign, the photograph could have been taken either side of the date of ‘replacement’.
So we found another photograph – the one below to be more exact:

Once again, they appear to be the same set of wooden leggy bits that we’ve got at home. However, we’ve no idea when this photograph was taken either.
Given that there appears to be some sort of motoring sign in the background, though, we can safely assume that it was taken sometime after 1876.
Therefore, by a process of logical deduction, the stocks in our kitchen are the replacement Victorian ones.
Still, they’re an intriguing bit of history, and not one you find every day scaring the cat when it’s trying to eat.
Hopefully, by the time this hits the Internet we’ll have dropped them off at the Fylde Country Life Museum where they’re going to form part of the Wyre Archaeology display. Unless nobody can give us a lift, of course, because they are a bit too big to fit in my rucksack, in which case they’ll still be leaning against our bookcase trying their best to look nonchalant.

Mediaeval Monastic Misdemeanours

2010-01-13T00:01:00.000Z

It must have been a difficult, austere life as a Fylde and Wyre monk in mediaeval times: vows of silence, coarse undergarments designed for discomfort (not something to tickle one’s fancy), sexual abstinence, a complete devotion to God, prayer, religious servitude, etc.
Not every local monk saw it that way, of course. Take the cases of William Bentham and James Skipton, two canons at Cockersand Abbey who, in 1488, were called before the bishop to answer charges of ‘gross incontinence’.
Before you get hold of the wrong end of the stick, we’re not talking about an inability to control their bladders here, although self-control was part of their problem. No, we’re talking about two scullery wenches from the abbey kitchens, one being Merioryth Gardner and the other Elena Wilson.
Picture the scene – a duet of busty serving girls, sleeves rolled up, forearms sprinkled with dough; two lusty monks, their vows of celibacy taking the strain – cue ‘Benny Hill’ music.
It puts a whole new spin on the phrase ‘getting a monk on’.

For the record, William Bentham, after openly admitting his guilt, was exiled to Croxton Abbey in Leicestershire following forty days of penance. (We can only assume that Croxton was a total dump if it served as a punishment to be removed there from the barren wastelands of Cockerham.)
James Skipton, on the other hand, pleaded not guilty and asked his ‘fellow brethren’ to back up his plea.
Obviously he wasn’t as popular amongst the other monks as he thought he was, his brothers remaining unconvinced about his innocence. As well as the expected forty days penance, Skipton was duly exiled for seven years to Sulby Abbey in Northumberland.
Again, Sulby Abbey must have been an absolute dive, because, regardless of their sentences, both canons were apparently forgiven and back on the windswept cliffs of Cockersand’s within three years.

If lewd behaviour amongst the cooking utensils wasn’t blasphemous enough, the occasional act of homicide was on the cards.
In 1337, another Cockersand canon, this time a certain Robert Hilton, was put on trial for killing his fellow canon, Robert Preston. The records, unfortunately, don’t tell us exactly how, what, where or when his companion’s unholy end was met. The incident, however, appears to have been a one off, as Canon Hilton was pardoned for his crime and never cropped up in the records again. We can only assume that he managed to kick the habit. (Mediaeval Ecclesiastic Jokes Ltd. Copyright 1122.)
Aggressive behaviour seems to have been the norm amongst the monks of Cockersand. When Bishop Redman (the chief inspector for the white monks of the Premonstratensian order, of which, Cockersand was, of course, a part) visited the abbey towards the end of its life, he told the residents that they ought to stop complaining about the food, speaking ill of each other and, perhaps most importantly, drawing knives on their fellow monks.

Meanwhile, at the other end of the Fylde (Lytham Priory to be exact) in 1355, the prior Robert Kelloe was accused of stealing goods from Coldingham Priory in Berwickshire to the value of £27 (and, no, we’re not making all this up).
Apparently he’d lived there before moving to Lytham. I’ll let you make up your own minds as to how big a doss-hole Coldingham must have been.
As if that wasn’t enough, he was also accused of adultery. Exactly what became of him the records don’t inform us, but there seems to have been quite a bit of ‘goods removal’ going on at the priory in general. The Butler family, along with the Beethams and the Cliftons, all owned lands around the establishment, which led to numerous disputes over grazing rights.

In 1320 William Clifton, outraged by the priory’s behaviour, lost his temper completely and stormed the priory with two hundred men. In the process he caused £100 worth of damage (quite a lot of money back in those days) and ‘rescued’ a herd of cows that he claimed were his.
The prior at the time, Roger Tynemouth (surprisingly not a Robert) was apparently much, “..in fear of his life so that he dare not stir abroad’.
The disputes continued for several more centuries, resulting in the Butlers in 1530 smashing down the boundary cross, uprooting another, toppling a statue of Saint Cuthbert and threatening the priory itself.
We could go on, but that’s probably enough for now.

Identifying Architecture in the Fylde and Wyre: Doorways and Doorsteps

2010-01-06T00:01:00.000Z

When you’re archaeologing, uprooting rubble and masonry from some bovine-occupied meadow, it generally pays, from a dating perspective at least, to know something of past architectural styles. With this in mind we’re going to introduce our reader to a few examples of local design, kicking off with the drawing below showing the side door to the Bank of Scotland, London Street, Fleetwood:

Don’t let anybody tell you that Fleetwood’s architecture consists solely of Victorian vernacular fishermens' cottages. This monstrous tomb of a doorway (the perfect accompaniment to the over-the-top building surrounding it) is what’s known as baroque.
Baroque is similar in many respects to neo-classicism, all pillars and capitals and ancient Grecian and Roman forms and stuff, only with an excess of ornamentation that generates its own distinctive in-your-face style designed to add grandiosity to the already pompous – pretty much what you’d expect from a typical bank stamping its authoritarian presence on the humble fishermen of our little harbour town really.
Oddly enough there aren’t too many examples of Baroque in Britain. This ornate style of architecture was actually Europe’s response to the puritanical whitewashing of ornamentation during the Protestant reformation. The Jesuits on the continent in particular commissioned churches of an extravagantly flamboyant nature, whilst in Britain the protestant return to simpler, unadorned styles as advocated (whether you liked it or not) by Oliver Cromwell and others of his ilk, put the mockers on its introduction for a very long time.
The Baroque style was brought to Blighty by Thomas Archer, who travelled extensively around Europe in the 18th century picking up ideas and, basically, nicking them.
Now, a few moments ago we mentioned Neo-Classicism. What’s Neo-classicism, you ask? (Or perhaps you don’t.)
Fair enough, next illustration:

As you’ve probably gathered, that’s the front door to the Royal Oak Pub, Lord Street, Fleetwood. Note the faux columns on either side, the Neo-classical Georgian fanlight, the old fashioned quoins (they’re the big blocks at the edge of the walls), the ionic capitals and the triangular top to the doorway reminiscent of ancient Greek temples.
Neo classicism means simply New Classical, or to put it another way, a modern interpretation of ancient architecture. Inigo Jones (no relation to Indiana) in 1613 took one of the first of the now-famous ‘Grand Tour’s (you’ve seen enough programmes about that particular subject by now not for me to rehash it, I’m sure) and discovered four works entitled collectively ‘Quattro Libri Dell Architettura’ by Andrea Palladio. These volumes were a treatise on proportion in architecture based on the principals laid down by Vitruvius in the first century B.C. and became the basis for neo-classicism.
Did anybody understand that? Neither did I to be honest, and I wrote it. Let’s just say that it’s all based on ancient classical architecture (with a few nominal alterations to make it contemporary) and gave rise to Greek revival, Gothic revival and Romanticism, and leave it at that. (Although, the door to the Royal Oak is hardly a fine example of Neo-classicism so it was probably a bad idea to include it really, but I’d already drawn it up, so it’s going to stay for now.)
Let’s have one last door-related Fleetwood illustration for the time being then.
This is the doorstep to the jewellers on Lord Street:

As you can probably see, it’s a mosaic, stemming from the Arts and Crafts Movement…er…school. The Arts and Crafts movement was basically an attempt to return to a more natural human design, away from the industrialisation of the Victorian period. (Think hippies only with a bit more talent.) Ideally the work would be created entirely by human hands without the help or intervention of any mechanical aid etc.
It also tended to involve lots of swirly stems and leaves and stuff (although the leaf in the middle of our drawing was a genuine one that had blown off one of the trees on Lord Street and I couldn’t be bothered moving it out of the way.)
Enough. I can feel a headache coming on and it isn’t even mine.

Doors And Windows in our Fisherman’s Cottage

2009-12-30T00:01:00.000Z

It’s time to revisit our fisherman’s cottage in Fleetwood, on this occasion to check out the bedroom door and window.
Let’s just wait for the thunderous retreat of most of our readers to die away before continuing, shall we?
All done? Excellent. Time to crack on.
This is a photograph of our bedroom door, taken in extremely low light with an extremely naff camera. (It’s quite possibly the worst photograph we’ve ever posted on this board, in fact, even if I am wearing an expensive genuine yak wool cardigan.) Michelle thought the bedroom door might be boring on its own, so she asked me to add a bit of interest by standing in front of it.

And with that the rest of our readers take to the hills looking decidedly nauseous.
Over the years our Victorian cottage has undergone some extensive renovations, not least of which was the removal of the stairs from the kitchen, their replacements running up from the living room, and the creation of a small landing in the process.
Originally there wouldn’t have been a bathroom. A cast iron tub in front of the range, a kettle full of hot water, a block of carbolic soap and the sort of scrubbing brush that’d give its owner an unhealthy red glow, was all that was required back then. With the advent of indoor plumbing, however, it became customary to convert the small bedrooms at the rear of such cottages into bathrooms/bogs.
Exactly where our bathroom and bedroom doors came from it’s difficult to say, (they’re both the same incidentally…‘buggered’, I believe the technical term is) but they’re Georgian in style. That’s not to say they’re Georgian in age. The Victorians made doors to the same design, and considering that when the cottage was converted there’d have been a couple of doors left over, no doubt they were reused with the customary cheapness associated with your average Fleetwood property developer.
The doors themselves consist of four interior panels each set into a mortise and tenor framework with a large wooden separation between the upper half and the lower half, the lower panels being of a smaller stature than their counterparts above.
See…typical Georgian design. (Is there anybody still reading this?)
To be honest, as already hinted at, both our bathroom door and our bedroom door are totally knackered. I gave them a coat of paint recently and almost instantly regretted it. Not only are there numerous filled in divots and holes where various handles and hinges have been attached, unattached, reattached and, finally, wrenched off with a crowbar and thrown in the bin, over the years, but the panels are outlined by a series of holes where tacks were once hammered.
We read somewhere recently about Georgian doors in manor houses separating the servants’ quarters from the gentry’s. These doors had covers panel-pinned onto them to make them blend into the wall. Aristocrats wanted to disassociate themselves with the staff, and a hidden portal to the realms of said unwashed urchins seemed a suitable arrangement by which to keep the psychological horror of such people at bay.
So did our doors originate in some splendid Georgian manor then?
No, probably not. During the latter part of the twentieth century panelled doors became unfashionable. Regarded as tired, dated and drab they were covered by sheets of hardboard, which after a few decades became tired, dated and drab themselves. So the tacky faux-wooden sheets were wrenched off again, leaving a series of little holes around the outside of the door.
Still, they might be tatty, but at least they’re original features.
Enough about the door. Let’s move on to the bedroom window.

(Sounds of the last reader of all waking up from his forty winks with a splutter and quietly shuffling off to put the kettle on.)
What’s probably not immediately apparent in the photograph above (because, let’s face it, it’s almost as naff as the other one) are the textured Art Deco panes that make up the window. Our living room window’s the same. Worth a fortune! Well…no, not really, although they’d cost a fortune to double glaze so they’re staying like they are for time being.
Art Deco originated in France around 1900 with a gang of artistic types known as ‘La Société des Artistes Décorateurs’ (otherwise translated as ‘The Society of the Artistic Decorators’). In 1925 the ‘Société’ organized the ‘Exposition Internationale des Arts Décoratifs et Industriels Modernes’ from which the name Art Deco derived.
The style was influenced by Cubism, Constructivism, Futurism, Neoclassicism and Art Nouveau, although when the fashion caught on in Britain it developed its own vernacular brand of...well…Britishness.
It wasn’t particularly long lived however, and by the 1940s windows such as ours were either being chiselled out and replaced with something altogether more modern by fashion-conscious house owners, or blown out at random into the streets by inconsiderate Nazi bombing raids.
Some of our readers -- what am I talking about? There can’t be anybody left reading this by now. On the chance that there is however, just bear with me – some of our readers will have realised by now that, what with our cottage being of Victorian construction, and what with Queen Victoria kicking the bucket in 1901, it’s highly unlikely that our own Art Deco windows were originally supplied with the house.
It doesn’t matter. We’re fond of them.

Harris and Hughes Guided Cottage Tours for the Terminally Bored. Book now for your own five-minute visit to our fisherman’s cottage (bathroom admission charged separately) followed by coffee and hobnobs on the front doorstep and a quick stroke of the cat’s head. Only £45.99 (not including V.A.T.)

The Mystery of Norbreck Mill

2009-12-23T00:01:00.001Z

It’s reasonably safe to assume that our reader (singular) never realised that Norbreck had a windmill.
Well it did. After all, Norbreck is a part of the Fylde and therefore, it stands to reason, that it has its own mill.
Or rather, ‘had’ its own mill -- past tense.
It doesn’t nowadays, of course, but reference to it can be found in Alan Stott’s excellent ‘History of Norbreck and Little Bispham’, which informs us that: “John Allen in 1538 took a seventy year lease on more abbey lands, which included the windmill at Norbreck.”
Unfortunately that’s the mill’s only mention in legal documents for more than a century afterwards.
When it finally does reappear in an exchequer deposition of 1657 relating to the Fleetwood family, it was claimed to have been built only sixteen years previously, which raises the question as to whether or not it was the same mill. Let’s assume that it was for now, and that Edmund Fleetwood (mentioned as the previous owner in the deposition) ‘rebuilt’ it circa 1641.
By the time of the deposition itself (1657 in case you’d forgotten) Edmund Fleetwood was long since dead and the mill had passed into the ownership of his widow, Everill Heber.
Why do we mention all this when we’re usually the sort of people to steer as clear of genealogical lists as we would of Channel Five American made-for-television-movies? Because we’re trying to work out where the mill was located, that’s why, and, unfortunately, we’ll need this sort of information to accomplish the task.
Bear with us.
Suggestion has been made that the mill originally stood at the southern end of Norbreck Road, which back in those days probably ran a few hundreds yards further to the west than it does today (i.e. out over the beach where, four hundred years ago, the cliff tops would have reached.)
Let’s have a photograph of said location (albeit off the edge of the cliffs in the foreground, and suspended in mid-air as the temporal crow flies):

It’s a reasonable theory under the circumstances, but we’d like put forward an alternative. (Well, we have to be different just for the sake of it.)
Unfortunately Norbreck Mill wasn’t the only thing that passed into Everill Herber’s hands. Six hundred quid’s worth of debt was passed along with it, so, along with other sections of the Rossall Estate, the mill was sold off (in true Fylde coast nepotistic fashion) and ended up in the ownership of Reginald Heber.
None of which, worse luck, brings us any closer to discovering the mill’s whereabouts. However, one helpful clue appears in Norman Cunliffe’s ‘A journey through Bispham, Norbreck and Little Bispham’: “The Norbreck Mill has been described as being situated on a mound whilst elsewhere there is another reference to Norbreck Mill Hill.”
'Situated on a mound’ suggests a peg mill.
For those not fully conversant with ancient windmills, peg mills were generally wooden affairs based on an early mediaeval Dutch design, the entire building being pivoted on a central post, or ‘peg’, around which it could revolve in order to face the wind. These mounds, circular embankments around the base of the mill, generally housed the mill’s machinery.
Norbreck Mill Hill, of course, suggests a hilltop.
Right, back to our history lesson.
Reginald Heber, as mentioned above, put his manservant (watch it), Robert Gaulter (a sixty year old Norbreckonian husbandman) in charge of said mill. Robert Gaulter died in 1672, leaving the mill in the capable hands of his son Richard who, unfortunately, also shuffled off this mortal coil one year later in 1673. Another year later still and Norbreck Mill found its way into the possession of Robert Brodbelt, or rather was in the process of finding its way out of Robert Brodbelt’s possession, because that was the year he kicked the bucket. The mill now, along with ‘Haybers Tenements’, was bequeathed to Robert Brodbelt’s son-in-law Richard Smithson.
Pay close attention to the ‘Haybers Tenements’ bit. Haybers Tenements were obviously named after the previously mentioned Everill Herber/Reginald Heber etc. In the Victorian period, the area of the cliffs between Bispham tram station and Norbreck Castle was known as ‘Eagburg’ (as mentioned by William Thornber, the Victorian antiquarian). The same stretch was also mentioned in the Blackburn Mail of 1795 as ‘the cliffs of Egbert’.
Was this a corruption of the Haybers Tenements?
It might have been.
It’s a bit tenuous, perhaps, but who can say?
Regardless of this, somewhere around the same time the mill finally seems to have run out of wind and given up the ghost. Of the two known millers in the Norbreck area in the 17th century (John Anyon of Great Bispham who died in 1681 and William Brodbelt) neither appeared to be connected to Norbreck Mill (or were even working as millers) in 1676, the time of the census, suggesting that the mill was well and truly out of business by this point.
By the middle of the eighteenth century, Alexander Singleton (somewhat confusingly of Poulton) inherited most of the former Brodbelt estate, which included the windmill site, from his brother Edmund Singleton. Haybers Fields were described in deeds pertaining to the Brodbelt estate as being situated in the southwest of Norbreck.
Right, that’s the important bit. You almost missed it, didn’t you? (I can’t say as I blame you. Even I’m having difficulty staying awake.)
The southwest of Norbreck! That’s the end of Norbreck Road, next to the castle, right?
Well, no…that’s wrong actually. That’s the extent of Norbreck nowadays, but originally the southwest corner of Norbreck was designated as Hesketh Avenue, a boundary that, despite being well and truly planted in Bispham today, was agreed upon by the Ordnance Survey back in Victorian times.
Let’s have a Victorian photograph of Hesketh Avenue then, just to get our bearings. (I know Hesketh Avenue well, having lived there many years ago, although I probably knew the Highlands pub better.)

Just to add to the confirmation of Norbreck’s extent back in those days, Alexander’s son Edmund inherited the estate in 1768 and bought up the rest of the Brodbelt lands, including Cradley Slack Farm (now opposite Sainsbury’s on the other side of Red Bank Road) and a field called Whinny at the end of Beaufort Avenue, all described as being at the southern end of Norbreck.

A quick photograph of Beaufort Avenue for you, and then we’ll move on:

So, now that we’ve established that the southern extremity of the Brodbelt Estate was Redbank Road, this suggests that Norbreck Mill originally stood on the cliffs, where the Haybers Tenements had originally stood, somewhere close to where the Bispham Tram shelter now stands. As far as we know Bispham never actually had its own mill, probably because this particular location was ideally situated to serve both communities.
Mystery solved (in our opinion at least).
Of course, if anybody out there believes they know different...

2009-11-16T11:49:00.000Z

Half a Denarii f’ me Bleedin’ Life Story?

2009-09-30T00:01:00.001+01:00

A short announcement (before we get on). Unfortunately (or possibly 'fortunately' depending on how you look at it) this will be my last posting on this board for the time being. (Sounds of thunderous applause echoing down the streets.)
No, I haven't fallen out with anyone this time. (At least, I don't think I have.)
And, no, I haven't run out of history or stuff to tell you. (The day I run out of things to gab about will be the day that...well...somebody else manages to get a word in edgeways.)
The simple fact of the matter is, I just haven't got enough time for all this at the moment. Between excavations, writing reports on said excavations, refurbishing my fisherman's cottage from top to bottom, and various other time consuming adventures, I've run out of hours.
So, for the time being I'm on sabbatical, or as an old departed friend of mine would have had it: "On hiatus".
I'm not sure when I'll be back (might be weeks, might be years...but I will return, you can bank on that), but for now the forum is still open for business and, of course, you catch up with me (not to mention the rest of the Wyre Archaeology mob) at Wyrefield Farm every third Wednesday of the month, 7.15 p.m. onwards in the evening.
Enough...let's crack on with the designated post:

Some time ago we posted an article on this board concerning the number of Roman artefacts discovered around the Fylde and Wyre. The posting was designed more to put those misanthropic local anti-history buffs (who claim that the Romans never ventured into our neck of the woods) in their proper place, rather than as a serious attempt to catalogue the whole of our known Roman history.
Towards the end of the posting, however, we also mentioned that we didn’t have enough space left to include the ridiculous amount of Roman coins unearthed around the district over the last couple of centuries.
It’s time to fill that gap.
Let’s start with one of the best known of our local hoards. (I said ‘hoards’ before we get any libellous comments!)
On September the third 1926, at the back of Hackensall Hall, about five hundred coins were discovered in a virtually disintegrated leather purse beneath a rock. They consisted of Valerian I (A.D. 253 – 259), Valerian II, Gallienus and Salonina, running chronologically through Claudius II to Tetricus II (A.D. 271 – 273), three of which are shown in the photograph below...I think.

We might be about to get done for copyright infringement with that photograph. I’m hoping that it’s one Neil took when we went so see them, but I could be wrong.
Whatever the case, the hoard was probably buried around A.D. 275, a time of political upheaval when Britain had joined forces with a rebel movement against Rome known as the Independent Empire of Gauls. Several portraits on the Hackensall coins reflected this.
About four hundred of them are now housed by the British Museum, the Harris Museum, the Storey Institute in Lancaster and Liverpool City Museum.
When we visited Blackpool’s Grundy Art Gallery (which has, or at least did have until recently, its own little museum upstairs) the curators turned up another large portion of them, which was rather excellent, and which is where, I assume, the photograph above was taken.
On the other side of the river, sticking with rebel coins for the moment, John Davis-Allen of Wyre Archaeology informed us recently that a friend of his had been metal detecting around Stanah and had discovered another rare Roman coin showing the face of a rebel leader rather than that of the emperor. The coin was so freshly minted that, according to those in the know at the British Museum (or wherever it was that he sent it to be analysed), there was a probably a mint somewhere in the area.
This theory is borne out by the even more recent discovery by Gary Thornton (Wyre Archaeology Treasurer) of another freshly minted Roman coin in the same general area. (We’re not going to tell you where because you need permission to metal detect these fields, and just in case you’re thinking of risking it anyway, I ought to add that the law treats metal detectorists pillaging fields where they’re not supposed to be mercilessly, resulting in fines and confiscation of equipment…so you have been warned.)
Anyhow, we have also scan of that particular coin (with no potential copyright problems attached this time):

Again, because of its excellent condition, the experts reckon that the coin was minted within a few months of it being lost.
But enough about that, let’s move on to our second hoard, almost as well known as the Hackensall coins.
Charles Preston and John Fairclough discovered this collection of coins on Preesall Hill in 1934 when they were opening up the sand quarry. As Fairclough recalled in the ‘Over Wyre Historical Journals’:

“We had quarried back about forty yards from the entrance and had removed the turf and soil to a depth of approximately ten inches. At this depth I picked up the first coin.”

Obviously, after realising that the coin was Roman, both men suddenly found a new and amplified interest in their otherwise boring job and had soon uncovered a further twenty-two coins.
The sand, incidentally, was later used to create the bowling greens at the Marine Hall in Fleetwood. We’re saying nothing.
At this point we were going to include a photograph of the sandpit on Preesall Hill, but, true to form, we couldn’t find one. (We have got one somewhere, we just don’t know where unfortunately.) So, how about a general photograph of the view from Preesall Hill itself, copyright Juliette Gregson, who took this image at the same time we took the one of the sandpit but who had the foresight to store her photographs on the Internet, unlike us?

Up river to Poulton now and there’s always been a certain amount of speculation that St Chad’s church was originally a Roman fortlet. The Danes Pad appears to have run close by and a ditch originally surrounded the churchyard.
Adding to the speculation, William Thornber (the Victorian Antiquarian) recalled two copper coins from the time of Hadrian being found close by.
In the same vicinity (and still on line with the legendary Danes Pad) in September of 1852 at the railway station on the Breck another coin, this time a Domitian, was unearthed. (At that period, we perhaps ought to point out, the station was situated at the bottom of the hill opposite, what is nowadays, the Civic Centre.)
A quick turn around and back up to Fleetwood for our next find, which is mentioned in Philip Graystone’s book ‘Walking Roman Roads in the Fylde and the Ribble Valley’. This time the discovery was of two Nero coins (54 A.D. to 68 A.D.) and one coin of Augustus (27 B.C. to 14 A.D.).
And, in 1968 at Leyburn Avenue, a bronze coin dated to 22 B.C. emerged from somebody’s back garden.
According to David Shotter of Lancaster University, in 1991 another Roman coin, this time a Nero dupondius dated to A.D. 64, was unearthed in the same general area.
Then there’s the coin that was found umpty-tumpty years ago in a garden on Fleetwood Road. (We’ve got a newspaper article about it somewhere…back in the 30s I think it was found…which, predictably we’ve misplaced right at the moment.)
According to an article by Terry Statham in ‘Treasure Hunting’ magazine:

“…we have a record of a hoard of coins being found when the old Mount Pavilion was replaced in 1902.”

(We mention this article in particular because our ‘History of the Wyre’ book receives a mention in it, along with Wyre Archaeology, which is always good.)
Sticking with the Fleetwood Peninsula, it’s time for another whacking great hoard…possibly two.
In 1840 almost 400 Roman denarii were discovered by workmen in a brickfield belonging to Mr Walmsley between Rossall Point and Fenny. According to Thornber the hoard consisted of Vespasian Titus, Nerva, Trajan, Hadrian, Sabina, Antonius Pious, Faustina and numerous others. About forty of them ended up in Thornber’s hands and the rest became the property of Peter Hesketh (founder of Fleetwood). After Hesketh declared himself bankrupt the coins were sold to Alderman Brown whose son donated them to the Harris Museum in Preston.
Henry Fishwick, author of ‘The History of Poulton-le-Fylde’ published in 1885, noticed that the coins donated to the Harris bore no resemblance to those recorded by Thornber. In fact Thornber hadn’t even mentioned the Flavius Victor and Eugenius coins that the Harris had catalogued, which was highly unusual as such coins are extremely rare.
In 1887, however, W. Thompson Watkin also wrote about the discrepancy, reaching the conclusion that:

“...two hoards were found at the same place, one of the Higher, the other of the Lower Empire.”

Naturally we went to see the coins in the Harris, which were all brought out to us in sealed trays that, by the time they’d finished, had created a toppling tower on the desk.
We didn’t photograph them. We thought it best if they just put them back again and left it at that. Instead here’s an Ordnance Survey map (copyright infringement almost absolutely certain here) showing where they were found.

That’s under the golf course nowadays, so if you’re going to go out digging don’t say we haven’t warned you about the consequences.
Right, let’s not forget Blackpool in this lot (as if we could).
Just south of the Pleasure Beach, in 1907, at the junction of Clifton Drive and Burlington Road West (albeit before those roads existed) a Roman coin horde was discovered buried in the sand dunes. Alongside the coins, as marked on the 1911 Ordnance Survey map, were the remains of a building.
Three of the coins (nobody ever bothered to record exactly how many were excavated so they might represent the entire horde) are, once again, housed at the Grundy Art Gallery where, if you’re very polite, the curators will dig them out for you to have a look at. They’re a bit on the small side, which was why we drew the following picture of them rather than take a photograph (because our camera’s not very clever when it comes to macro shots).

Allen Clarke mentions them in his ‘Story of Blackpool’ in the following manner:

“These are three specimens of Roman Coins, now preserved in the Museum at Revoe Library, discovered in the Blackpool district. They are each three quarters of an inch in diameter and one eighth of an inch thick. They were struck at Alexandria, the first two during the reign of Gallienus (A.D. 259), and the third during the reign of Claudius II (A.D. 268)”

Unfortunately, archaeology being low on the political agenda in Victorian Blackpool, to the best of our knowledge no record of the wall against which they were buried was ever made, other than the few lines on the Ordnance Survey.
Clarke also mentions that a certain Mr. Willacy also discovered two coins of the Emperor Adrian at the ruins of the fortress at Dowbridge.
Michelle decided to check through some old back issues of the Evening Gazette (courtesy of Phil Barker – Master Butcher) to see what other Roman coins might have come to light and soon discovered the following reader’s letter:

“Dear Seasider,

I have read about the old coins that have been found, and have just looked up two old ones that were found on the Blackpool cliffs. An expert on these matters told me the copper coin was minted between 17 B.C. and 25 A.D. during the reign of Augustus. The Bronze coin is of Julius Caesar period and both are in very fair condition.”

And in the Evening Gazette dated Tuesday the 10th of August 1937 we find the following:

“An interesting find of a roman coin has been made at South Shore. Mr E. Creed of Horncliffe Road, whilst hoeing potatoes in his garden, turned up an ancient silver coin, proved to be a denarius of Julius Caesar, of the date 44 B.C. Parts of the coin are worn, but it is possible to decipher some of the letters and the design on it.”

And so on and so forth. I’m sure you’re starting to get the idea now.
Obviously this little lot doesn’t collate every single Roman coin ever found in the district, but the more mathematically inclined amongst our readers will have already worked out that we’re into the thousands by now, so perhaps it’s time we brought the article to a close.

Axes and Hammers -- Pilling’s Prehistoric Legacy: Part Two

2009-09-24T00:01:00.000+01:00

So, in the last part of this article – doesn’t that sound impressive? This article…as though it’s all officious and legal like -- where was I? Oh yes, in the last part of this article we discussed some of the axes and adzes and bits and bobs of Neolithic/Bronze Age paraphernalia that have been unearthed around Pilling over the years.
We didn’t mention all of them, however. More have been discovered at Crookabreast Farm, Greengate Farm, Friars Hill, Ashtons Farm, Eskham House Farm, Kentucky Farm, Pea Hall Lane, Rough Holme Farm, Manor House Farm and the Bowers, amongst other places.
Pilling was a busy old place back in the Stone Age.
In fact there were so many axes in use back then that our Neolithic ancestors (most of them still going under the same five or six Pilling family names we all know and cherish nowadays no doubt) ended up chopping down all the forests that covered the area. That’s why Pilling is basically a bald and rather boggy place nowadays fit only for snorkelling sheep. (There’s a message in there somewhere, but I’m buggered if I can work out what.)
Onto hammers then, another important part of Neolithic Pilling-man’s tool kit. Hammers were used for all sorts of purposes, from countersinking poles to making more axes so that more trees could be chopped down and turned into poles to countersink.
Two perforated stone hammers were discovered at Pea Hall Wood, and another, illustrated below, turned up in the vicinity of Bradshaw Lane. (This one’s currently on display in the Fylde Country Life Museum, unless Oliver the sheep’s eaten it by now.)

It probably goes without saying, although I’m going to say it anyhow, the holes in the centre of these perforated stones would have originally accommodated their handles.
More hammers have been discovered at Greengate Farm, Bonds Farm, Birks Farm, Eagland Hill Farm, Hardman’s Wood, the Bowers and, in 1959, two were uncovered simultaneously at Eskham House Farm. I can only assume that Pilling was an extremely noisy place to live back then as well.
In the last part of this article (still sounds impressive) we also mentioned adzes, which, sometimes, were used to create boats. (There is a segue here.) At Well House Farm in 1926 an ancient canoe (told you) was uncovered whilst the farmer was digging a well. True to form the remains have now been lost despite the best efforts, in 1951, of the Pilling Historical Society who re-excavated the area but only uncovered a few scattered fragments of wood.
Now I know what you’re thinking. Canoes, in Pilling?
Yes, well these weren’t the white water rapid variety. They would have been used mainly for just getting around and/or trading locally. Don’t forget that, back in those days, Pilling was mainly swamp and forest, with plenty of streams meandering through it.
Several other Neolithic canoes have been uncovered around Lancashire such as those at Marton Mere (which were actually coracles, but nobody’s reading this any more so who cares?) and Preston Dock. The Preston dock canoe is in the Harris Museum if you want to take a look.
The other way to cross a Neolithic swamp, of course, was by wooden causeway.
Here’s what William Thornber wrote about the ‘Kate’s Pad’ in 1837:

“It is called Kate’s Pad from a tradition of the country people that two maiden ladies of that name constructed it to gratify an inveterate love of snuff which could not be obtained from any nearer mart than the county town.”

The tradition was wrong. Kate’s Pad was crossed in several places by the trunks of ancient trees placing it firmly prehistoric times.
In 1950 an excavation was carried out at Moss Cottage Farm and seventy yards of the track were traced.
The section illustrated below is on display at the Fylde Country Life Museum (upstairs on the balcony in the main section…in the Pilling Historic Society bit).

Kate’s Pad consisted of oak trees up to seventeen feet in length, split into three and laid on rushes. Some of the boards/planks (such as the one above) had large holes bored into one end suggesting that they might have been recycled from previous constructions, although a far more likely explanation would be that the holes were used to attach ropes to so that the planks could be dragged across ground.
Whatever the case, in the 1970s another section of the track was discovered at North Woods Hill Farm and in 1979 a further section unearthed at Eagland Hill. More wooden track ways were also discovered at Ashtons Farm in the 1930s and Chathill Farm in the 1950s.
Now…we were supposed to be talking about hammers in this section, weren’t we? Somewhere along the lines I appear to have been distracted. (What else is new?) So, hammers then – take a look at this:

Now, that might not look like much (because, as we’ve already explained, illustrations and photographs just do don’t do this sort of stuff any justice) but that’s a hammer that is.
Or, at any rate, it’s some sort of pounding device.
It was unearthed at Nateby and was probably used in the construction of the Nateby pile settlement (or whatever it was). What you can’t see in the picture are the carefully hollowed out indentations, the exact size and shape to accommodate a person’s fingers in order to maintain a sturdy grip on the object.
It’s now on display in the Fylde Country Life Museum…worth checking out I reckon.
At which point I’m suddenly going to stop this article for no particular reason other than I’ve run out of steam.

Axes and Hammers -- Pilling’s Prehistoric Legacy: Part One

2009-09-17T00:01:00.000+01:00

Pilling’s a good place for ancient history. There’s a lot of it about, lurking under the sods, being trampled by sheep and courting couples, tucked into the corners of meandering dykes (please avoid the obvious comments, will you, and remember that this is still officially a family site).
Fortunately, you see, back in the day, a certain gentleman called Sobee produced a book all about the history of Pilling, and it somehow managed to catch the imagination of the local farmers.
We’ve tried to do the same with the rest of the Fylde and Wyre, but I suspect we’ve failed miserably.
As a result of Sobee’s scribbling, however, farmers around Pilling nowadays tend to pay a lot more attention to the stuff their ploughing up than other local landowners.
And what stuff would that be? Well take a look at this lot.

Somewhere between Cogie Hill and Black Lane Head the ancient stone axe illustrated above (measuring nine and a half inches in length for those who need to know such measurements) was discovered alongside the adze illustrated below.

Incidentally, in case you’re wondering why once again we’ve opted for illustrations rather than photographs, there are a couple of good reasons.
Firstly, our camera is naff and only produces blurred shots of anything less than three feet in height.
Secondly, we’re recycling this lot from our ‘History of the Wyre’ book. (We’re very environmentally conscious.)
Anyhow, getting back to that axe at the top of the article, it was made from partly polished igneous rock originating, like the adze, in the Cumbria (although, of course, there were no county boundaries back when the tools were first fashioned).
What do you mean, what’s an adze? That’s an adze in the illustration, what does it look like?
Okay, adzes were used to hollow out boats and turn soil and stuff. The Cogie Hill adze was made from volcanic tuff, a form of pumice, originating, as we’ve already sort of hinted, at Langdale Pike in Cumbria. Langdale was apparently an important centre for quarrying stone at the time (that being the Neolithic period, of course).
Just to fill the reader in on the details a bit more, a pole would have been stuffed through the hole in the middle of the adze and fastened in place with some sort of rope. Its operator would then stand astride a felled trunk with the stone head pointing towards the ground. Then he’d swing his tool back and forth (watch it…there will be people banned from this board if I find anything offensive in those comments boxes) using the handle for leverage.
Here’s another axe (illustrated below) that was discovered at Bone Hill in 1940.

In case you’re thinking, “How do they know that’s an axe? It looks like any other lump of rock to me,” the truth is, you have to see these things to appreciate them.
Illustrations, even photographs, don’t do the napping and the fine chiselled edges any justice. If you want my advice, you should get in touch with a museum that houses such artefacts and get a private viewing. These ancient implements need to groped and fondled to be fully understood. (I’m warning you lot. We’ve had enough lewd comments around here of late and I know the sort of filthy minds you’ve got.)
Okay, it’s a small, possibly Neolithic, possibly Bronze Age, hand-held axe although, to the best of my knowledge, it’s never been properly dated. The last time we looked it was being kept in a drawer in some deep, dark dungeon beneath the Harris Museum. So now you know who to pester if fancy a grope.
Two more axes were unearthed at Bradshaw Lane Farm. Here’s one of them, six inches in length (seriously…there will be excommunications if you’re not careful) and made from dark, hard mudstone. (Go and look it up if you don’t know what it is.)

And here’s the second, again Neolithic, only this time made of flint.

The nearest flint, it’s worth mentioning, would have been in North Wales suggesting, once again, that trading routes were established by this period. You want more? Of course you do, you’re gagging for it. However you’re going to have to wait until part two because I want my dinner.

How to be an Archaeologist: The Radial Contour Survey

2009-09-10T00:01:00.000+01:00

We’ve written before about close contour surveys and how important they are in archaeologing circles. Without them test pits and trenches couldn’t be accurately placed, the terrain would be less easy to understand and spot levelling during excavations would be rendered almost meaningless, reducing other records, such as the stratigraphic matrix, to a comparatively ineffective load of old codswallop.
In short, without a close contour survey an archaeological dig amounts to little more than treasure hunting.

We’re not going to rehash the detailed methodology of contour surveying here. You can look up our previous articles on the subject if you’ve forgotten. However, by way of a brief recap, a baseline is created (generally bisecting the highest points of the site, if possible) and a series of evenly spaced ‘ribs’ established at right angles along it. The dumpy is then set over the individual ‘spine’ pegs and the stadia staff moved along the ‘ribs’ until the relevant contour is located. After this it’s a simple job of recording the distance from the baseline to the relevant location before moving on to the next contour. Once collated all the information is transferred to the finished map.
Last time we wrote about this subject, however, we forget to include a blank record sheet for anybody wanting to conduct their own survey who couldn’t be bothered creating one for themselves. Now might be a good time to correct this omission.
Let’s start off with a combined ‘Benchmark Record’ and ‘Spine Record’. (We’re being incredibly generous here. By rights we should be getting squillions of quid in copyright royalties for the amount of work we’ve put into these things, but we’d rather forego our fees and make sure that bone-idle amateur archaeologists out there don’t go round buggering up important sites.)

As always, click on the image above for the full-sized version. Rotate it 90 degrees before you print it up and it should fit perfectly on an A4 piece of paper.
Next up we have the ‘Ribs’ record sheet, again designed to fit on size A4. If you’re having difficulty filling these in correctly then please refer to our previous posting on this topic.

There are times during most contour surveys when a simple ‘spine’ and ‘rib’ model won’t suffice, when a feature runs almost parallel to the ribs, for example, and the distance between the spine pegs is insufficient to capture the sudden changes in the contours. At other times, when an area of the site is full of humps and crannies and stuff that fall between the ‘ribs’, again the baseline method is unsuitable.
(Is everybody following this? I’m having difficulty myself here. Comments explaining back to me in proper, understandable English what I’ve just written would be welcome.)
At times like these the ‘Radial Contour Survey’ comes into its own.
Now, observant dumpy owners out there will already be aware that just below the level itself is an adjustable dial for measuring angles, as shown in somewhat blurred photograph below.

As a rule, radial surveys come into effect either at the end of, or part way along, an already established baseline. The principal mechanics of the radial survey are basically the same as those for the ‘ribs’. The dumpy is set up over the relevant ‘Spine’ peg, aligned with the baseline, and the ‘Angle-o-meter’ set to nought degrees. Then the level itself is turned relative to the dial, to establish the first angle of sight. The size of this angle depends on the complexity of the features you’re surveying, and how bothered you can be with the finer details.
Using the usual stadia staff and tape measure method, a ‘Radial Rib’ is marked out, the relevant contours/ spot levels taken, and the dumpy rotated by the same number of degrees again clockwise for the next set of figures. Eventually enough data will have been collected to transfer the results to the finished map.
Does this make sense?
I hope it does because even I’m starting to get bored of it now.
Anyhow, all of these measurements need recording, and because, once again, the chances are you can’t be bothered designing your own ‘Radial Record’ sheet, here’s one we made earlier.

Now go out there and make sure you do all this in a responsible, professional fashion, like what we do.
Thank you for subscribing to Harris & Hughes Educational Facilities. We hope you have enjoyed your sleep.

Some Iddy Widdy Biddies Caught in Stone

2009-09-02T08:52:00.000+01:00

Come with us now as we stumble backwards, beyond the abyss of human history, spiralling uncontrollably through the evolution of mankind, descending helplessly past the realms of the dinosaurs, as the convoluted vortex of chronological sequence draws us ever on towards…
On second thoughts, sod that. It’s costing too much in special effects. Let’s go for a walk on Fleetwood beach instead.

That’s Fleetwood beach, look, those two angular patches amongst the greenery being the model yacht lake, with the River Wyre emptying into Morecambe Bay in the background, and beyond that Knott End, all courtesy of Frank and his aerial photography.
But look closer!
You’ll have to look closer than that.
Well go on! Get your nose stuck right into the beach, otherwise you won’t be able to see what we found one day amongst a small patch of otherwise insignificant pebbles.

Any idea what these are? (No smutty answers either!) Yes, obviously they’re pebbles. We can all see that. But what are those weird, half-inflated balloon-like markings on them?
I’ll give you a clue.
They’re fossils.
Too much of clue that, wasn’t it? Never mind, they are fossils whatever the case, small, single-celled ancient marine creatures that once shimmied and rolled their pointless tracks across the sea floor, doing whatever it was that single-celled sea creatures millions of years ago actually did with their time. (Watching Coronation Street and playing Trivial Pursuits probably.)
Some single celled organisms from the dawn of life were quite large by comparison to our own mini-hattifatners, some of the fossils having been discovered in various oceans reaching the size of your average grape. They went in for big and blocky and basic back then. Like cell-phones. Single cell phones, if you like.
Some of the fat ones are still around today, going under the name of Gromia Sphaerica, or the giant deep-sea protist, although I’d like to see them try to spell it.
There are probably quite a few of the other type, the iddy biddy single-celled fossils, on Fleetwood beach if you want look for them. Some aren’t quite so blobby and rubbish either.
Have a gander at this.

Now that, dear friends, is a fossilised shrimp! Or possibly a bit of fern, it’s tricky to say. It’s ancient anyhow, a perfect imprint preserved in stone for hundreds of thousands of millennia, smashed from the rocks in which it was petrified by pounding waves and then hurled angrily around the sea bed for thousands of years, until finally being washed ashore at Fleetwood, where we discovered it, took it home and stuck it on the window ledge in the bog.
Here are a couple more slightly advanced fossils we’ve found on the beach in our time.

The little one on the left is what’s known as a crinoid, or sea lily. They have mouths at the top of their…er…tube bits, surrounded by a number of feeding arms. In fossil form they’re usually broken into pieces (like the one we found) and date back to the mid-Palaeozoic era. (A very, very long time ago.)
Our late friend and archaeological hero Headlie Lawrenson found a fossilised crinoid once, as well. It was in the stream at Broadfleet Bridge, lying amongst a pile of Roman pottery fragments and a wolf’s tooth. What it was doing there is anybody’s guess.
The one on the right is…well to be honest we’re not sure. It might be the Geoff Capes of the crinoid world, to be honest, although we suspect that it’s a fossilised bone belonging to some marine mammal such as a sea cow many millions of years now deceased.
Finally, we have this.

Now that’s a trilobite, which means it’s got ‘three lobes’. (Bet it was popular at parties, and no doubt managed to pull a few muscles in its day.) Trilobites are now extinct but first appeared in the Early Cambrian period (about 542 million years ago) and continued swimmingly, so to speak, throughout the Palaeozoic era before disappearing completely about 250 million years ago.
It’s very rare to find one of these in Fleetwood, so we were well chuffed. We discovered this one in the hippy shop on Lord Street for the very reasonable price of two and a half quid

A Smorgasbord of Roman Artefacts: Part Three

2009-08-26T00:01:00.000+01:00

Let’s get straight back into the thick of it. We’ve lots of ground to cover and it’s doubtful whether we’ll ever clear the whole lot.
In 2005 Brian Pinney brought a large chunk of soft chalky pottery into Wyre Archaeology that he’d discovered in his garden at Preesall. It was instantly recognisable as part of a Roman mortarium (which is basically a pestle and mortar) similar to the fragment we’d excavated from Bourne Hill earlier that same year (only bigger). Interestingly William Thornber speculated over a century and a half before that Preesall Hill might be the site of a Roman fort. Want to see our own (somewhat smaller than Brian Pinney’s I must admit, but I’m not proud) mortarium fragment? Tough, you’re going to anyway.

We shouldn’t forget at this point that, when the annexes were being built at Victoria Hospital, the upper half of a Roman beehive quern was unearthed. We’ve mentioned this artefact before, along with the fact that it’s now housed in the Grundy Art Gallery (at least it was last time we looked), and on that occasion we also supplied you with a drawing of it, so if you want to remind yourself of what it looked like you’ll just have to check back through the Roman postings on this board. (Check the right hand column…everything’s categorised for ease of use.)
We’ve even unearthed Romano-British religious iconography around these parts. In the eighteenth century two figurines of the little represented deity Mars Nodens were unearthed at Cockersands. Mars Nodens was a sea god connected with healing, the figures indicating that the remains of an associated temple might still be hanging around near by.
Then there are the “…two brass pans and an ancient measure” discovered in the peat not far from Fox Hall, as recorded in ‘Porter’s History of the Fylde’. These artefacts, as you’ve probably gathered, were Roman and were originally used for salt panning. Unfortunately nobody knows where they are nowadays, although we do have a drawing of a similar saltpan for you…one that we produced earlier, if you like.

Salt was used as a form of currency by the Romans (which is where the word salary originates) and exported all over the World.
Interestingly, in the same location where the pans were discovered, a 1786 drawing of Blackpool seafront shows what it purports to be an ‘Ancient Roman Building’. Exactly what this building was, and where it’s gone to nowadays, are no doubt the subjects of a lot of conjecture amongst various local historians.
Salt panning wasn’t the only alternative employment to the military, though. Farming was very popular. Have a look at this:

That’s an aerial view of a Romano-British farm over at Nateby, is that! How do we know? Because some boffin at London University or somewhere once told us it was, that’s how. There’s a lot of this sort of stuff around at Nateby. There are a couple more Roman farms at Curlew and Eskham as well by the looks of things.
It’s been estimated that around four thousand troops in the Fylde and Wyre needed constant supplies, so, coupled with foreign trade, large amounts of money could be made from these Romano-British farms most of which were owned and/or run by retired Roman soldiers from Ribchester.
Speaking of which…

That, in case you’re wondering, is a full-faced helmet discovered at Ribchester (now on display at the British Museum…I think). Strictly speaking Ribchester with its fort and its bathhouse and what have you, is outside the Wyre and Fylde (although only just), but they’re close enough (and so inextricably linked) to warrant a mention in this article I reckon.
As you’ve probably gathered by now we could go on like this all day. Fortunately, however, we’re not going to. As any treasure hunter knows the pinnacle (and possibly the rarest) of all roman artefacts, are, of course coins. And when it comes to the Fylde and Wyre the amount of Roman currency that’s been discovered here over the years goes into overdrive.
But we’ll save that for another article. (Quite a long one I suspect.) For now, suffice it to say, that whoever it was who was making claims about the Romans having bypassed out secluded corner of Blighty, really ought to conduct a bit more research into the subject.
Incidentally, if you have any more Roman artefacts to add to this list (and I suspect that I’ve missed out loads of them here) feel free to post them in the comments boxes below or over at the forum

A Smorgasbord of Roman Artefacts: Part Two

2009-08-19T00:01:00.000+01:00

In our rebuttal of those spurious accusations levelled by local historians who shall remain nameless (mainly because we can’t remember who they are, but that’s beside the point) that the Romans never came anywhere near the Fylde and Wyre, we’ve already covered some of the larger Roman artefacts around the district (several roads, an altar and a fort), but these are as nothing compared to the number of smaller discoveries that have come to light over the years.
Let’s kick off this section with three copper alloy brooches unearthed at a metal detecting rally in Nateby in 2004.

There are photographs of these things somewhere (on the ‘Portable Antiquities’ website, if memory serves) but we weren’t sure about the copyright so we’ve drawn them up for you here.
Right, what do we have then? Well, one of them is ‘trumpet-style’ and dated circa A.D. 50, another is a Langton Down type, circa A.D. 15 to A.D. 60 and the third is another ‘trumpet-type’ circa 55 A.D. to 100 A.D. All, please note, respectably Roman.
Sticking with brooches for the moment, in 1996 a silver one was unearthed in Pilling, although we’ve been sworn to secrecy about its location and current owner, so you’ll just have to take our word for it. Having said that, we can provide you with a drawing of it…er…such as it is.

Yes, we know it’s a bit lacking in detail, but it was the best we could do under the circumstances.
Right, you want some military stuff next, do y’? Fair enough, William Thornber in his ‘Historical and Descriptive Account of Blackpool and its Neighbourhood’ reckons that:

“The late Mr Smith of Poulton informed me that he remembered a cuirass being found on the banks of the Wyre but, the children having converted it into a cart to collect manure, the embossed work was defaced and being thought of no value was thus lost.”

A cuirass, in case you’re wondering, was basically the upper-torso armour commonly used by Roman soldiers and the one described by Thornber would probably have looked something like this (only with a couple of grubby snot-nosed kids inside it):

A large medal of Germanicus was also discovered in a garden at the back of Poulton market place.
Then there were the Roman spearheads found in Stalmine Moss and Pilling in the 1840s, and a Roman brass umbro (that’s the central part of a shield) at Wardleys Creek in 1850.
On the subject of Roman military finds, we really shouldn’t forget the various bits and pieces that came up in a field in Poulton…high status military stuff that when we mentioned them on this board a few months ago we ended up getting a friend of ours into serious bother so we had to pull the article. However, these finds do exist (although we’re not allowed to say where it seems) suggesting that perhaps a mile-fort attached to the Danes’ Pad might still be in situ somewhere beneath the aforementioned field.
On the more domestic side, in 1823 a Roman wine strainer emerged from Stalmine Moss. (True to form it’s now been lost, presumably melted down for scrap or something, although William Thornber did draw up a sketch of it, which I’ve currently also lost…no doubt it’s under the bed somewhere.)
In 1971 at Broadfleet Stream in Stakepool, Ron Melling and our late colleague Headlie Lawrenson discovered several fragments of Samian Ware, a type of red, shiny pottery manufactured in Gaul (more was discovered at Trashy Hill in the 1990s) along with some pale green Roman glass, a Roman nail, a silver spoon, several fragments belonging to two large Roman bowls and a various bits and pieces belonging to a collection of cooking pots. (All of which, incidentally, can nowadays be found in the Fylde Country Life Museum.)
At Skippool in 1996, and at Pilling Mill in the 1920s, amphorae were discovered. Amphorae were used to transport liquids, such as fish oils or wines, around the empire. More Roman pottery and glass has also been discovered at Rawcliffe.
As you’d naturally expect, yet more fragments of Samian ware (this time decorated) have been discovered over the years at Dowbridge. We’ve illustrated one of the fragments below. (See…we think of everything.)

Also at Dowbridge in 1800 a Mr Willacy discovered a shield boss in a small stream adjoining New England Spring. Suggestions of votive offerings to the goddess Minerva were, of course, put forward.
The original boss is now housed by the British Museum. In fact, we’ve got a photograph of it for you. (I can’t remember where we obtained the photograph off hand, so we’re probably plagiarising somebody somewhere. Apologies for that.)

Forty years later a Mr. Loxham (Victorians had a habit of not recording Christian names) discovered, in the same area, a Roman urn filled with large bones, pieces of skull and an amulet. (Presumably this was the site of some long lost burial plot.)
Is it just me, or is this article starting to go on a bit? It’s not just me? Fair enough then…we’d better call time for another few days before continuing our trawl through all the non-existent evidence of Romans in our area.

A Smorgasbord of Roman Artefacts: Part One

2009-08-12T00:01:00.001+01:00

I read somewhere recently, in some local history book or other -- possibly on the Internet…I’ve got a lousy memory when it comes to retaining utter rubbish -- that there was no evidence for the Romans ever having been near the Fylde and Wyre -- ever!
Now, occasionally, I must admit, I have some difficulty convincing people about certain aspects of our local history that might be considered a bit off the beaten track. However, even my most ardent sparring partners would be hard pushed to agree with the statement above, even if it was in a book, in black and white, with footnotes and authoritarian italics and everything. In fact I’d go so far as to say that I’ve never heard such an erroneous pile of sputum since Elton John admitted to the press back in the 1970s that he was attracted to curvaceous women.
With that in mind, here’s some of the evidence that, apparently, doesn’t exist.
Let’s start with this.

Now that is a Roman altar dedicated (as far as we can tell) to three mother goddesses, currently kept at St. John’s Church in Lund. It was found on the surface of the Ribchester to Dowbridge road, the first of our local Roman roads that don’t exist. (We’ve got quite a few more.) All altar of this sort clearly indicates that a Roman shrine/temple was in the area.
Speaking of Dowbridge, how does a Roman fort grab you? It’s been excavated and everything, although nowadays there’s a housing estate on top of it. Fortunately, Frank Smith (Wyre Archaeology Committee Member for Aerial Reconnaissance) happens to live in one of the houses, so here’s a photograph of a non-existent amphorae handle emerging from his flowerbed.

Just in case you’re thinking ‘That looks more like the handle of a pair of old garden shears to me’, here’s another photograph of the fragment once it had been excavated and cleaned. The image below it is that of a section of Roman mortarum also dug up in Frank’s back garden.

To be honest, Frank’s got loads of this stuff – far too much for one article in fact -- so we’d better move on. Before we do, however, a quick summary of the various stages of construction involved in Dowbridge Fort might be in order.
So, phase one consisted of a simple Agricolan fort, reckoned to have been constructed as part of the Roman military advancement northwards through Brigante territory around the mid first century.
Phase two saw the basic camp transformed into a fortlet or signal station. During the revamping process the defensive ditches were re-cut. (We strongly suspect that Dowbridge fort was part of the much larger system of defences stretching right around the coast to Fleetwood, and then on towards Lancaster, to be honest, but we’re dealing with facts here rather than speculation, so forget we mentioned that.)
Phase three took place around the start of the second century, when a larger fort was built on the site of its earlier incarnations. By the middle of the second century, however, it had been abandoned. Some historians have suggested that it was demoted to a simple storage depot in later life.
Right, we mentioned a few moments ago that the Lund altar was discovered on the surface of the Roman road from Ribchester to Dowbridge. There are, of course, other Roman roads in the district. There are two running more or less north south along the Pennines, for example, both more than amply recorded in Philip Graystone’s ‘Walking Roman Roads in the Fylde and Ribble Valley’. (If you don’t already own a copy, go and buy one. It’s an excellent book.)
At Forton Hall we can even find our own Roman milestone…unless, of course, the following photograph just shows my thumb looking a bit grey and weathered in front of the camera lens.

These are the best documented of our local Roman roads, of course. There’s also the Danes’ Pad, much disputed despite the large number of Roman artefacts unearthed over the centuries along its route. However, if it’s authentically excavated Roman roads (even if they are a bit more obscure) that you’re after, how about the Romano-British route from Nateby to Bourne, via Wardleys Creek and Stanah, as partially dug by the Pilling Historic Society in 1995 and confirmed in October 2003 when two Roman denarii were discovered lying on its surface.
That was Romano-British, as we’ve just mentioned, but there’s another Roman road proper following Highgate Lane in Stalmine from Stainall towards Preesall, where Wyre Archaeology excavated a section in 2008. (And if you’re going to argue with the good folks at Wyre Archaeology then you’d better buy some expensive boxing gloves.)

Yes, okay, I know you can’t see much of the road itself in the photograph, but if you want the full details you’ll just have to buy a copy of our 2008 excavation reports, won’t you? (Check out the link in the column on the right hand side of this board. Or if you’re one of our American readers, try Amazon Com. It’s amazing where our books turn up nowadays.)
Another Roman road appears to have run from Dowbridge fort, through, or at least close to, Wrea Green, towards St. Anne’s where it turned abruptly north and followed the coastline up through Blackpool. In 1893 the Manchester Guardian reported the discovery by workmen laying a new drain near St. Anne’s Road West, of the remains of this road lying some twelve and a half feet below the present one. It measured thirteen feet across and consisted of split stones laid in cement, eighteen inches thick.
Other Roman roads (or at least sections of them) have been variously discovered at Street, Preesall, Fleetwood, Tootle Hall, Hambleton, Skippool, Whinney Heys, Garstang, along the top of Hayshaw Fell (the photograph below shows that last one) and numerous other places around the Fylde and Wyre. By all accounts it was a busy old place back in the Roman times.

Don’t tell me you can’t see it. It is there, beneath the heather, leaving its imprint on the landscape if you stick your archaeology glasses on and look at it properly.
So, there’s no evidence for the Roman occupation in the Fylde and Wyre, is there? Well, I reckon that lot’s not bad for a start, and, to be honest, we’ve only just scratched the surface. But we’ve also run out of space, so the rest will have to wait until next time.

Outside the Wyre: My Own Backyard

2009-08-09T19:50:00.009+01:00

Before I begin, let me welcome Brian back to his site, and say a fond farewell, probably, with a last post. Since I may be outta here, let me begin by digging at his nibs, and pointing out something here... In his post, "How to be an Archaeologist: Codes of Conduct Regarding Small Finds" Brian gives us a picture of WA, with the caption "Various members of Wyre Archeology standing around watching Carlo carefully extract a green toy soldier(circa 1965)from the trench.

Now, look carefully at the following cartoon which I did several years ago, and sent to Brian in a book as a gift.

I leave it to you, the reader, to draw your own conclusions as to where Brian gets his best jokes.

Now, on to the post:

HISTORY (or Herstory) is everywhere, including your own backyard. In my case, it was my front yard, as I discovered while looking at all the weeding that I needed to do along the front curb. I saw what looked like a piece of dirty flint, so I picked it up and stuck it in my pocket for later. I have learned that what looks like a rock might actually be an artifact after a good washing, and in this case, was right.

Honestly, I don’t know what it is. In my former home of New Jersey I have found at least a dozen such objects of this size, which I believe are true ‘arrow’ heads... stone tips for Native American arrows.

However, this one has an odd tip, as you can see. The tip has been carefully shaped to a fine curved point. Now, I would probably dismiss this in my ignorance as a fluke, except for the fact that of the several ‘arrowheads’ I found in NJ, one piece resembles this one quite closely! In fact, that one shows a long fine tip that appears very deliberately shaped. Both are of similar sizes and shapes, although they were found hundreds of miles apart, which suggests to me that they are deliberately made tools.

Why the odd shape and fine tip? Were they some kind of drill, needle, or other pointy tool used for crafting? I don’t know.

Honestly, I’ve seen very little about Native American stone tools on this scale. Most places display beautifully crafted arrow or spear points that are usually anywhere from 2 to 4 inches long. Maybe museums feel that such small tools, even though skillfully made, would not appeal to the public? Maybe Archeoligists don’t feel these tools are worthy of consideration? Again, I don’t have an answer. I’ve read about such tools, and true arrow heads, but haven’t seen many examples.

I know what they are only because I’ve found several in my old backyard, and after careful examination it is easy to see that they are deliberately made tools, and crafted quite well. Their function is usually easy to see, as some have blunt tips for stunning birds, and some have sharp tips for felling rabbits and squirrels.
And then there are the anomalies like the one I found in my new front yard.

Hopefully there are answers out there somewhere. Meanwhile, the artifacts, as well as the earthworks, mounds, and other sites left by the Native Americans, leave us to wonder. We can only guess at their purposes, really. In some cases the purpose seems obvious, as with a blunt arrowhead, or a burial mound. In others, we may never know.

And that is part of the wonder and mystery that can be found when we take the time to look for, and contemplate, the ancient past.

Cheers, JOHN :0)

Signing back in...

2009-08-07T08:37:00.004+01:00

Good morning Fylde and Wyre (and Ohio or some-other such place it appears) Antiquarian related folks.
Yes...I'm back on-line, after a fashion.
A quick thanks to John for keeping the troops entertained in my absence. (To be honest, he'll probably have to keep them entertained for a bit longer yet. There's about eight automatic weekly postings to go before I need to write some more, but I've had some unpleasant family news this week that's knocked me for six so I'm not sure when I'll be in the mood to take up the reins again.)
Incidentally, I have a new e-mail address, which can be found under my profile over at the forum. Unfortunately I've lost my original Wyre Archaeology contact list, so if you want to be re-added then drop me a line at the new addy and I'll do my best.
Er...right...that's about it for now. (Brief...which is always a blessing, eh?)

How to be an Archaeologist: Codes of Conduct Regarding Small Finds

2009-08-05T00:01:00.000+01:00

There are certain Dos and Don’ts when it comes to small finds (otherwise known as Portable Antiquities) that might be worth mentioning. Some are more obvious than others, but we’ll run the gamut nonetheless.
Firstly, never remove a small find from a trench until it has been properly photographed, drawn up, sniffed, analysed, tasted by the local sheep, recorded and catalogued.

Small finds should be stored somewhere dark and dry (in the room over the top of the museum in our case, the floor of which is nowadays starting to bulge downwards with the amount of worthless rubble we’ve hidden up there over the years) in separate, sealed plastic bags, clearly labelled.
Said bags need puncturing with air holes. Objects that are unable to breathe tend to sweat profusely (imagine Lee Evans stuck in a greenhouse) and, in more fragile cases, turn into the sort of mushy gloop you’d find if you bit into a chrysalis. Obviously don’t make the holes too big, otherwise all the stuff might drop out. (I said some of these were obvious. Bear with me. The subject needs covering regardless.)
All portable antiquities bags should contain the following information on them (written clearly and precisely) for reasons that would be clear to slime mould or even the average Fleetwood jet-skier: Site Code, Trench Number, Date, Context Number, Catalogue Number and a brief description of what the object actually is.

This same information should be included on any scans produced for the excavation report, along with a clearly visible rule/tape measure so that the county archaeologist can see at a glance how large the artefact is. (We wouldn’t want him straining his eyeballs having to read the actual report.)

In the case of bones and/or wooden artefacts, these should be preserved in water. (Sounds great in theory, but it’s a bugger in practice. Nobody wants their storerooms full of leaky buckets with bits of mouldy old wood and cow hooves floating around in them. Inevitably, most small finds of this nature end up back in the trench when the excavation’s finished.)
With regards specifically to bones, should human remains come to light (especially if digging under somebody’s patio) the police and the county archaeologist need to be informed immediately; the police because officially and until proven otherwise the site will now be classified as a ‘potential crime scene’, and the county archaeologist because dealing with murder suspects and/or the CID is a job best left in somebody else’s hands.
Small finds such as pottery can be cleaned on site using a large bottle of water and a toothbrush. (And before any American readers decide to make the usual joke, yes, we do know what a toothbrush is in Britain and, yes, it is about time you employed a less racist, more-than-one-predictable-joke writer to produce the scripts for your increasingly tedious and unrelenting sit-coms/cartoons.)

Do not, however, attempt to clean rusted metal or coins. Rusted metal needs electro-magnetic rust removal techniques (which we’ll be covering at some future date no doubt) to prevent them from crumbling away, and coins require their patina to be left in place. (Don’t ask me why, they just do.)
Coin hoards themselves do not belong to the excavator who discovers them. Officially they are the property of the landowner or the crown and anybody attempting to hide them in their pockets for later retail on the black market is breaking the law. All coin hoards, therefore, should be handed to the site supervisor who, no doubt, will put them in his pocket for later analysis at the museum…honest.
Do not attempt to remove small finds from trench walls with the point of your trowel. Let somebody else do it, and if the artefact snaps in half then it’s their fault.
Also, do not attempt to insert small finds up your nose regardless of how much alcohol you might have consumed.
On a more personal note, if any excavator discovers a black flask and a butty box containing a half eaten steak and kidney pie and two packets of prawn cocktail flavoured crisps, could you please let me know because I’ve no idea what’s happened to them.

Drawing the Line

2009-08-01T13:31:00.012+01:00

[This is an unauthorised report from long-time reader and sometime contributor John Steventon (the American). Since we all miss Brian, I am taking it upon myself to fill in for him on occasion. Please feel free to complain, throw stones (at a tree or something, not at me), and inform Brian if you see him at the shops. Cheers!]

In America, England, Australia.... just about anywhere, you can find history. Prehistoric peoples wandered the land and cluttered it up with burial mounds, henges, rock carvings, standing stones... you name it. All kinds of stuff that was so very important to them. Then Historic Man came along and decided everything would look nice plowed over and plundered. Then Modern Man came along and decided he could profit by building as many shopping and eating establishments as possible, and making sure there was plenty of parking to go along with it.

Brian has posted recently about a long house or something that was excavated quickly so a car park could go in on schedule. Here in Ohio archeologists had to move fast to save some very important artifacts so that a new runway could go in at the airport. Even at Stonehenge, that most famous of monuments, there is a sign at the car park saying that some 3000 year old giant carved trees had once stood on that spot, somwhere under the tarmac!

Obviously, these ancient sites meant a lot to their builders. Obviously, modern man needs places to sleep, shop, and eat pizza. So where do we draw the line? In a recent post here I was moaning about the loss of so much Native American prehistory here in Ohio. "Why oh why did they have to destroy so much?!" I cried! Then I looked at "Prehistoric Earthworks in Ohio by William C. Mills, from the 1914 Archeological Atlas of Ohio. There were thousands of earthworks, including burial mounds, ceremonial temple mounds, fortifications, village enclosures.. and then there were petroglyph sites, stone piles, and others. That's a lot of red dots on the map! See this link if you don't believe me: http://www.gustavslibrary.com/mounddistributionmap.jpg

So where Do we draw the line between preserving the past and making way for 'progress'? A compromise would be nice, such as living alongside the monuments from the past, but in many cases it's much too late for that. The decision should have been made years ago.

In all fairness, most people simply do not care about the past... just a bunch of roxks and dirt, some people say. So let's have a dialog here.

"The Native Americans moved into Ohio perhaps 15,000 years ago!"
"Yeah, but we is here now."
"Only because 'we' forced them from their homes!"
"Might makes right, loser!"

Never mind... this kind of conversation inevitably leads to disaster, since both sides have very different points of view. The truth is.. in most cases it is too late. Here in Ohio I've been told that everything was plowed over, so that even the monuments we see today are not truly their original selves. I've been here two weeks now, and in two different walks have seen evidence of artifacts that were ground into pieces.. broken pottery, a broken adze, a piece of clay pipe... the last two were not far from a certain burial mound I featured here, so even that was 'spoiled'.

Even in our attempts to preserve the past, I believe we are failing. Some believe that letting the land go fallow is allowing the sites to be seen in their 'natural' state. Well, just what IS their natural state? We are not sure of the purpose of many of these sites, so how do we know what they should look like? The Native Americans did not have lawn mowers, unless you count sheep, but letting grass grow on earthworks is a better method of preserving them than letting them grow fallow.

Case in point, the Jeffers Mound as seen in the photo above. The Jeffers Mound is all that is left of a vast complex that included huge earthworks, a burial mound, a ceremonial mound (the Jeffers Mound), two circular enclosures, and longhouses. Who knows what else? The land was farmed for years until it was subdivided and sold into housing lots. Mr. Jeffers thankfully did not sell the land the Jeffers Mound was on, so this is all that remains of this once great complex.

Now look at the photo above... can you even see the mound? It's like 25 feet high, but I had some people with me on the visit and they all saw a 'bunch of bushes' until I pointed out to them that it wa a mound. What bothers me though is the trees. If left in the woods, nature would eventually destroy these mounds on it's own,(see first photo above of Cole Earthworks) but this mound is supposedly being preserved, and there are 40 foot high trees growing out of it! That means there are 40 feet of roots burrowing through the mound, and when those tipping trees fall, there goes the mound.

Oh well... let's just help nature along, shall we? This site is just wasted space, innit? Let's put up a bus shelter with matching car park and put this space to use, eh?

Just remember one thing, though. These ancient peoples lived a long time ago, so we say 'their time has passed', and plow over the graves of their ancestors. Well, how would you feel if those were YOUR ancestors being plowed over? It could happen, you know. And not just in the movies. Case in point, the Pool family. They plowed over the two mounds I mentioned in my earlier blog, and lived here for some time in the 1800's. Not too long ago, right? And their gravestones were found 'somewhere south of Highbanks Metro Park, and no one is sure where their bodies are. Their stones now sit together in a little fenced off area... a 'pretend' burial plot.

And progress and history march on... :0)

Cheers, JOHN :0)

Some old Photographs of Bispham Cliffs

2009-07-29T00:01:00.000+01:00

We’ve been colouring in some old photographs again, this time, as the title suggests, of Bispham cliffs, in order to highlight the ridiculous dangers that early travellers to the Fylde were willing to face in their ignorance.
Colouring in old postcards, incidentally, is excellent therapy and we recommend it to most people reading this board.
Here’s the first one, entitled ‘On the Cliffs, Blackpool’. (Presumably the words ‘Potential’ and ‘Death’ have been accidentally omitted from the start of that description.) Our colour scheme might have gone off a tangent from reality, but we estimate the photograph to be of the Edwardian period.

They’re all sitting right on the edge of the cliffs are that lot. No…look at them! They’re right on the edge, with their toes hanging over. That’s the sort of stuff that’d give your average Health and Safety Executive a stroke, that is. (Well…if he could get close enough to some of those ladies in their tight bodices and laced-up ankle boots he’d have stroke, anyhow.)
It’s a wonder, given the precarious nature of the cliffs and the fact that Uncle Tom’s Cabin had a habit of falling off them every few years, that the whole lot didn’t give way.
There is a good reason for such a large crowd, in case you’re wondering. In Victorian and Edwardian times Lancashire factories would close for a week during the summer, to give their workers a well-earned break. As a result entire communities took their holidays at the same time. These events were known as Wakes Weeks, an evolution of the mediaeval Wakes Holy Days (from which the word ‘holiday’ derives). We’ve written about them before on this board in considerably more detail, so if you’re that way inclined, you can go and look them up. (And that’s about as much proper history as you’re going to get in this particular article.)
Here’s another photograph of Bispham cliffs that’d have the Health and Safety People waking up in a cold sweat (whether out of fear or pleasure I wouldn’t hazard to guess).

Bah gum, look at the steepness of that…not to mention the lopsided angle of it. A vertiginous set of steps if ever there was one, leading down the cliff face near Bispham tram station; particularly difficult to navigate, we suspect, when wearing high heels and dresses resembling meringues like the two picnickers on the beach at the bottom.
Beats most of the white knuckle rides at the pleasure beach, does that one. Those two kids about a sixth of the way up look as though they’re paralysed with fear. It puts one in mind of the old nursery rhyme:

‘Jack and Jill went down the cliff, to fetch a pail of seashells.
Jack fell down and bust his neck and then lay perfectly still in a small crumpled heap with his head staved in on the rocks.’

There have been a few improvements from a safety perspective since the lower promenade was added. For a start fewer walruses like the one in the photograph plunge to their deaths from the cliffs now. It’s also considerably easier for wheelchair access nowadays, I would imagine.
One last somewhat disturbing image from about the same period then:

“Go on, Son. Jump oop un’ doon on’t. Let’s see what ’appens!”
This particular postcard is entitled ‘The Steps, Bispham’ although ‘Death on Stilts’ would make a reasonable alternative title.
As you can see, it’s difficult to imagine this complicated construction of rickety planks standing up to a typical Fylde coast gale, which is probably why it isn’t there any longer. Nowadays, of course, the slades are all fashioned from concrete and shored up with rocks, transforming them into ideal racetracks for cyclists and exciting bob sleigh runs in the winter, where pedestrians and dog walkers can be targeted as human skittles.

Site-seeing: A Lesson Learned

2009-07-23T16:29:00.010+01:00

[This is an unauthorised report from long-time reader and sometime contributor John Steventon (the American). Since we all miss Brian and his personality, I am taking it upon myself to fill in for him, occassionally. Please feel free to complain, throw stones (at a tree or something, not at me), and inform to Brian if you see him at the shops. Cheers!]

I have to point out that when it comes to ancient sites, it is best to see them in person, as opposed to simply reading about them in a book or on the net. These sites were made by people, and I believe that to truly understand them, we should look upon them in person and try to imagine them when freshly made. Even if the pyramids of Egypt were made by slaves, I'm willing to bet that some of those slaves stopped to look at these wondrous monuments and say to themselves, "I made that!".

Of course, they were probably summarily executed afterward, but still, there's always that bit of pride that comes from doing something special.

Now then, we can't always see sites in person, and although the net is no substitute for experience, it does come in handy as a reference tool. And here is today's lesson... If you are going to go visit a historic site, then please do some research ahead of time, or you too might find yourself in an embarrassing predicament such as the one I am about to discuss. :0)

So. My first Saturday morning in Ohio, and I am very anxious to get out in the field... any field... and see the sights. I had heard the day before that a local park featured some Adena Burial mounds, and so had to go. The weather was fair, and having done no research at all, I set out for Highbanks Metro Park, and their burial mounds.

Yes, I did no research at all. Why? I figured, "it's a park, there'll be signs, how hard can it be?"

And it wasn't! A few minutes after entering the park, I pulled into a parking lot and there it was... a huge mound, recently mowed, and standing there so majestically! This was my fist view of an Adena Burial Mound, and wow, was I impressed. I ran around taking about 50 photographs from every angle, including panoramic views, and climbed the summit several times to capture the scenery. I recorded everything, and then, exhausted, set out to find more.

It was at the next parking lot that I found a map. A map that showed the wondrous mound behind me to be a Sledding Hill for local youngsters to risk their little necks in winter time. NOT an Adena Burial Mound. No, the two Adena Burial Mounds, and the Cole Earthworks, were only accessible by hiking through wooded trails... about a mile in each direction... to each site.

And then the rains came.

It rained so hard and so long that when it ended, and the sun came out, I felt safe enough to hike those trails after all. And so I set out.

And then the rains came. Again.

Believe it or not, but there were actually other people in the woods, in the rain, jogging or hiking. I met one couple who said the Weatherman had predicted zero percent chance of rain for today. Hmph.

So, regardless of weather I continued, and eventually came to a rock with a plaque that said Adena Burial Mound. I rounded the corner and there it was. A tiny little bump in the earth, behind a little fence, with golden twilight sunshine casting a glow over its little patch of grass.

My first burial mound. To some it may not seem very impressive. It's just this little bump in the grass, on top of a wooded hill, surrounded by trees. Very wet trees, at that.

But this is why I like seeing sights in person. It was quiet there, and that golden glow of the filtered sunshine gave the place a special atmosphere. A quiet almost holy atmosphere that gently guided one into quiet contemplation... a contemplation that made me realise that here was someone buried. A once living human being that was loved, or respected, or feared enough for his or her people to create this little mound for them on top of this hill, so that they could be remembered.

And suddenly that little bump became very meaningful indeed, and I wished at that moment that all the people who plowed over, built over, or ruthlessly plundered the dozens or other burial mounds in the area to destruction could have seen those little bumps in the landscape in this same manner. These are burials. They meant something to somebody once, and we should respect that.

I walked two hours in the rain that day... got muddy, and caught a cold, and my bones are still aching. But it was worth it. Every minute.

Cheers, JOHN :0)

PS Please read Brian's excellent post below about Mediaeval Beer brewing!

Brew Time for Mediaeval Peasants

2009-07-22T00:01:00.000+01:00

Sometimes on rainy evenings, after the consumption of a number of pints of Speckled Hen, I find myself sat behind a warm monitor staring at a blank Word document completely void of inspiration (this usually happens after watching early evening television, which has a tendancy to turn the brain into grey vomit) wondering what the hell I’m going to blog about this time around.
Beer’s always a good choice. The research is generally enjoyable.
Mediaeval peasants are always excellent as well, because that means I can nick some old woodcuts from elsewhere on the net without fear of copyright infringement.
Borrowing bits and pieces from books that I’ve previously written but that, hopefully, everybody’s forgotten about is an old favourite of mine too.
So tonight, I thought, as I downed my fourth pint and returned from the fridge with yet another uncorked beverage, why not combine all of these simple suggestions and borrow something that I wrote for the ‘The History of the Wyre from Harold the Elk to Cardinal Allen’ ages ago? I haven’t improved in my writing abilities over the years and everybody’s bound to have forgotten about the previous stuff by now anyway, so they won’t suspect what I’ve done.

(By the way, don’t let this article put you off buying a copy of that particular book if you haven’t already got one. Just follow the link in the right hand column. It’ll be the best £9.95 you’ll ever spend, trust me.)
With that in mind…
Mediaeval towns and villages around the Fylde and Wyre (not to mention just about everywhere else in Britain) weren’t exactly the most hygienic places in which to live. (Some of our local towns and villages still aren’t, but that’s another issue.)
Indoor plumbing was virtually nonexistent, so slop buckets were simply emptied from overhanging windows into the streets below. This was why it was considered courteous to allow women to walk on the inside of the pavement, thus avoiding any back-splash. It might also explain why everybody tended to wear hats back in those days.
Even rural communities were unsanitary places with cesspits being dug alongside drinking wells. It’s a thirsty business doing all that paperwork. See…even the jokes are recycled.
All things considered, it’s hardly surprising that people generally drank beer instead.
Never ones to shirk responsibility, we visited http://www.regia.org to pick up a few helpful tips on how to make our own mediaeval ale.

The first step, it appears, is to simmer some malt in a copper cauldron full of soft water (don’t ask…presumably hard water is ice) for approximately two hours, before transferring the liquid into a wooden barrel.
Here the ‘gruit’ or flavouring is added; Bog Myrtle, Yarrow, Apple, Honey and Cinnamon being amongst the most popular it seems. (Sheep, duck or prawn cocktail might not be as tasty as they first seem.)

This particular concoction is known as ‘mash’ (not to be confused with the potato variety, obviously) and needs to ferment for up to three days, the strength of the ale depending on the length of the fermentation period.
When it’s ready the mash is strained through a sieve, the separated yeast being placed on one side to be used later in some economic bread making.
The remaining liquid is left to ferment for a further hour (it’s a lot of hassle for a quiet pint this, isn’t it?) allowing the sediment to settle, before being strained once more through a fine weave cloth. One more hour and one more sieving and the ale is finally ready to drink. (If you’re not too knackered to be bothered that is.)
Consumption, however, needs to take place within the next twenty-four hours as this sort of ale is quick to turn. Back in mediaeval times stale beer was only fit for the local pigs. On the upside, rancid ale improved the flavour of the pork (please keep your innuendoes to yourselves) and gave rise to the saying: “As drunk as swine.” (See…there is an educational element to this article after all.)

Speaking of drunken swine, one punishment for inebriated peasants who made a nuisance of themselves with the local fillies was to be incarcerated in the fashion illustrated below, much to the amusement of everyone else. All in all it must have been a right barrel of laughs. (Ancient mediaeval jokes copyright 1382: as first transcribed in the Bumper Book of Amusing Kells.)

There we go. That’s just about filled the empty space so, bottoms up!

Outside the Wyre: Alligator Mound

2009-07-17T19:14:00.011+01:00

[This is an unauthorised report from long-time reader and sometime contributor John Steventon (the American). I hope this doesn't upset Brian's pre-programmed schedule, but since we all miss him and his personality, I am taking it upon myself to fill in for him, at least this once. Please feel free to complain, throw stones (at a tree or something, not at me), and inform to Brian if you see him at the shops. PS 2 of the images are animated, so give them a sec, eh, after clicking on them.]

The Alligator Mound of Granville, Ohio, USA

High upon a bluff, overlooking the Racoon Valley, lies one of two effigy earthmounds that we know exist in Ohio. As this report goes on, it will become obvious that there may have been others, but like so many native American earthworks and endeavors, they have become car parks, plowed land, and housing developments.

I have just moved to Ohio, and this is the firt bit of history that I have been able to visit in person. (Astral projections don't count because I can't take me camera with me) Anyways, I am writing this as an international exchange of information, since I believe we cannot understand any ancient work without adding a human element to the archeology, and I also believe that many ancient peoples were probably just regular joes, and we should tryu to view ancient monuments through their eyes.

As I mentioned, the Alligator mound lies high on a bluff... probably the highest bit of land around, and offers spectacular views of the valley. It is probably not an alligator, by the way, but Europeans named it that after the Native Americans told them the creature was a 'vicious water creature that ate people'. The mound is only 4 to 6 feet high at it's height, and at 200 feet long, is hard to see from the ground in all it's glory. In England, many burial mounds were built on the top of hills so that their chalky sides could be viewed from far away, and serve as boundary markers on the horizon. Here, from the bottom of the mound, the earthworks do make a bump across the top, but not a big one, and without your white chalk only serve as a mysterious silhoutte.

Why build a mound in the shape of an animal that only the gods could see? Well, perhaps that's the point. There is no evidence of this being a burial mound, and that weird bump from the Alligators side seems to stand out, so it is suggested that this was a ceremonial site. What kind of ceremonies were performed here is not known, but we do know that Native Americans had their gods based on Nature, and so it is no surprise that they would have performed significant acts here on the top of a mountain, perhaps during a glorious sunset (speculation on my behalf, but this is big sky country, and the sunsets from this point would always have been fabulous).

A few miles down the hill and road is a very large ancient city made of many earthworks, including a large circle. All of this is now a country club, where the well-to-do can golf upon these ancient walls and parapets, but the early native Americans lived here. I'm not sure if they built the alligator mound, since several ancient cultures overlap here, but if so, it can be argued that they climbed that very steep hill on special occasions to do their stuff.

All over this land are farms that are slowly giving way to housing developments and shopping centers. The ancient cultures of the Hopewell, Adena, and Fort Ancient peoples were here for thousands of years. In the last 200 years or so, people have managed to plow over, bury, and basically destroy earthworks, burial mounds, and who knows what else? Looking at the Alligator mound, it is easy to see that other effigy mounds could easily have been overlooked of their significance, and cast aside in the name of progress.

Cheers, JOHN :0)

Another Handful of Chipping’s Chippings

2009-07-15T00:01:00.000+01:00

St. Bartholomew’s Church in Chipping was apparently restored in a major fashion (especially round the windows, only a couple of which now date back to 1500) in 1873. This wasn’t the first rebuild however. That was in 1506, a couple of chantries being added in 1519 and in 1530, and further alterations being conducted in 1706 and 1754, during the latter of which a gallery was installed for the choir. (Possibly they all had to hang from the rafters in the ceiling before that…I couldn’t honestly say.) The earliest records for the church stem back to circa 1230.
Quite a busy little church on the whole then, so it’s a pity that on the day we visited the doors were locked, because there’s tons of stuff worth looking at inside. (It’s an all too common sign of the times that a tiny, out of the way village like Chipping needs to lock its church doors to prevent burglars getting in.)
Nil Desperandum as us highly educated types like to say. We’ve got an old postcard showing the church’s interior back in the days of black and white (or sepia at any rate), and we suspect it hasn’t changed much since.

Apparently there’s a cross base inside the church somewhere that was once used a plague stone. A plague stone was where sufferers from the bubonic plague would leave their monies in return for goods, at a nice safe distance from the uncontaminated, in vinegar just to be on the safe side. It was moved circa 1610 from outside.
Alongside it stands a sixteenth century Belgian chest (brought from St. Bartholomew’s Hospital in London). There’s also a fourteenth century piscina (that’s a niche in the wall before we receive any inappropriate comments) in the sanctuary, and the font dates from 1520. It was a gift, apparently, from Bradley Hall (no relation to Daryl).
Obviously, not being able to gain access to the interior, we couldn’t photograph the font. But other people have photographed it over the years, and at great personal risk to our copyright lawyers we’ve managed to track down a couple of those photographs and have even drawn one of them up, in the dim hopes that it should be sufficient to keep future legal proceedings at bay.

The base of the font, it’s reckoned, is one of the upturned capitals (the bits at the top of the columns) from the north arcade.
We’ve done the same (i.e. redrawn somebody else’s photograph to avoid copyright infringement) for the mediaeval carvings in the next illustration. (You’ve got to have mediaeval carvings in a church like this, otherwise it’s just a no starter really.)

We’re not entirely sure what the carving on the far right is supposed to be. Possibly a dragon’s head…or somebody’s cod piece…maybe even a mediaeval version of Snoopy. Other capitals inside the church have carved petals, leaves and abstract designs on them…apparently.
Let’s have a proper photograph, eh? One of ours -- that being of the exterior of the church because we didn’t need the doors unlocked for that.

Quaint, isn’t it?
In the centre of the picture you might just be able to make out the sundial. The column dates from 1708 and stands on…or in, whichever you prefer…the traditional Saxon three-stone-steps base (representing the holy trinity, or so we read somewhere). The original cross, it’s reckoned, was removed sometime around 1618.
One last photograph for now, this time showing the bit where the tower joins onto the main church.

As you can probably see, it isn’t a very good fit, especially the buttress, which isn’t so much flying as squashed into a corner with its tail feathers clipped. That’s because the tower was part of the 1506 rebuild and, like a lot of towers on old churches like this, they didn’t quite get it right.
There’s probably a lot more history about St. Bartholomew’s but I’m going to leave it there before everyone falls asleep. (Editor: Might be a bit late for that already.)

A Selection of Fieldnames from Thornton: Part Two

2009-07-08T00:01:00.000+01:00

We mentioned in the last section of this article that the ‘Old Earth’ fields denoted the northern most boundaries of the Saxon township of Bourne and, of course, if you check our tithe map again you’ll see that this is obviously the case. We’ve highlighted them in red on the detail below to save you the trouble of having to search for them.

You’ll notice that just above them (as the directionally challenged crow flies) is a mediaeval field called Green Dicks Hey. Don’t ask, because we don’t know, and as much as we’d like to believe that the name alludes to a farmer suffering from a medical complaint, there’s also a Dicks Mill in Carleton, so it was probably just some local play on words. (Come to think of it, Dicks might actually be the local pronunciation of dykes.) Whatever the case, originally no doubt the Old Earth fields would have reached into this area as well. During the mediaeval period a lot of the Saxon tenement field boundaries were removed to open the fields into the shapes we’d more commonly recognise nowadays.
Next to the Old Earth fields, highlighted in yellow (we’ve thought of everything to make your lives easier) is Borty Berry and Bottom Burty Berry. (Go on…get it out of your systems. It sounds a bit like bottom burpy berry, we know. There…better now?)
According to one book on Lancashire fieldnames that we own, the title of which I’ve currently forgotten, which is perhaps as well under the circumstances, ‘Bortyberry’ refers to a field that once had a berry from a bor tree in it.
Yes, well, I can see that, can’t you? Imagine the scene, a wild and woolly night in a Thornton farmhouse, the farmer tamping tobacco into his pipe bowl in front of a roaring log fire whilst his stuffed toy of a son watches the smoke curl up the chimney.

“Jus’ gone darn tha Bortee Burri field, will ’as Our Granville? Av left me flat cap ont’ geetpost.”
“Which one’s Bortee Burri, Da?”
“As one at as un berry roight int’ middle onnit.”
“An berry, Da?”
“Aye…jus’ twon. Right slap bang int middle. An burri, an’ this is vera importuant d’y’ear…” He leans closer and indicates the severity of the case by poking his idiot son in the ribs with his pipe. “An burri from as bor tree.”
“Warts a bor tree, Da?”
“Dunno son. It’s sommat what arv just meed oop. An’ mind y’ don’t get yon field mixed oop with Burtee Burri neither.”
“Burtee Burri, Da?”
“S’reet son. Thart’s t’won next do-oor. T’won wi’ a burri in t’ middle onnit, wat comes from a ‘bur’ tree.”
“You mean, like t’other one further oop, Da, wi’ berry int middle onnit wat comes from a ‘bar’ tree?”
“Thart’s t’one, son. Nay booger off before ye get t’toe o’me clog wedg’d oop tarse.”

All right…you get the point. The Lancashire fieldnames book has almost certainly got this one wrong.
By our reckoning (which is what really counts) the ‘berry’ in ‘borty berry, burty berry and barty berry’ refers to a burg. (That’s an ancient enclosed – more often than not fortified – settlement.) Take that other Lancashire Bury, for example. We all know that was originally a burg and not just a small round edible object much sought after by hungry birds.
As for the ‘bor’, ‘bur’ and ‘bar’, clearly they all stem from the same local dialect root ‘bur’, recorded by Thornber as meaning the ‘edge or rim’ of something. I remember when I were nobbut a kid my grandmother warning me when opening a can (this was back in the days when tin openers were none-electronic, dangerously sharp and pointed objects) not to cut myself on the ‘bur’ (that being the jagged strip of metal around the lid).
Therefore all these fields denote the edge of the burg, which makes perfect sense when you come to look at how they relate to the Saxon tenement fields.
So that’d be the burg of Brun then, or to put it another way, Brun Burgh.
Don’t even get me started. I realise nobody wants to believe that Brunanburgh ever took place in Thornton, despite the ancient legend that a huge Norse battle once covered Bourne Hill, so I won’t even go there. Let’s move on…

Right, we’ve coloured in/highlighted a couple more fields for you. In red on the right hand side is Grapy Field. We figured that a name like that would obviously mean something, and, after a huge amount of research (almost three and a half minutes spent on Google) we discovered that Grapy is an Old English/ French word (so that’d be around the Saxon/Norman period then) meaning…er…grape-like. As in, “This tastes rather grapy.”
Exactly what that’s got to do with the field in question I honestly couldn’t say.
The other field highlighted above (in yellow) is Biggins Field. We’re on much safer ground here. Biggins is a Norse word referring to a new house (and not a jolly rotund gay bloke who used to be in Porridge), all of which suggests that between one and one and half thousand years ago some Norse geezer constructed his abode smack bang in the middle of this field.
Incidentally, in case you’re wondering, Biggins Field is nowadays underneath the Wolsey Close, Ingleway, Hampton Place area off Cumberland Avenue, so if you happen to live in one of those closes it might be worth checking your flowerbeds carefully, because you never know what might be in there. Even better, give Wyre Archaeology a bell and we’ll take a gander for you.

Right, a couple more then -- the first being Garlick’s Hey, as highlighted above in blue. Please note the spelling. It’d be easy to assume that this field just south of Hillylaid crossing on Lawson’s Road was where garlic was once grown. Such an assumption would, however, be incorrect. Terry Pratchett knew what he was doing when he named one of his Lancre witches Magrat Garlick, Magrat because her mother couldn’t spell, and Garlick because Garlick is actually a Lancashire dialect word (now mostly fallen out of use, I suspect) meaning ‘Simpleton’.
Then there’s Tinkler’s Hey, which we’ve highlighted in yellow. We’ve no real suggestions for this one except, perhaps, that it’s either a mispronunciation of ‘Tinker’s Hey’ or that it was just one of those fields that was used as a convenience. (Boom boom!)
Lastly (although there are plenty of other fieldnames worth mentioning on this map, such as Mill Hey on the corner of Crabtree Road, which is nowhere near Marsh Mill and therefore suggests that a more ancient mill, no documents for which survive, once stood in the vicinity, but we’re not going to because this article’s gone on way too long as it is) there’s Castle Field, otherwise known as Castle Hill, highlighted below.

To the best of our knowledge no castle has ever stood on, near, or in the vicinity of Castle Hill/Field, which means only thing. Castles were the Saxons’ way of describing ancient fortified earthworks – ancient and ruinous in Saxon times I should point out -- so the chances are, some prehistoric (possibly Roman) settlement once stood here. Not that we’re ever likely to find out now because somebody went and built the ICI right on top of it.
Enough…I’m all field-named out. Time for a change of tack with the next posting I reckon.

A Selection of Fieldnames from Thornton: Part One

2009-07-01T00:01:00.000+01:00

Melanie from the ‘Thornton Through Time’ website (otherwise known to our forum readers as ‘History Hunter’) has been busy recently. She’s the best researcher Wyre Archaeology doesn’t have. One of these days we’re going to convince her to sign up proper. (I’m extemporising again, aren’t I? Best get on before everyone disappears to You Tube in search of Susan Boyle.)
Melanie, as I was saying, during one of her rainy afternoon trawls through the various Lancashire record repositories came across the following item and kindly sent me a copy. What is it? It’s a tithe map of Bourne, Holmes and Trunnah, that’s what, with some interesting fieldnames on it. If you’re wondering why it resembles a patchwork eiderdown, Melanie photographed it in sections and I’ve done my best to reassemble it.

Writing too small? Well, just be patient and we’ll enlarge some of the individual sections for you. In the meantime, just so that you can gather your bearings, that’s Marsh Mill right at the bottom there, and that wriggly field boundary towards the top left corner is part of the dyke following the defensive embankments round the bottom of Bourne Hill. (Unfortunately Bourne Hill itself isn’t on the map, which is a shame because we still don’t know what the hill’s actual name is. We’ve always called it Bourne Hill because that basically describes it, although our name seems to have resonated with people and even the great and the good are calling the place Bourne Hill nowadays.)
Right, it’s time for some of those fieldnames, so here’s a detail of the aforementioned tithe map (the copyright owner, of which, we’ve lost track of, so apologies if we’re unintentionally treading on anybody’s toes here).

The road running from just below the top left corner to about two thirds of the way along the bottom edge is Fleetwood Road, Fleetwood itself being somewhere off the left hand side of the map, Thornton being somewhere off the right. (If you’re one of our Australian or American readers this probably doesn’t make a lot of sense. Then again, I suspect, very little of what appears on this board makes much sense to anybody, anywhere, anyhow, so welcome to the club.)
The Old Earth fields (you can hunt these down for yourself on the map if you like…it’s cheaper than buying a Word Search magazine) are mentioned in various old documents as being the outskirts of the Saxon Township of Brun. We’ll come back to them shortly.
The Stanny Furlong fields are the intriguing bit. (At least they are as far as I’m concerned.) Stanny derives from the Saxon word ‘Stanig’ meaning ‘stony’, indicating presumably that, back in Saxon times, our Stanny Furlong fields were full of stones. (It should be remembered that, even though these tithe maps were drawn up in the mid-nineteenth century, the names recorded on them often reach back hundreds, if not thousands, of years.) ‘Stony’ fields are, more often than not, the result of ancient cobbled roads lying beneath the soil. Was this the original route of the Danes Pad, perhaps?
Well, no, probably not. As far as we can tell (and there’s bound to be some debate about this, so I hesitate to mention it) the Danes Pad never actually reached the Fleetwood Peninsula, crossing the River Wyre somewhere around Skippool and then continuing on the other side towards Preesall Hill along Highgate Lane (where, of course, we dug up a section of it last summer).
No…the Stanny Furlong fields are far more likely to have contained our Celtic track running from Nateby, via Stanah, up through Thornton and to the base of Bourne Hill. We know that the track exists on the hill itself (because we’ve dug it up) and (on the other side of Thornton) it emerges from beneath the housing estate on Stanah Road, but we lose it completely under the sprawl of Thornton itself. Unfortunately, over the last couple of centuries most of the fields on our tithe map have been ‘developed’ so, whatever the case, the enigma of the Stanny Furlong fields will have to remain just that.
Take a look at this:

That’s the same section of map we showed you a moment ago with a couple of areas highlighted. Note the shape of the fields we’ve coloured in, paying close attention to the central road (now hidden by houses) dividing them. That’s typical of Saxon villages, that is, in this case the Saxon village of Bourne (or Brun as it was known in those days).
Those strip fields were called ‘tenement strips’, each one originally containing its own dwelling place. They were basically the Dark Age equivalent of market gardens, each householder working the strip of land to the rear of his/her property.
The fields highlighted in yellow are still there, (at least they are at the time of writing) separated from one another by typical Saxon ditches. Want a photograph? Go on then, you’ve twisted my arm.

That’s the rear of Springfield Drive in the background. Our missing Saxon village road (as shown on the map) is probably somewhere beneath the grass running around the back garden fences.
We’ve got more to say about this lot, but no doubt our reader would welcome a short break before we trouble him/her further.
Before we leave, however, one last fieldname (or set of fieldnames) worth a mention is (or possibly are) Arley. Arley still exists as a location, of course, Great Arley School (where as kids we used to go swimming) occupying the area nowadays. We were curious as to what Arley meant and, as far as we can tell (although Wyre Archaeology’s expert in ancient languages, Dave Hampson, might have a few thoughts of his own to add to this conjecture) it stems from the Saxon root word ‘Arleas’, meaning ‘dishonourable or wicked’.
Having said that, it’s equally likely to stem from the other Saxon root word ‘Arlic’, meaning just plain ‘honourable’.
At the risk of insulting everybody who lives in Arley (both of them) I’d like to think it was the former.

Another Selection of Historical Titbits

2009-06-27T00:01:00.001+01:00

Number Six: The Pirate of St Chad’s

In St Chad’s churchyard, in Poulton of course, (just behind the apse if memory serves) can be found one of the Wyre’s most enduring – if not highly inaccurate – oddities, that being the grave of a pirate as shown in the photograph below.

Generations of school kids (myself included) have re-enacted over the centuries the ritual of standing on the grave itself, reciting the lord’s prayer backwards and then depositing the contents of our noses on the stone slab (actually the legend suggests that you’re only meant to spit, but as children we were very thorough) in the hopes that the ghost of the evil pirate would rise from its resting place and reek havoc in the town.
We can state from personal experience that the ritual doesn’t work.
And it’s hardly surprising really given that the grave actually belonged to Edward Sherdley (gentleman) who died in 1711 and probably never got any closer to the sea during his life than with a bucket and spade at Rossall. The confusion arose amongst Poulton’s youthful inhabitants, of course, because of the skull and cross-bones motif carved into the stone, resembling (as testified by certain old films featuring Douglas Fairbanks Jr) the Jolly Roger flown by desperados on the high seas.
The skull and crossbones themselves were probably a Masonic symbol, which just goes to show that whilst being a mason might pay nepotistic dividends in life, in death it just results in kids covering your grave in phlegm.

Number Seven: Woodplumpton Stocks

Outside St. Anne’s church in Woodplumpton -- an extremely ancient church in its own right, but more about that on another occasion -- next to the lychgate stand the old village stocks. The right hand stone-support is carved with the initials ‘AB’ and the date ‘73’. We can take it as read that, as old as the church might be, it’s not that old and the century to which that date belongs was left off for reasons of spatial economy. The nearby wicket-gate has similarly carved posts, suggesting that they were carved at around the same time.
Behind the stocks, as can be seen in the photograph, are a step of mounting steps. In case you’re wondering these were used to clamber on and off horses (as explained a few weeks ago in our posting about the mounting steps attached to the cottage on Raikes Road in Stanah) and not for the locals to take a flying leap onto the heads of the prisoners incarcerated below.
Poulton, Kirkham and Garstang also had their own stocks. In Garstang’s case they were designed, like Woodplumpton’s, so that two criminals could sit side by side, with the added advantage that they were portable. Originally they would have been clamped onto the market cobbles as and when required. Unfortunately, as far as historical preservation is concerned, when not in use they were kept in the town hall attic. In 1939, wouldn’t you know it, the town hall roof caught fire quite spectacularly.
What became of the stocks we honestly couldn’t say, but their chances of having survived are slim.

Number Eight: Grizedale Beck Reservoir

Grizedale Beck Reservoir was created between 1861 and 1863 when the beck itself was damned. In the process an entire unexcavated Neolithic settlement site was destroyed by the ensuing flood, only the tallest spire of the central obelisk of the now drowned Grizedale Henge still being visible at the height of summer, when strange incantations in Ogham are said to be heard on midsummer’s eve.

All right, that last bit isn’t true. The facts about when the reservoir was first damned are accurate enough, we think, the stuff about the settlement isn’t. We just wanted to see if we could get our reader bobbing in frustration that’s all. To the best of our knowledge there were no archaeological sites lost when the reservoir was created, although we did pick up the following information off some site or other on the Internet:

“Grizedale is Norse for the valley of the wild pigs. The valley contains many birch and oak trees and gives an indication of what the whole valley might have been like in more ancient times."

I might be gone some time...

2009-06-26T21:02:00.002+01:00

Following a slight altercation with British Telecom the other night concerning an allegedly outstanding bill, a mouthy salesperson and some brain-dead billing assistant who didn't appear to understand a single word I was saying/shouting loudly at her down the phone to India -- possibly she just didn't want to understand, it was hard to tell -- my contract with said telecommunication's company has now been terminated, effective of about halfway through next week. (I'm not paying those theiving squitter-munchers sixty-five quid a month for a service that involves an e-mail server that crashes ever ten minutes!)

As a result, I might be off-line for a bit...at least until I've decided which route to travel next along the information super highway (it'll be the hard shoulder at this rate), purchased all the relevent equipment and set it up...oh yes...and bought a couple of mobile phones as well. I refuse to have an ordinary phone in my house from this week forward, seeing as BT own the monopoly on all the landlines in Britain. Good old Thatcher -- her legacy of greed and the faceless anihilation of socialist enterprise lives on, even if her feeble, withered, evil old mind doesn't.

To cut a long story short, I've set this board onto auto-scheduling for a couple of months, just in case my departure turns out to be longer than originally planned. After next Wednesday's posting, the Fylde and Wyre Antiquarian will update itself every Sunday (I think...correction, I hope), just don't expect too many of the usual drunken, unamusing replies in the comments boxes until I'm back.

Hopefully that won't be too long. See y'all on the flip side. If I'm not back by Christmas I'll probably have emigrated to Finland.

Brian (Hughes, that is -- beleagured campaigner against self-centred idiots in almost every walk of life)

Bleasdale Circle: Part Two

2009-06-24T00:05:00.001+01:00

Where were we? Ah yes, the Bleasdale urns. All three of them were made from local boulder clay mixed with grit so that they’d keep their shape. In the words of Shadrach Jackson himself:

“They were very soft when found and were coated both inside and out with small rootlets.”

As we’ve mentioned before (in the previous half of this article to be exact) archaeology back in Victorian times was an extremely destructive, not to say hit and miss, science. As soon as the urns were exposed to the air the clay, unfortunately, began to harden, rapidly becoming brittle enough to warrant expert attention. So the urns were sent to Liverpool Museum for treatment and didn’t emerge again until 1970, only to be hauled back to the Harris in Preston where, as far as we know, they’re still in residence to this day.
Full of archaeological fever by now, good old Shadrach set about the rest of the inner henge, recording as he went that he’d found:

“...a circle of eleven oak logs placed upright on the inside of the log platform at the bottom of the ditch.”

The ditch, of course, surrounds the tumulus (well, I say ‘of course…I’m actually having a bit of difficulty following this lot myself) and measures five and a half feet across at the mouth, three feet six inches across at the bottom and three feet in depth. It was lined with birch poles.
Want to see a photograph of the birch poles? Well you can’t, because we haven’t got one. However, we did draw up the following illustration based on a photograph taken at the time, so that’ll have to do.

There are only a couple of these poles left in existence now. God knows what happened to the rest of them, but the Harris Museum is still holding onto a couple. The last we heard they were going to use some scientific analysis or other in an attempt to accurately date them or something, but we never heard the results so, presumably, the boffins never actually got round to doing it.
Somewhat annoyingly, those two poles are the only remains of Bleasdale Circle nowadays at all. After he’d completed his ‘excavation’, Shadrach Jackson then pulled off one of the most bizarre stunts in archaeological history. (At least he did as far as we’re concerned.) For reasons best left between him and his psychiatrist, he removed all the stumps from their nice moist moss (the only thing that had been keeping them stable and fresh for the previous several thousands years), left them all on the ground exposed to the elements (which, in effect meant that, within no time at all, they’d completely rotted away) and then set about planting the entire site with fir cones and rhododendron shrubs.
The net result – one totally knackered site, as the photograph below helps demonstrate.

All right, it’s been tidied up a bit since Shadrach Jackson came over all Gertrude Jekyll, and, yes I know, it’s not the greatest photograph ever, but it’ll have to do because I’m far too busy at the moment to cycle back up there for a clearer shot.
As you’ve probably gathered the missing posts nowadays have been replaced by replicas, otherwise visitors would be greeted by the extremely disappointing sight of just a hump in the ground.
The only other possibly significant artefacts noted by Jackson were:

“...a few broken slabs of sandstone which may have been used for crushing corn or for fire places.”

Varley didn’t bother mentioning them at all in his report, presumably dismissing them as insignificant. One slab in particular though caught our eye. We’ve drawn up the picture of it below to see what you reckon.

Jackson, himself, eventually dismissed his original idea, as clearly Bleasdale Circle wasn’t a place of habitation. To be honest, the slab looks like a small monolith to us -- one that’s fallen over, obviously. There was something similar I seem to recall on some episode of Time Team where they were digging a small henge in Scotland.
All of which preamble brings us to the question: “What exactly was Bleasdale Circle built for?”
And the answer is: “We haven’t got a clue.”
There are dozens of theories, of course. If you align the third post from the entrance anti-clockwise with a sheep in the field next door then it creates exactly the same alignment as John Lennon’s left foot did on the cover of Abbey Road in relation to the sun above the chimneystack. No doubt somebody will tell us their own particular hypothesis…and we’ll probably just ignore them because, the truth is, it’s all just guesswork regardless.
What we can tell you is that a number of books and documents have definitely got things wrong – not just the theories, but the facts upon which the theories were based. Jessica Lofthouse, for example, wrote in her 1946 book ‘Three Rivers’ that:

“...at Bleasdale there had been a Bronze Age strath, or stockaded village...Within the stockade were smaller huts of serfs, store huts and outside some of them had been found blackened circles denoting hearths for fires.”

Needless to say she was misinformed. According to Varley’s excavation report:

“The area between the outer palisade and the inner structure contained nothing whatsoever.”

Even Shadrach mentioned that:

“The only other human relic found within this (the inner) circle was a mass of charcoal four feet to the west of the group of urns.”

No mention in either excavation was ever made of ‘burnt areas’ situated in the larger circle or, indeed, any evidence of other buildings anywhere on the site. Bleasdale Circle wasn’t a village by any stretch of the imagination, consisting of only one possible building contained within a circular fence.
The only real clues to Bleasdale Circle’s original purpose seem to lie in its location, at the heart of a natural amphitheatre created by the fells. It’s an atmospheric place, all right, and well worth a visit.
To finish off, here’s a view of the view from the back door.

Again, the photograph’s a bit on the naff side, being rather blurred and shrunk in the wash, but it’ll have to do for now.

Bleasdale Circle: Part One

2009-06-20T06:21:00.001+01:00

We’ve mentioned Bleasdale Circle a number of times in the past here at the Fylde and Wyre Antiquarian, but I’ve just had a check and, for some unknown reason, we’ve never actually written a proper article about what has to be Wyre’s most important (and possibly most secret) archaeological site itself.
All right, it’s not officially a secret, but whenever we’ve been to visit there’s been nobody around other than a few bored looking sheep.
This won’t do, so it’s time to remedy the situation.
Bleasdale Circle can be reached by public footpath, although a pair of stout Wellingtons is advisable. It’s been excavated twice -- firstly in 1899 by the brilliantly named Shadrach Jackson and secondly in 1935 by the rather more enigmatically named W.J. Varley.

Originally (during the Bronze Age that is) the site consisted of a large outer circle of posts surrounding an embankment (or vallum), which was slightly off-set, which in turn surrounded a ditch, which had a load of birch poles laid inside it, which in turn encircled a tumulus on the top of which stood a smaller circle of wooden columns, (with a splayed entrance) in the centre of which was a shallow grave containing three burial urns. Oh yes, and there was, apparently, a small burnt area in the inner circle.

Everybody get that? We didn’t think so, which is why we’ve produced the following diagram:

When it comes to the details, there are some variations between the two excavation reports -- hardly surprising really considering the unsubtle approach to archaeology at the time. The first of these concerns the posts of the ‘Outer Palisade’. For some reason old Shadrach counted thirty-six of them, whereas Varley only managed thirty-two.
Don’t ask, because I honestly don’t know. Let’s have a photograph up instead.

Right…that’s a picture of the vellum and ditch and one of the posts that constitute the ‘entrance’ to the inner circle. It might not make a lot of sense. The trouble is it’s impossible to photograph Bleasdale Circle all at once without some fir tree or rhododendron bush deliberately getting in the way of the camera.
The inner henge (for the train spotters amongst our readership) measures thirty-six feet across.
Inside this, at a depth of approximately twenty-two inches, Shadrach Jackson discovered two cremation urns and what’s generally referred to as a ‘pigmy urn’ (because it’s a diddy little thing, you see) in a rectangular grave.
According to Jackson the grave measured two feet by three feet and was filled with wood ash.
According to Varley, however, the grave measured two and a half feet by four feet.
You can’t help thinking that Varley was actually measuring the hole that Jackson had created.
Whatever the case, it produced a Papa urn:

A Mama urn:

And an iddy-biddy babba urn:

And there’s the problem, you see, because it’s easy to fall into the trap of automatically grouping these artefacts (and therefore their contents) as a ‘family’. If the truth were known, we’ve no idea whether this was the remains of one human being, three human beings, or a combination of human beings and animals…or whatever.
All we know with any certainty is that the two full sized urns were respectively eight inches tall and eight and half inches tall and both were filled with pieces of bone and charcoal. They also both had overhanging rims commonly associated with early Bronze Age burials, which is basically why everybody believes that Bleasdale Circle is Bronze Age despite the fact that no part of it whatsoever has, to the best of my knowledge, ever been scientifically dated. (Having said that, neither’s anything Wyre Archaeology’s ever dug. We just go off the aesthetics and whatever the experts tell us.)
What became of the bones and charcoal is anybody’s guess. Knowing the lackadaisical attitude of archaeologists back in Victorian times, Shadrack Jackson probably tamped the whole lot into his pipe and lit it.
Enjoying this so far? Good, because it’s time for a few days break before we continue with the next instalment.

Ghostly Goings on at Goosnargh

2009-06-16T23:59:00.003+01:00

This is Chingle Hall -- short, squat and not particularly attractive to look at -- although not as repulsive as Susan Boyle, of course, but then again, what is? However, the place is replete with dark history and ghosties and ghoulies and things that go bump in the garderobe. (And before anybody complains, we didn’t have a camera on us last time we went, so we’ve had to borrow the following photographs from the various contributors to the Fylde and Wyre Antiquarian forum. Cheers for them.)

History first, then -- the hall was built in 1260 by Sir Adam de Singleton, after whom it was named. Sort of. It was originally called Shingle Hall, because, let’s face it, they weren’t very good at spelling stuff back in those days.
Not only is Chingle Hall allegedly the most haunted house in Britain (which is going some you’ve got to admit) but it’s also the oldest inhabited brick building.
Yes…you did read that correctly. Now how’s that for a well kept secret? (Actually, it’s not that well kept because it’s mentioned at Wikipedia, which is where I’m nicking most of this stuff from.)
One or two bits might even be older. For example, again according to Wikipedia so whether it’s true or not is anybody’s guess, some of the ceiling beams in the chapel were apparently tested by scientists at some point or other and were found to be ancient and containing a large amount of salt. The current theory is that they belonged to a Viking longship.
Right, it’s time for our first ghost story. One member of the Singleton family, Eleanor, was reportedly kept prisoner in her room for twelve years before mysteriously dying/being bumped off at the age of seventeen. Over the intervening centuries (although mainly in the last few decades I suspect) visitors to Eleanor’s bedroom have felt unearthly fingers tugging at their clothing and smelt ghostly wafts of lavender drifting ethereally up their nostrils (nothing to do with the josticks hidden behind the bedstead). Some people have also seen orbs floating round the ceiling. (Insert your own pun here.)
Getting back to the history proper, in 1620 John Wall, a notorious catholic priest, was born at Chingle Hall. Obviously he wasn’t a catholic priest when he was born. That’s just my bad grammar. He was actually ordained in 1641. Now, the more historically observant amongst our reader/s will no doubt have realised that being a catholic priest in 1641 wasn’t exactly the brightest of career options. Catholicism was illegal at the time (Queen Mary's persecution of the protestants some years before hadn’t exactly received the warm reception that you might have expected). Regardless of this, what with Lancashire being the stronghold for Catholics that it was, Father Wall continued to use his home as a place of worship.
The building is littered with priest holes and secret compartments, like the one in the photograph taken by John Allen-Davies below, where all the paraphernalia that Catholics utilize during mass (such as those burning handbag things that they swing about on ropes and stuff) were hidden in case any unexpected soldiers turned up.

In 1678 John Wall was arrested, whisked off to Worcester gaol, given the choice between life and Catholicism, chose the wrong one and was promptly hung, drawn and quartered. The various parts of his anatomy were donated to his colleagues, who after a brief discussion about the possibilities of some entertaining items of novelty furniture (no, not really, I just made that bit up) buried most of them in St. Oswald's churchyard. The head, however, was donated to some monks at Worcester, possibly for football practice.

I vaguely remember somebody telling me once that whenever anybody photographed a particular niche inside Chingle Hall, the resulting image contained the ghostly head of John Wall himself, screaming horribly. Oddly enough I’ve never actually seen any of these spectral photographs in paranormal books or on the telly or anywhere. I suspect that somebody was pulling my leg. Perhaps it was Eleanor Singleton.
Anyhow, in 1764 Chingle Hall passed into the hands of the Farrington family; another group of fanatical Catholics with nothing better to do at weekends, who set about building more priest holes and escape tunnels. All of this probably explains why so many ghostly monks are still stomping around the building. In the 1997 (once again according to Wikipedia, so make of it what you will):

“…parapsychologist Darren Done had a unique experience. As he stood at the window of the landing, preparing to film an area outside where sightings of a ghostly monk have been reported, he claims he was suddenly knocked in the face with such force that he fell to the ground, receiving a cut and swelling to his nose.”

Catholic monks, eh? No wonder nobody liked them.
A man with shoulder length hair has apparently been witnessed on several occasions passing the window of the priest's room. Obviously he had very long legs, because the window’s on the first floor.
To be honest there are dozens of ghost stories connected with Chingle Hall, from skeletons buried under windowsills to ghostly hands shuffling bricks about. Cromwellian soldiers have marched down the drive and pulled the spark plugs out of cars. I even remember an item on Nationwide many years ago in which the reporter received a crack on the head by a low flying shield. Perhaps a pinch of salt squeezed from the ancient ceiling beams should be added to the lot of them, the amount of seasoning required depending on your personal level of scepticism.
Back in the eighties, however, I met a bloke in the Traveller’s Rest one night who insisted that he’d had a paranormal experience at Chingle Hall during a charity sleep over. He even produced a cassette recording to ‘prove it’ which he played to me on his stereo in the car park.
“They were all sceptics at first,” he insisted. “An’ we’re not talking about a bunch o’ soft gets ’ere neither. They were all well-built working class brickies what were there.”
The recording itself was muffled, but ran something along the lines of:

“Who’s drunk all t’ beer?”
“Get the microphone out o’ y’r undies, y’ dirty sod.”
“Gaz is running round wi’ no clothes on.”

The conversation continued in this fashion for some time. Just as the late night belching was starting to subside however it was interrupted by a series of difficult to interpret noises. My associate (who shall remain nameless for reasons that should be obvious by now) explained that some large dark presence had moved across the room. A low, almost inaudible moan broke the stillness and a massive dent suddenly appeared in the table on which, a few short moments before, he’d been lying, attempting to set fire to his own flatulence.
“The table was at least twelve inches thick!” he informed me.
At this point the recording broke into pandemonium as half a dozen terrified brickies, quickly reverting to the mental state of five year olds, all attempted to squeeze through one small doorway at once.

“Y’re stood on me foot!”
“Something’s got ’old o’ me!”
“AAAAAAAArgh!”

Exit (pursued by a bear).

Let’s conclude then with one last photograph, taken several decades ago by the looks of it, of John Davies-Allen (Wyre Archaeology Expert in Building Techniques) standing on the bridge across Chingle Hall’s moat. There’s nothing particularly historical or paranormal about it, I’m afraid, but I couldn’t think of any other way to end this guided tour.

What Cheek! A Potted History of the Blackpool Postcard (Part Two)

2009-06-13T07:38:00.001+01:00

Right, where we were? Oh yes…
There were several notable cartoonists amongst the plethora producing such simple works of common folk art. These included John Hassall, Alfred Lees, Tom Browne, Bruce Bairnsfather and Donald McGill. The latter (i.e. McGill) came in for a right load of old stick, unfortunately, when the inevitable backlash against people enjoying themselves occurred in the 1950s.
The problem was, you see, the upper middle classes considered themselves the moral guardians of the proletariat. Whilst it was perfectly acceptable for those with the right sort of breeding to swan around art galleries studying plump naked women being raped by swans and stuff, the idea that ordinary, uneducated folk (who really ought to have been back in the factories filling up the coffers for the aristocracy) were allowed access to cheerful, slightly risqué material was completely unacceptable.
Similar hypocritical (not to mention classist) contentions continue to this day with the upper crust still trying to ban nudity from the television screens whilst allowing it in the theatre, or complaining about the brutality of boxing when, if the truth be known, more children die every year from accidents involving frisky horses than boxers kick the bucket by knocking ten barrels out of each other.
As every government knows, the trick to keeping plebeians submissive is to begrudgingly allow them just enough moral leniency that they actually believe they’re getting away with something. However, there is always a handful of ethical elite who takes their morality one step too far.
Watch Committees were established in seaside resorts such as Blackpool, and poor old McGill (at that time eighty-one years old) found himself prosecuted under the Obscene Publications Act. A number of his postcards were even destroyed outright.
Or at least, they were supposed to be.
Want to see one? We thought you might…

Did I say it was going to be subtle? It’s intriguing to think that this was on public sale around the same time that George Formby was being banned by the BBC for the suggestive lyrics in his classic ‘Little Stick of Blackpool Rock’. Let’s face it McGill wasn’t pulling any punches, but...obscenity?
For a while the ‘Outraged Few’ got their way, shop owners were forced to withdraw their racks (ooh er) and a number of printers were even made bankrupt in the process. However, as was only to be expected, once again the tide of opinion turned, bringing with it the usual line of flotsam and jetsam.
For a few more decades the improper postcard graced every café, newsagent and ice cream stall in Blackpool, the standard of wit slowly depreciating as the boundaries of acceptability were eroded.

It takes a proper comedian to perfect his timing, something that many of the fast-buck postcard producers failed to take into account, and by the 1980s the public themselves were growing tired of the increasingly misogynistic cartoons. Some of the images now available had passed beyond sexism and were bordering on rape scenarios, and with the rise of politically correct sentiments (coupled with mounting numbers of visitors travelling abroad) the cheeky Blackpool postcard (much like Carry On films) wheezed it’s lecherous last – not with a bang, but with a whimper (again, another cracking caption perhaps).

Time has passed and we’re now in the post-ironic era, which is pretty much the same as the didn’t-know-better era but with the bonus that there’s a psuedo-intellectual explanation thrown in to excuse anything offensive. The accusations of sexism levelled at Blackpool’s early postcards can now be reappraised, not so much as a narrow, bigoted view of women in society, but as a time of female emancipation.

Perhaps the rotund landladies and domineering, rolling-pin carrying wives could still be considered misogynistic (because, let’s face it, there are no fat, unruly or violent women in Lancashire), but the cheeky Blackpool postcard (now regarded as a collectable museum piece) could better be seen as an historical and social document, not so much for what it says in the caption, but for what it doesn’t say.
That’s innuendo for you, all grown up and clever like.

What Cheek! A Potted History of the Blackpool Postcard (Part One)

2009-06-10T00:01:00.000+01:00

We’ve written before about the hedonism of the ‘Wakes Weeks’ -- those pagan festivals of debauchery, the attempts by the church to stamp them out, the predictable failure of such attempts, and the introduction of Blackpool to accommodate them.
Every generation (since the time when society was allegedly created) has attempted to ban lewdness at some point or other, their successors reintroducing it under the mistaken belief that they’re the first generation ever to have discovered sex. From Chaucer’s bawdy tale of millers and pokers, to Queen Victoria’s covering-up of piano legs, from Henry Fielding’s Tom Jones to Mrs Beeton’s Household Management, the fluctuation of this cultural meme is as unpreventable as the ebb and flow of the tide was for King Cnut. (That’s the proper spelling of Kanute, incidentally. Apologies to any dyslexics reading this.)
With the introduction of paid annual leave for industrial workers during the Victorian and Edwardian periods, holiday resorts, with an eye to making a quick turnover, understandably latched onto the humble postcard. Dr Emanuel Hermann in Austria apparently invented the first one on the 1st of October 1869. Working folk back in those time weren’t renowned for their literary prowess, the compact blank space on the reverse of the card providing ample room for their succinct messages home.
The front of the postcards, of course, reflected the radical spirit of the times, the European market typically titillating its pleasure-seeking public with sophisticated soft porn such as this:

Blackpool, on the other hand, took an altogether more British approach to the genre:

Bawdy humour and smutty innuendo have been a staple of British amusements since Robin Hood committed the first known spoonerism with Friar Tuck, and have been seldom out of fashion amongst the lower orders ever since. Blackpool knew exactly what it was all about – a sort of Club 16 to 85 for the Victorian and Edwardian socially oppressed -- and the dirty postcard served not only to entertain its boorish customers but also as an advert for the town’s wanton degeneracy. Sex and beer, along with all their accompaniments, were all attractions high on the tourist board’s agenda.

Whilst Toulouse Lautrec, the artistic French midget, was drawing up designs involving strippers in Paris, the average British holidaymaker was making designs of his own on the drawers of the midgets stripping in the Eiffel Tower’s shorter cousin. (That was a convoluted comparison, but worth the effort I thought.)
This unsubtle difference between Britain and Europe’s attitudes towards sex has been reflected throughout our cultural history. When the French were exploring female emancipation with films such as Emmanuelle, we were producing ‘Confessions of a Window Cleaner’. They had Jacques Tatti, we had Benny Hill. Exactly what it is about sex that us Brits fail to take seriously it’s difficult to say, although a nation that eats frogs’ legs and snails probably finds little to laugh about in bed.

Let’s not beat about the bush here (an ideal caption for one of the cartoons now that I come to think about it) – the average humorous postcard wasn’t subtle in the slightest. Innuendo, vulgar pun, double-entendre, call them what you will but the unrefined, less-than-ambiguous sexual references have always been part of Blackpool’s intrinsic character. (The tower itself is proof of this, if proof was ever needed, of course.)

But enough…we’ve run out of room. (By gum Missus!) Let’s take a short breather and meet back up behind the beach huts in a few days time, eh?