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.

WITCHES!

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


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


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


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


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


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

Gravestones and Devils’ Hooves

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


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

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

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

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

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


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


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

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

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

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

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

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...

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.

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?

Wake up and Smell the Rushes: Part Two

Last week we discussed the origins of the Wakes Weeks and rush-bearing ceremonies and other pagan stuff. If you’ve forgotten what we said in the article, you’ll just have to read it again I’m afraid, because we want to get on.

Right…just to prove that these practices were common around the Fylde, here’s an extract from the Kirkham parish register dated 1604: “Rushes to strew the church cost this year 9s 6d.” (And possibly a few maidens as well, but they’re not mentioned.)
After a morning spent in quiet Christian devotion, the congregation were given the afternoon off, which was where the fun really began. There was dancing, much quaffing of ale, fighting, May pole dancing, bear baiting, more fighting, drunken revelry, cock fighting, flirting, lots more drinking, eating, no doubt vomiting, arguing, urinating up the side of the ‘rush huts’ and, almost certainly, the traditional late night soliloquy of: “Y’ my bes’ mate, you are…’Av no idea what y’ name is, bu’ y’ my bes’ mate in the ’ole world, ’onest!”
Understandably, perhaps, the more puritanical members of society were not amused.

In 1571 the festivities were banned from all the churches in the archdiocese of York, which at the time included Lancashire, and in 1633, King Charles I wrote: “Of late, in some counties of our kingdom, we find that, under the pretence of taking away abuses, there hath been a general forbidding…of the feasts of the dedication of churches, commonly called wakes. Now our express will and pleasure is, that these feasts, with others, shall be observed…”
I don’t usually side with the royal family in political matters, but on this occasion he definitely had a point.
Unfortunately, along came Cromwell, accompanied by one breadbasket, an axe and certain nefarious designs of his own. Off came the king’s head and the wakes celebrations were banished completely.
Several years later, in 1660, after the restoration of the monarchy, the wakes returned, and the chances of this country ever becoming a republic again (we have long memories, especially when it comes to people taking our beer away from us) were utterly quashed.
However, the original zest of the wakes celebrations had been severely diminished and, by the 18^th century, they were only pale shades of their former selves.
Here’s what John Lucas had to say about the recently revived festival at St Oswald’s in Warton in the early 18th century: “The feast of dedication…is now annually observed on the Sunday nearest to the first of August, and the vain custom of dancing, excessive drinking, etc., on that day being for many years laid aside, the inhabitants and strangers duly spend the day in attending the service of the church and preparing good cheer within the rules of sobriety in private houses…They cut hard rushes from the marsh, which they make up into long bundles, and then dress them in fine linen, ribbons, silk, flowers, etc.; afterwards the young women take the burdens upon their heads and begin the procession…which is attended with a great multitude of people, with music, drums, ringing bells and all other demonstrations of joy…”
(Sounds a bit like Christian rock music, somehow, doesn’t it? It thinks it’s of a similar ilk to the original, but it’s too watered down and the tambourines are being bashed a bit too excitedly for most people’s tastes.)
Eventually the industrial revolution arrived. The survival of the wakes (despite their tempered appearance) presented the workers with an opportunity not to bother turning up for work, so the mill owners decided to simply close the factories down and overhaul the machinery.
Next up came the railways and certain changes in the law with regard to ‘paid holidays’, allowing the mill workers to spend their holidays in Blackpool. Because the local saints’ days (now extended into weeks, of course, because, after all, where’s the fun in getting completely smashed out of your brains if you’ve got to turn up for work the following morning?) were different for each parish, entire towns would grind to a halt all at once whilst the workers headed off for the coast.
So Blackpool happened, to accommodate the weekly turn over of working class visitors determined to have a good blow out before knuckling down to another fifty-one weeks of abuse and drudgery.
The town grew, and in 1923 its authorities recognised the annual need for grockles debauching themselves so readily that they instigated the first Blackpool carnival. It cost £5,500 to stage and attracted hundreds of thousands of visitors.
In fact, this almost-similar-but-not-quite-the-same-as-a-rush-bearing-parade proved so popular that the following year another was held. Unfortunately, as is often the case with sequels, this one didn’t meet with the same approval. Get-rich-quick street corner vendors began off-loading inflated bladders on sticks to rowdy customers who’d had slightly more to drink than good-natured buffoonery required. This led to a series of violent head-slapping incidents, resulting in countless beetroot-faced children screaming in agony.

The much-anticipated 1925 Blackpool Carnival never materialised.
So that’s basically the story of the Wakes Weeks. Somewhere down the line the original intention seems to have been lost, but the happy-slapping, bladder-wielders no doubt provided some entertainment for any old pagan gods that might have been watching.

A Bit More of Stalmine Grange

We’ve already covered the mysterious platform jutting out of the hillside at Stalmine Grange in a previous article (the article previous to this one in fact, so if you’re interested you’ll have to scroll down or look back through this board or something because we’re strapped for space here; you know where the links are in the right-hand column, so just try looking under ‘mediaeval history’ if it’s fallen off the bottom…we can’t do everything for you, y’ know?) and we’ve admitted that, as yet, we’ve no idea what it is. (Although we do have a few ideas.) We’ve also said that the grange belonged to Furness Abbey. However, we haven’t said anything about the location of the building itself yet.
Yes…granges were actually buildings. It’s easy to think of them as being fields full of sheep or corn or field mice or what have you, with the occasional monk/lay-brother pottering up and down picking mushrooms and herbs and being investigated for murder by Brother Cadfael. But monks/lay-brothers, of course, needed somewhere to eat and sleep and pray and beat themselves with whips and cut bald patches out of their hair and store their cattle and grain in the winter (and documents record, I should add, that Stalmine Grange, as well as growing wheat, corn and oats, also kept cows) and to do all the other stuff that monks/lay-brothers used to do for reasons best left to themselves. And for all that a sizeable building would have been required. (Incidentally, did you know that the modern word ‘labourer’ is derived from those hard working, tonsure sporting lay-brothers of the mediaeval period? Well you do now.)
Obviously the first place to look for the grange then would be Grange Farm itself, on the off chance that the farmhouse was built from ecclesiastical rubble. The photograph below, therefore, shows the actual building, constructed in 1682 (according to the date stone above the door at any rate) and surrounded by the largest collection of chickens, bantams and peacocks we’ve ever seen. (Although, for some reason, most of them went into hiding the minute I took out the camera.)

We can tell you who was living here when it was first built, if you like. According to the records it was Thomas Smith, who must have owned the house prior to the Stewart rebuild as well, because he’s listed as living at Stalmine Grange as early as 1651. Before then, in 1618 to be precise, Dorothy Pike owned the place. Presumably, shortly after Furness Abbey fell to the dissolution in the mid-Sixteenth Century, some sort of temporary building was erected on the site, more than likely, as previously suggested, using the rubble from the grange itself.
Let’s take a look at that date stone in a bit more detail.

How’s that for a solid old door? (Pity the rest of the building isn’t quite as solid, otherwise we might have been allowed inside.) If you click on the thumbnail and look at the larger version you should be able to make out the initials T.S. (for Thomas Smith, obviously) and the construction date of 1682. The farmhouse, itself, is constructed of Tudor-style bricks with the exception of the cobble-built extension at the rear and a shored up section of one wall that’s also constructed from cobbles and lime mortar. You want a photograph of the cobbled bit? Fair enough…we’re always happy to oblige wherever we can. There we go, part cobblestone, part brick. But which came first? Well, all matters considered (the fact that Thomas Smith was living here thirty odd years previous to the construction of the farmhouse, the original pitch of the roof as seen in the photograph, and the manner in which the bricks at the end of the Stewart section interlace with the cobbles) it seems that originally the building was a typical random-build Fylde longhouse, half-inched from the remains of some monastic building belonging to Furness Abbey. (As we’ve already suggested…twice.) But it wasn’t the grange building itself, because it’s far too small for that. Perhaps a better suggestion for the location of the original grange then would be in front of the aforementioned farmhouse, almost on top of the hill (where you’d expect it to be) now disguised as the barn in the following photograph. It’s about the right size, although, obviously, it isn’t typical of mediaeval construction techniques. Further investigations are obviously required, but because we’ve already sent our one remaining reader to sleep, those’ll have to wait until next time.