The Third Leg of King’s Map of 1682

Time to scramble back into our thick socks and hiking boots, pick up our wizened old staff (that’d be the Wyre Archaeology committee) and hoist our rucksacks over our shoulders once again, because we’re back on King’s highway, from seventeenth century Poulton to what’ll probably be eighteenth century Pilling by the time we reach it.
We’ve left Poulton far behind us now, of course, crossed the River Wyre by Mains Hall and tramped around the back of Hambleton due to the fact that ‘ye Wyre Floweth’ over the road (or possibly we've wandered around the front of Hambleton following the same road we'd follow nowadays...we're still in debate about that).

There’s not much to mention about this particular stretch of our journey, other than that we’re heading northwards to Stalmine. (Stalmine’s off the bottom of the map, incidentally. King drew the whole lot upside down for reasons best left to himself and his unusual outlook.)
En route we pass some interesting ‘banks’ and ‘shrubs’ -- King thought them interesting enough to include, at any rate; perhaps he held an account at one of them -- then a turn off back to Hambleton, another to Staynall, a third ‘to ye moss’ and a fourth, in the same direction, heading also to ‘ye moss’ only this time via ‘Racliff’ (which was King’s way of spelling Rawcliffe; he was a cartographer, nobody said he had to be good at spelling).
All of which preamble brings us to the village of Stalmine itself, and a good job too, because we could do with a cigarette and a butty after that.

By the look of things, Stalmine hasn’t changed much since King’s time. Most of the original houses are still there.
Here’s one of them below. I’m not quite certain which one it is, probably the one just above the square village green on the map. Whatever the case, it was there in King’s day, and it’s still there now (sans thatch and original occupants perhaps).

Off to the right of the map, as far as we can work out, runs Occupation Lane.
That’s still there as well, as can be seen in the following photograph, although nowadays it’s little more than, for the most part, a sunken track between the trees (possibly indicating that it’s an even more ancient hollow way than King realised), dwindling and dawdling as it meanders into a public footpath across the patchwork fields, before running out of steam altogether when it reaches the stile at Highgate Lane (that other Kings’ Highway from ancient times).

There’s a chamfered stump guards the entrance to Occupation Lane at the village end; a lonely stone now acting as residence to miniature mosses and curling ivy. It might once have been a gatepost, but it seems far more likely (to antiquarians such as me anyhow) to have been the indicator that a keeill (one of those early Christian/Pagan chapels constructed from upturned boats) was in the region.
After all, wherever there’s a Keeill, there’s generally a lane that attaches it to a Roman road (in this case the aforementioned Highgate Lane, which we know was Roman because we excavated it last year) and its obligatory keeill cross.
So, where’s the keeill you ask? Well, some keeills rotted along with the old religions centuries ago, whilst other (perhaps with a bit more foresight) transformed themselves into fully-fledged Christian places of worship.
Let’s continue our ramble down Smithy Lane (to the left of the green on King’s map), briefly noting the old road to Stalmine Grange (another of last year’s digs) at the lower right hand corner, and the various old cottages leading up to the Seven Stars pub.
There’s Town End Cottage, look, with its enormous black flying buttresses. I can’t help wondering what they’re for, other than to prevent the cottage from collapsing beneath its own weight, of course.

At the top of Smithy Lane we pass my sister’s old house. She now lives on Lewis, an island off the northwest coast of Scotland. Apparently the hurly-burly of Stalmine was too much for her.
Across the road lies the Seven Stars pub, so it’s time for another whistle stop, and a pint or two to whet it.
There’s some writing on King’s map at the Seven Stars, but its difficult to make out. Rich Simpson perhaps? King might have been drunk when he wrote it. Whatever it reads, next door to the pub stands Stalmine Chapel, a sketch of which has been provided for us by King himself.
In the grounds of Stalmine Chapel (still there to this day) stands the preaching cross shown below.

It’s been converted into a sundial now, but back in the days before it was retired (1690 according to date carved on its rear) it was hefted into a much older, square stone base.
That’s the base of a keeill cross, that is, suggesting that Stalmine Chapel, way back in its infancy, was our missing keeill after all.
Did it originally house our lonely stump at Occupation Lane? We couldn’t tell you that off hand. Not that it matters, because we’ve run out of space and we’ve run out of map for the time being, so we’ll just have to continue our rambles on another occasion.

Kings Map of 1682 (The Second Leg from Mains to Hambleton)

It was rather good of the County Archivist (even if we don’t know his/her name) to let us reproduce the following map otherwise we’d have been stuffed for an article this week. So, we’re back on the ancient road through the Wyre again, as it was in 1682 when Gregory King first scrawled the route from Poulton to Pilling on a scrap of old parchment. Let’s have the first section up for you, continuing as it does from our last stopping off place (where we had tea and crumpets with Mr Hoskins no doubt) at Mains Hall.


That’s all well and good, but presumably you want to see something of the country we’re traversing (even if the photographs are four hundred years too late), so here’s a view you wouldn’t have had of Mains Hall back in Gregory King’s time, as captured from Frank’s plane in March 2009:


I wonder if that’s Mr Hoskin’s car out front? (Actually, it’s far more likely to be Adele Yeoman’s – and I still haven’t been back in touch with her about excavating her rear garden. There’s just been so much to do.)
We haven’t got time to hang around though, so it’s across the river to Hambleton, presumably by the ferry that once ran there, or by an old ford now long since vanished. (Adele did mention at one point that there were a number of large boulders stretching into the Wyre around the location indicated with the dotted line on King’s map, so either would make sense.)
Interestingly, this isn’t Aldwath, which is further back down the river. Possibly by this point our prehistoric ford had fallen into disuse, because the one denoted on King’s map (if it isn’t the ferry, of course) cuts back to the same location on the north side of the river but starts outside Mains Hall and runs at a different angle.
Whatever the case, once we’ve crossed the quaintly named ‘Wyre Flu’ we head down what is presumably Bullpark Lane, past Mr Charles Shuttleworth’s residence. (Exactly why King felt it necessary to inform us that Mr Shuttleworth lived here when he completely failed to mention the residents of the other houses on the banks of the river is anybody’s guess. Especially when you stop to consider that one of those buildings is probably the Shard Inn and would have been as good a place as any for a quick pint. Perhaps Mr Shuttleworth made excellent homebrew.)
Then it’s off the bottom of the map (which is actually north because back in the seventeenth century maps were drawn upside down or sideways or what have you, in fact in all sorts of weird and wonderful directions just to confuse people) so it’s time to post up Section Two:


Now, the road layout here probably isn’t what you’d expect if you know the main route through Hambleton today. In fact, if you spin the map round and compare it to a modern Ordnance Survey, you’ll notice that the road in King’s day heads around the back of Hambleton village, so that little square building in the middle of the chart isn’t the Shovels Inn as you might expect. This road layout seems to have survived until relatively recently. Here’s what our perennial favourite Allen Clarke had to say about Hambleton back in 1916:

“Hambleton has the charm of sweet seclusion. Fortunately for Nature’s pilgrims and lovers of unspoiled rusticity, it lies off the main road. You will not find it, especially in the foliage of summer, when it is like a nest hidden amongst leaves, unless you are looking for it – all you can see of it from the nearest highroad is a curl of smoke or two over the green tree-tops.”

There’s an image that doesn’t quite square with the traffic congested highway tearing through the heart of the village nowadays.
The actual road with the Shovels on it as recorded on King’s map would be the one labelled, ‘Over Wyre to Stanna’ (presumably via Bulker or Wardleys’ ford).
I was going to suggest a photograph of the Shovels Inn at this juncture, but for some reason I couldn’t find one. Fortunately I do have a drawing that I produced earlier. I’ve coloured it in as well, in an attempt to make it a bit more interesting.


King even provides us with a reason why the original route swings so far back up Market Street. You might just be able to make out the words in the middle of the map that read: “Here ye Tide Floweth.” Perhaps as well it still doesn’t, otherwise there’d be a lot of houses and shops and stuff with a rising damp problem nowadays.
Continuing down our map we hit a road to ‘Stanna’…again, although not the same Stanah as the last one. This one’s actually Staynall. It all gets a bit confusing but you get the impression that mediaeval peasants weren’t particularly inventive with place names. (A bit like the English colonists really, who were inclined to copy their own place names from towns and villages in Britain because they couldn’t be bothered coming up with something original).
Right at the bottom of our map is the road ‘to Racliff so to Preston’ – Racliff, of course, being Rawcliffe because the Tudors were even worse at spelling than they were at creating interesting new place names. (Did you know that Shakespeare spelt his name about five different ways? Sad, but true…and to think that he called himself a writer!)
Anyhow, that’s as far as we’re going for the time being, because we’ve run out of patience. However, no doubt we’ll be back to continue King’s wanderings through the Fylde and Wyre at some point soon.

King’s Map of 1682: From Poulton to Mains

We haven’t had an ancient map on this board for ages, so it’s about time we rectified this situation with the following offering courtesy of Frank Smith (Wyre Archaeology Committee Member for Aerial Reconnaissance). It might look a bit scratchy (hardly surprising when you consider it was drawn with a quill) and it might not be as accurate as the modern Ordnance Survey stuff, but it is a good ’un.
But first, let’s have a bit of history about its creator.
Gregory King was born at Litchfield, the son of a surveyor and landscape gardener. At the age of fourteen he became a clerk to Sir William Dugdale, the antiquary and herald. In 1672 he moved to London to work for John Ogilby, surveying and engraving maps. (We’ve probably reproduced one of Ogilby’s maps on this board before. I’m not entirely certain about that and, to be honest, I can’t be bothered checking.) In 1677 King was appointed Rouge Dragon Pursuivant in the College of Arms (don’t ask), became Lancaster Herald in 1688 and finally dropped dead in 1712. King's manuscript "Natural and Political Observations and Conclusions upon the State and Condition of England, 1696" (not the catchiest title ever perhaps) contained estimates of the population and wealth of England at the close of the 17th century, featuring the demographics of the British population at the time regarding age, gender, marital status, number of children, servants etc, and, more importantly, the amount of beer annually consumed. In other words, the bloke was a statistician.
But enough about that, let’s get on with the map, which I had to reassemble into some sort of order because King’s original version was, quite frankly, all over the place. Then I chopped it in half again, and then into quarters, and finally into eighths, being there no other way to fit into this article all in one go.
I also ought to add that, because of potential copyright infringement, Frank wrote back to the Lancashire Records Office and there doesn’t seem to be a problem, but for the record, the following map has been reproduced by the kind permission of the County Archivist, Lancashire Record Office’:


Right, this first section then deals with the route from Poulton market place to about halfway down the Breck. Observant readers might have noticed that it’s running from the south at the top to the north at the bottom (or, to put it another way, it’s upside down). Unfortunately, if I’d placed it the right way up then all of the writing would have been upside down instead. That would have looked rubbish and given our reader a severe crick in his/her neck, no doubt, so you’ll just have to bear with it.
A couple of bits and pieces deserve a mention, starting right at the top with ‘The Bull Ring in ye middle of Poulton Markett Place’.
I can’t help wondering how they managed to squeeze a bullring into the market place with all that mediaeval furniture already in there. Ahem…better not go there, eh? I’ve got myself in trouble before for bringing up that particular subject, so let’s move on.
Next up, the houses shown as standing in front of St Chad’s on King’s map are, of course, no longer there. Anyone who knows Poulton will be aware that the graveyard surrounding the church simply drops down to the pavement on Tithebarn Street.
And, before anybody starts hollering that the Thatched House is still there actually, thank you very much…well, strictly speaking, it isn’t. The following photograph is probably the version of the Thatched House recorded on King’s map, not the more familiar hostelry we know today:


Ignoring King’s road running to ‘Carlton & Biston’ (obviously it’s meant to be Bispham…presumably King never visited Bispham to find out), we head down the Breck past Mr Horsons, or Mr Hortons, or Mr Something-or-other-like-that (who cares…he’s been dead for four centuries) and on to the rather enigmatic Brock Hall.
We’re assuming, because of its situation, that it was probably actually called Breck Hall and that King just recorded it wrong. He might not have done, of course, but we’re antiquarians and we can assume whatever we like.
Not that this provides us with any more information about the place, regardless. We’ve never heard of Breck Hall before. Anybody reading this who knows something we don’t (and, let’s face it, that wouldn’t take much)…postcards, usual address, you know what to do.
It’s time for the second section, tracing the route from ‘Breck/Brock Hall’ to Old Mains Lane.


Right next to Brock Hall we find James Parr’s Farm, which we particularly like, because Wyre Archaeology’s first citizen of patronage (i.e. the bloke who let’s us use the café at Wyrefield Farm) is also called James Parr…and, of course, he’s also a farmer. Farmer Parr, in fact.
Are, or rather were, the two of them related in some manner? Well, very probably, yes. They might even be the same person for all I know, although if they are, then James has aged extremely well. (Possibilities of vampires spring to mind, but, again, let’s not go there.)
Onwards then, down the Breck (the Norse name for a steep hill, which is what the Breck is) to the junction with Skippool Road, described on the map as, ‘to Thornton or to scribble Stauna’ (Skippool Road, in case you’re lost, is the one with Thornton Lodge on it nowadays), turning east along Mains Lane, past the River Wyre hotel and over Skippool Bridge whilst admiring Mains Windmill on your right.
Yes…Mains Windmill, another building we had no idea ever existed.
There’s a bit of confusion here. The only reference to any mill whatsoever in this area, we found tucked away at the bottom of a list of archaeological sites somewhere. It referred to the ruins of a mill, which, by our calculations, originally stood smack bang in the middle of our Bronze Age settlement at the gymkhana field.
According to the document, the remains of said mill are still visible today. (That’s news to me. We’ve never seen them, but then again, we’ve never looked.) This doesn’t tie in with the location of Mains Windmill on King’s map, however. Perhaps the document has recorded the grid reference incorrectly. Perhaps King’s map is a bit misleading.
It’s all very enigmatic; so we’ll leave that for now and just continue with our ramble.
And so to the third, and final section (for this particular article at any rate – there’s a lot more of the map to go after this, but three instalments should suffice for now).


Down Old Mains Lane we head, turning east along the riverbank (noting the doodled calculations of King somewhere in the vicinity of Point Shard – he wasn’t half a messy cartographer), pulling up short at the rear of Mains Hall (which, in those days, was the front of Mains Hall). Mains Hall appears to have been owned at this juncture (if the map is to be believed – and I don’t see any reason why it shouldn’t be) by a certain Mr. Hoskins.
I wonder if Adele, Mains Hall’s current owner, has seen this map? Perhaps I ought to send her a copy.
Let’s have a photograph of Mains Hall then, if only to break up the monotony of all this writing:


Now, intriguingly, at this point, our main highway crosses the river, not by Aldwath ford (which, presumably, is located at the three scratch marks further back along the bank to the west) but immediately opposite Mains Hall itself. So, either everybody travelling this route was expected to climb down off his or her horse at this location and swim the perilous depths of the river, or there was a ferry/ford hanging around somewhere close by.
Our best guess would be the latter. Adele told us once that she’d discovered some large, suspicious looking boulders running into the river at this location, and that sounds like a long since abandoned ford to me.
Right, that’s enough for one article. We’ll continue our jaunt into 17th Century Hambleton in the next exciting episode…whenever and wherever that might actually be. (Not just yet, that’s for certain. One run at this map is enough for the time being.) Try not to lose too much sleep with the anticipation of it all in the meantime, will you?

Would you like Sodor with that?

We all absentmindedly misplace things from time to time; the house keys in the fridge, the latest Harry Potter novel on the bookcase instead of in the bin. It’s called getting old and senile, and to be honest I’m used to it nowadays. Misplacing an entire island, on the other hand, isn’t something that most of us could manage every day, but apparently that’s what happened in the case of the Island of Sodor.
What do you mean, what the hell am I rambling on about? The Bishopric of Sodor and Man, that’s what; a Church of England diocese covering the Isle of Man and its adjacent islets.
Only Sodor itself is missing, which is basically what this article’s about.
Here’s what we managed to pull off a website, the address of which, with a certain amount of irony, I’ve currently misplaced:
“The Norwegian diocese of Sodor was formed 1154, covering the Hebrides and the other islands along the west coast of Scotland…the Isle of Man was included in with these southern isles. Norway controlled all these islands until 1266, when they were ceded to Scotland. The Isle of Man was detached from the Scottish islands and came under the suzerainty of the Kings of England in 1334. Thereafter it was held by feudal Lords of Man (the Stanleys, Earls of Derby, from 1406 to 1736 and the Dukes of Atholl from 1736) until the lordship was purchased by the British Crown in 1765. The right to appoint the Bishop of Sodor and Man belonged to the Lords of Man, and continued to be exercised by the Dukes of Atholl after the 'revestment' in 1765 until it was surrendered to the Crown in 1828. It is possible that the origin of the name "Sodor" was lost and its meaning was applied to this islet as the seat of the bishop. The termination "and Man" appears to have been added in the 17th century by a legal draughtsman ignorant of the proper application of the name of Sodor to the bishopric of Man…”
And so on and so forth. (How dull was that? No wonder nobody reads history books these days. I wouldn’t mind but that’s the heavily edited down version. Now I remember why I didn’t bookmark the page.)
Anyhow, if the ‘Island of Sodor’ sounds familiar then it might be worth rewinding your memories several hundred years to childhood, and in particular Reverend Wilbert Awdry’s ‘Thomas the Tank Engine’ books.
Yes, you did read that right…the Fylde and Wyre Antiquarian has entered the realm of fat controllers and talking steam trains. And, yes, we are implying that Thomas and Edward and Percy all lived on the mythical Island of Sodor and that their home was indeed one and the same as our own missing bishopric.
Again, let’s turn to the experts…and again I’ve forgotten which website I copied this information from, which explains why I usually leave these matters up to Michelle, but not being as big a fan of Thomas and Friends as myself she thought it best to leave it in my hands, which was obviously a mistake…er…where was I? Oh yes, the following quote was taken from a Thomas the Tank Engine website…somewhere:
“After publication of the first books, the Rev Wilbert Awdry was asked by readers to explain where the stories took place. Whilst on holiday on the Isle of Man, he discovered that the local bishop had the title "Bishop of Sodor and Man"...The Rev Wilbert Awdry and his brother George liked the name, and invented the fictional Isle of Sodor, which they located between the Isle of Man and Walney Island. They made maps and invented a history of its people and railway engines. A map of 1958 shows the island as originally planned, some five times the size of the Isle of Man.”
Want to see the map? We thought you would, so here it is:

This version was actually scanned in from the inside cover of a Thomas the Tank Engine compendium (hence the crease). You can just see the Fleetwood peninsula and the Fylde coast in the bottom right hand corner. It’s interesting that the train lines connect to the mainland at Barrow…well, it’s interesting if you like that sort of thing, at any rate.
So, apparently, the Bishopric of Sodor and Man was invented by the Reverend Awdry in 1154 and Sodor itself sank into Morecambe Bay when the fat controller ate one mince pie too many in 1976 taking Ringo Starr down with it…or something like that. Which is all fine and good…except (and there always has to be an ‘except’ with us)…well, take a look at the map below:

What you’re viewing here is a detail from Gough’s map of Lancashire circa 1360 (otherwise known as the Bodleian Map because…well, that’s where it’s currently held we suspect). It’s a bit complicated, mainly because it’s highly inaccurate, runs from east to west rather than the usual north to south, and frankly doesn’t bear much resemblance to anything produced over the last few centuries by the Ordnance Survey. But don’t let that distract you. In the bottom right hand corner, if you look closely enough, you should be able to locate Anglesey. And directly above it on the mainland you should also be able to find Cockersand Abbey (or Cokersand as it’s labelled). Now, the interesting things here are the two islands between said ‘Cokersand’ and Anglesey.
The larger of these two landmasses, presumably somewhere off North Wales, is actually named on the map, but try as we might we’ve never been able to decipher what it says. To the best of our knowledge neither has anybody else. The fact that, in reality, neither of these islands exists (at least, not nowadays) has a lot to do with it.
So, the question is, was one of these islands the legendary Sodor?
Let’s move forwards chronologically to 1546 and George Lily’s map, again confusingly sideways but perhaps a bit more accurate than Gough’s rather feeble attempt at cartography.

Now, on Lily’s map, the Isle of Man is clearly visible off our coast as always (labelled as Mona) and Anglesey is clearly included (once again) in the spot where you’d expect to be. However, the mysterious island opposite Cockersand Abbey as shown on Gough’s map now appears to have disappeared, leaving only the enigmatic island situated off the Welsh coast, along with it’s equally enigmatic scribble of a name.
Nowadays, of course, this latter island too has vanished. Whether it, or the Cockersand Island, or even the mysterious Island of Sodor, ever really existed in the first place is still open to debate. But one thing’s for certain, any future marine excavations off our coast that manage to unearth a fat controller will probably have struck the jackpot.
Eat your heart out Atlantis.

Saxton's Map 1577

Another post, another historic map for enthusiasts of local cartography. This time its Saxton's map of Lancashire from 1577. It's interesting to compare this with our previously posted Speed's map of 1610. You can't help thinking that Speed might have gone in for a spot of plagiarism to cut a few corners.

Whatever the case, as always just click on the thumbnail and the full-sized version should, hopefully, open up. Make sure first, of course, that you've got broadband to handle the file size.

For anybody who hasn't upgraded to broadband yet (and, to be honest, it's about time you did because you're missing our excellent slideshows) we've included a smaller version below, detailing only the Fylde and the Wyre. Again, just click on the thumbnail, make yourself a mug of coffee, and wait for the full-sized map to load.

Bowen's Map 1752

This one's for Adele. Monks Hall (spelt Monksall...actually it might just say Monks H...it's a bit tricky to read) can be found where you'd expect Mains Hall to usually stand. Exactly why Bowen changed the hall's name we couldn't say. The quality of the map isn't particularly brilliant, but that's because it's a photocopy of a photocopy that was reduced in size in the first place etc. Anyhow, just click on the thumbnail below for the larger version.

Incidentally, we owe an apology to everyone who's left comments here over the last few weeks/months only to not have them appear. (Or rather I personally owe you an apology...Michelle, perhaps a bit optimistically, left me in charge of the fixtures and fittings of this board.) This morning I realised that the comments settings were all to cock. (And there we were thinking that nobody wanted to talk to us.)

I've done my best to respond to those comments we missed now (with the exception of the ones concerning 'Viagra' or 'Remortgage Payments' which, as you'd expect, have been deleted) and I've also changed the settings so that in future your comments should appear automatically.

Again, apologies for the cock up. We weren't being ignorant, honest.

Yates' Map of 1786

Despite Neil Thompson (Chairman of Wyre Archaeology)'s insistence that 'giving away things for free is ruining the economy' (personally I can think of a number of more serious drains on our purses...local councillors enjoying huge and expensive banquets under the guise of 'encouraging business into the area' for one...but let's not go there) it's time for another free uncopyrighted map. This time it's Yates' map of Lancashire from 1786; a map that we've found invaluable in our researches over the years. And it's yours for nothing, to study, disassemble and/or colour-in-with-felt-tips-if-you're-that-way-inclined; whatever you feel fit. (Who said that socialism was dead?) Simply click on the thumbnail below for the larger version.

Incidentally, we know the joins don't quite match up in the middle (right over the Wyre as it happens) but you can blame that on Yates himself who drew the map up in sections.

Speed's Map of Lancashire: 1610

Sticking with the idea of providing our readers (possibly reader, singular) with various historic maps, this week we're posting Speed's map of Lancashire circa 1610...in colour. Again, it's a fairly large file so before you click on the thumbnail below, make sure that you're internet connection's capable of handling copious amounts of data.

Incidentally, if these maps are annoying you and you'd rather we went back to discussing the various 'ins and outs' of local archaeology, then feel free to say so in the comments box below. As always we'll try our best to provide you with something more appropriate. We're nothing if not accomodating.

1650 Map of Garstang

This week we thought we’d try something a little different. Because we’ve recently upgraded to Broadband (how technologically advanced is that?) we can now upload images a damned sight faster than we could before, which means that we can share a few of our historic maps with you; maps that should prove extremely useful to Wyre Antiquarians and that were previously too cumbersome for our wheezy old dial-up connection to handle.
Unfortunately, we’re still trying to recover most of them following that blasted computer virus that buckled our hard drive a few weeks ago. However, we have managed to salvage the following 1650 map of Garstang. To see it full-sized just click on the image below, although, be warned, it’s three and a half meg so unless you want to spend the next few hours waiting for it to load in, make sure you’re on Broadband like us:

If that wasn’t enough, we’ve even scanned in the key at a higher resolution so that you can read it properly.

The numbers alongside the field names, obviously, relate to the numbers on the map. And there are a few interesting ones amongst them. For example, ‘Cuckstool Meadow’, undoubtedly the home of that mediaeval ducking device designed to teach scalds a lesson, can be located towards the south end of Garstang, just off Green Lane. Not exactly where you’d expect it to be, perhaps, especially seeing as it isn’t even on the riverbank, but that’s what make documents like this fascinating.
Other fields such as ‘Swinthorn’ (swine enclosure) ‘Lachrams’ (Lower Farm Fields) and ‘Parrick’ (horse enclosure) all give us some idea of the original Saxon workings of the village. In fact, most of them were breeding pigs if the number of ‘Swinthorn’s is anything by which to judge.
Then there’s ‘Butt Hills’ which might refer to a mediaeval archery range or, as is often the case, a prehistoric burial mound.
There's a ‘Pad Acre’ (which should help us pin down the exact route of the Roman road through Garstang to Lancaster, the location of which still remains sketchy) and there are ‘Cross Fields’ possibly indicating branch roads to keeills. One particular ‘Cross Field’ situated between Broom Hill and what is nowadays the A6 might even have been the original location of the Cabus Cross; it’s hard to tell.
If the map can shed new light on some mysteries then it also casts enigmatic shadows of its own. To the east (which is actually the lower section rather than the area to the right as you might expect) the land belongs to the ‘Lordship of Woody-Acre’ whilst to the west (upper portion) the land is ‘Part of the Township of Baygus’.
That one stumped us. Don’t forget, at this point in its history Garstang wasn’t a town in its own right but merely a ‘Manor’. We’d never heard of the ‘Township of Baygus’ so we decided to ask around. Unfortunately, it transpired, neither had anybody else although the best suggestion so far is that ‘Baygus’ was a misspelling of Cabus.
Yes, well, we’ll leave that one to our readers to decide.
Anyhow, keep your eyes peeled because we’ll be uploading more historic maps in the future (providing our Broadband Hub doesn’t explode of course).