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

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)

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)

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

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.

Taking Stock

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

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.

The Mystery of Norbreck Mill

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...

Brew Time for Mediaeval Peasants

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!

Another Handful of Chipping’s Chippings

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.)

Another Selection of Historical Titbits

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."

Ghostly Goings on at Goosnargh

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.

More Historical Titbits

Number Four: The Fylde Folk Festival

It’s hard to believe that the annual Fylde Folk Festival (held in various venues around Fleetwood) is actually into its 36th year. But it is, so there you go. As well as traditional Lancashire Clog Dancing (don’t laugh…I happen to enjoy watching them go at it with sparks flying and petticoats flouncing, and they’re a reet gradely bunch of lads and lasses who know how to sup their ale an’ awl) the festival plays host to a number of international stars of the folk scene, magicians, craft fairs and even traditional mummers.


The crew from Cookley in Worcestershire I found particularly interesting. Me and Michelle got chatting with them a couple of years back and discovered that Tony Blair had, at one point, tried to ban them from performing, on the grounds of racism. Eventually the Cookley Mummers managed to convince our over-the-top politically correct government that the tradition of ‘blacking up’ went back to mediaeval times, when begging (or performing for monies) was outlawed. The local farmers (during those thrifty winter months) would don coats made from rags and black their faces with burnt cork so that nobody would recognise them, then perform their dances to the unamused locals who would gladly pay them to clear off.
To say that some of the dances were risqué would be an understatement, especially when phallic staffs were whacked together with an eye-watering thud.


Morris dancers also appear on the menu at the Fylde Folk Festival, of course, this ancient rite of spring passage with its giddy fool and its hobbyhorse and its head slapping antics and bell jingling nonsense, probably stems from Pagan fertility festivals and is traditionally accompanied by maypoles, sword dances and lots and lots of beer.
Without the beer it just looks stupid.
With the beer it still looks stupid, but in a traditional, British, its-almost-summer-so-who-cares sort of way.

Number Five: Stalmine Hall and Village


Stalmine Hall (shown above) only dates back to the 19th century although the manor of Stalmine is, as you’d expect, considerably older.
The village itself was first recorded in the Domesday Book, at which time it was owned (or rather ‘previously owned’, because by that point he was dead, having been hacked to pieces by his brother Harold, before Harold himself bought it at the Battle of Hastings) by Tostig Godwinson. (That’s a very long sentence, but I’m too tired after writing it to edit it down into more manageable bits.)
In 1165 the manor belonged to the appropriately named Robert de Stalmine.


The chapel (above) gets its first mention circa 1200 and the cemetery was consecrated in 1230.
Geoffrey de Ballista of Hakenishou (otherwise known as Geoffrey the Crossbowman because he owned a couple of very large crossbows of which, I’m sure, he was terribly proud) and William de Stalmyne agreed that neither they nor their descendants would ever sell the:

“…chapel of Stalmyne on any occasion or pretext whatsoever.”

In 1860 the chapel was rebuilt, changing its dedication from St. Oswald to St. James in the process.
So much for that.
Next to the porch stands the sundial dating from 1690, although it’s rooted into a much earlier keeill cross base.
William Thornber had this to say about matters:

“The roof, or rather the ceiling, of the old church of Stalmine was very beautiful and antique, formed of wood, decorated and painted with a representation of the sun, moon, stars and all the signs of the Zodiac, and other curious figures and hieroglyphs, but unfortunately no care was taken to preserve it when the present church was rebuilt.”

That figures.

The Life and Times of the Towers

Nowadays the residents of Cleveleys know the Towers (situated just off Holmefield Avenue at the end of a short but leafy drive) as an urban oasis; a quiet squirrel-infested woodland secreted away at the centre of a labyrinth of peaceful avenues where only local hedgehogs, toads and ducks know of its existence.
It’s sometimes used as a meeting point for the Wyre Rangers and the Healthy Walks Squad, although they’re almost as difficult to spot as the wrens that hop about in the trees.
Even those in the know, however, are unlikely to remember it looking like this:


It did once, though.
Even earlier the place was known as Villa Wood and there have always been rumours that the Danes’ Pad (the Wyre’s infamous missing Roman road) ran through the grounds. We’re neither going to confirm nor deny this, because we just don’t know, although the name Villa Wood is intriguing in its own right, especially when, according to Ralph Smedley’s ‘Thornton Cleveleys Remembered’, he recalled as a child seeing a large fig tree growing outside the front door.
We could speculate for hours about its origins, but what we do know is that, on old maps, there was an ancient route running from Thornton, via the Towers (before the Towers itself existed), through Ritherham and on to Rossall Mill, which stood in the vicinity of the new cinema near Jubilee Gardens nowadays. The old route was marked by those odd boundary stones we often find in such places round these parts. One is still in situ at the West Drive entrance to the Towers (albeit heavily disguised beneath a Quatermass-like growth of ivy). Another can just about be determined, half eaten by the hedges surrounding the substation on North Drive.
In 1904 (or so our lackadaisical investigations have revealed) Messrs Horrocks, of the famous Preston textile firm (well…it’s famous in Preston, apparently, even if nobody else has ever heard of it) bought the entire Thornton Estate, which consisted of all the fields and woodlands stretching from Bourne Hall to Cleveleys, incorporating the aforementioned Towers en route. It was the Horrocks’ family who built the Towers itself as a hunting lodge, the residence of a certain Kess Hodgkinson, gamekeeper.
We assume it was around this period that the grounds also acquired the sundial from Bourne Hall, now serving time as a bird table next to one of the ponds. (At least we think it is. It certainly looks like the same bit of ornate garden furniture anyhow.)
Needless to say the building has now gone. Back in the 1913 ‘Healthy Cleveleys’ brochure, however, the following advert appears:

“The famous ‘Champion Conn,’ of Cleveleys, who holds an international reputation. Winner of 25 Championships. This record has never been equalled by any Dane in any part of the world. Young stocks always for sale. Stud Fee, £4 4s.”

In case you’re starting to get worried, the advert ends:

“Apply: Kennel Man, the Towers, Thornton-le-Fylde. Telephone 22, Cleveleys.”

What are we doing here? We can do better than this. We can show you a photograph of the famous Conn. Here he is, so famous that you’ve probably never heard of him:


It would appear that the ‘Kennel Man’ in question was a certain Mr Kirwan, owner of the original Cleveleys Inn, although at the time of his ownership it wasn’t an inn any longer but simply his home.
Mr Kirwan originally had kennels attached to his Cleveleys Inn home (which stood, incidentally, where the Olympia stands today) but moved to the Towers when he needed space to expand, which would explain why the school kids locally at the time knew the spot as Kirwan’s Woods. (It might explain the legend of the ‘Great Danes’ Pad as well.)
Not only did the Towers over its lifespan act as host to kennels. It was also once home to Highfield Girls’ College (‘the School in a Garden’), run by Miss E. Aitkin and Miss Gee. You might just about be able to recognise the grounds in the advert below.


Just for good measure, we’ve also got a photograph of some of the students, taken during the Rose Queen Celebrations of the 1950s. By coincidence we came across the following entry in the guest book over at Phil Barker’s site not so long ago (http://www.rossallbeach.co.uk) left by Fiona Hogan:

“My mum the rose queen at Highfield College (The Towers) pictured was the last rose queen they had.”


In more recent times -- although still a great many years ago as the chronological crows flies -- I personally remember climbing the tallest tree in the Towers, the one that’s leaning dangerously at a forty-five degree angle now but at the time rose to a dizzying height of…oh, at least 2000 feet, perching on the uppermost branches amongst the startled squirrels and surveying the Fylde through a pair of binoculars.
It was a stupid thing for a forty-odd year man to do now that I come to look back on it, but I was extremely drunk at the time and didn’t know any better.