History of the Fylde of Lancashire

by John Porter

In 1769 the whole hamlet comprised no more than twenty-eight houses, or more correctly speaking hovels, for, with the exception of four that had been raised to the dignity of slate roofs and a small inn on the site of the present Clifton Arms Hotel, they were little if any better. These were scattered widely apart along the beach, and one of them standing on the ground now occupied by the Lane Ends Hotel, and adjoining a small blacksmith’s shed, was a favourite resort of visitors in search of refreshment. Turf stacks fronted almost every door, and the refuse of the household was either carelessly thrown forth or else accumulated in putrifying heaps by the sides of the huts, so that nothing but their isolated situations and the constant currents of pure air from the sea sweeping over and around them could possibly have prevented the outbreak of some infectious and fatal disorder.

Bonny’s Hotel, then known as old Margery’s, and standing in the fields to the south, some distance from the sea, sprang up a little anterior to this time and received its share of patronage; later it was converted into a boys’ school and during recent years has been divided into cottages, etc. The Gynn House, erected northwards near the extremity or apex of a deep and wide fissure in the cliffs, formed another popular haunt during the season; the landlord at that hostel created much amusement by his oddities, and especially by his quaint method of casting up the reckoning on a horse-block in front of the door and speeding the “parting guest” with—“and Sir, remember the servants.” A true and remarkable anecdote is related about the old inn; sometime during the summer of 1833 a sudden and terrific storm burst over the western coast of this island, many vessels were lost and the shore off Blackpool was strewn with the battered fragments of unfortunate ships, which had either foundered in the deep or been dashed to pieces as they lay helplessly stranded on the outlying sandbanks. In the night as the gale raged with its utmost fury, a Scotch sloop was beating off the coast, vainly endeavouring to battle with the hurricane, and driven by the force of wind and wave nearer and nearer to the precipitous cliffs. When all hope had been abandoned and destruction seemed inevitable, some thoughtful person placed a lighted candle in the window of the Gynn House; guided by this faint glimmer, the vessel passed safely up the creek, and the exhausted sailors were rescued from a dreadful death. Next morning a sad and harrowing scene presented itself along the coast; no less than eleven vessels were lying within a short distance of each other, with their torn rigging and shattered spars hanging from their sides; brigs, sloops, and schooners, the short but fearful gale had left little of them beyond their damaged hulls. Nor were these the only victims of the storm, for as the tide receded to its lowest the masts of two others rose above the surface of the water; and during the next few days three large ships drifted past the town in an apparently waterlogged condition.

About that date, 1769, several heaps of mortar and other building materials, lying on the road which separated the front of the village from the edge of the cliffs, showed that more were anxious to follow in the footsteps of Whiteside and his earlier imitators.

Some idea may be formed of the class of people who visited Blackpool at that period from the charges made at Bonny’s Hotel and the Gynn, the two principal inns, for board and lodging; at the latter eightpence per day satisfied the modest demands of the host, while at the former the sum of tenpence was exacted, with a view no doubt of upholding its superior claims to respectability. In drawing our conclusions from these facts we must bear in mind that a shilling in those days represented much greater value than it does at present, so that the charges may not have been really so inadequate as they now appear. The village contained neither shop nor store where the necessaries or luxuries of life, if such things were ever dreamt of by the people, could be purchased, and large quantities of provisions had to be laid in at one time. Occasionally a sudden and unexpected influx of visitors occurred inopportunely, when the larder was low, and as a consequence the hungry guests were forced to wait, temporising with their appetites as best they could, until a journey had been made to Poulton and fresh supplies procured.

Ten years later the hamlet had grown somewhat in size, and the annually increasing numbers who flocked to its shores showed that its popularity was steadily gaining ground. Intercourse with the world beyond their own limited circle seems, however, to have had anything but an elevating or civilising effect upon the inhabitants, for we find amongst them at that time a band of professed atheists, whose blasphemous conduct called forth no rebuke or opposition from the rest, but was quietly tolerated, if not indeed approved. Each fortnight during the summer fairs were held on the Sabbath to provide refreshment and amusement for the visitors, who came in crowds to witness the magnificence of the highest spring tides. These gatherings usually terminated in disgraceful scenes of revelry and debauchery. Smuggling was carried on between the coast opposite the Star-hills and the Isle of Man, but never to a great extent or for any lengthened period. These huge mounds of sand, much more numerous than in our day, formed excellent store-houses for the contraband goods, generally spirits, which were packed in hampers, and so overlaid with fish that their presence was never even suspected. The illicit cargoes were brought across the channel in trading vessels, from which they were landed by means of light open boats, and at once secreted in the manner just indicated, until a suitable opportunity occurred for their removal to one of the neighbouring towns. The success attending these ventures induced the smugglers to construct a sloop of their own, with the intention of prosecuting so profitable a trade on a larger scale, but information of their proceedings having been conveyed by some one to official quarters, a detachment of soldiers was promptly despatched to put an end to the nefarious practices. So thoroughly did these men effect their purpose, that, although no capture is recorded as having taken place, the whole band was dispersed, and from that date no more offences of this character have been known on the coast.

In 1788 the houses of Blackpool had increased to about thirty-five, and these were arranged in an irregular line along the edge of the cliffs; the intervals between the habitations being with few exceptions so wide that this small number stretched out from north to south, over a distance of quite a mile. One group of six was especially remarkable as presenting a more respectable and modern exterior than any of the others, most of which still retained a great deal of their original defective appearances, as though their owners were unwilling or unable to adapt themselves and their abodes to the improved state of things springing up around them. The company during the busiest part of the season amounted to about four hundred persons, and a news-room had been established for their use in the small cottage, before mentioned, on the site of the Lane Ends Hotel, the smith’s shop adjoining having been converted into a coffee-room and kitchen, at which a public dinner was prepared each day during the summer, and served at a dining-room erected across the way. There were now four additional inns in the village, named respectively, Bailey’s, Forshaw’s, Hull’s, and the Yorkshire House. The first of these had sprung up on the cliffs towards the north, and was kept by an ancestor of its present proprietor; the second was the nucleus from which has grown the Clifton Arms Hotel, whilst the third stood on the site of the Royal Hotel. The roads leading to the hamlet were in such an unfinished state that after heavy falls of rain they could be travelled only with the greatest difficulty, and often with considerable danger both to the vehicle and its occupants; so that under these circumstances most people deemed it more prudent and expedient to perform the journey on horseback, some of them in the pillion fashion usual at that era. In an earlier part of this chapter we spoke of the troubled state of the times and the unsettled and harassed condition of the people as being the most probable causes why Blackpool was so long neglected by many who must have been well cognisant of its beauties in the days of the Tyldesleys, and with equal probability may we now conjecture that the dilapidated and frequently unsafe state of the highways had a serious effect in preventing numbers from visiting the place at this period. Regarding the matter from another point of view, we are led to infer that the four hundred composing the company of 1788, were people who, either in search of health or recreation, had willingly undergone the discomforts of a dreary and sometimes hazardous journey in order to make but a brief sojourn by the shores of Blackpool. Here, then, there is evidence of the great estimation in which the place was held at that early date by the dwellers in the inland towns, and of the rapidity with which its good fame was increasing and extending throughout a large section of the county. As may be naturally supposed, the large influxes of visitors and their turn-outs during the height of the season very much overtaxed the accommodation provided for them by the inhabitants, but that difficulty was easily surmounted by turning the horses loose into a field until their services were again required, whilst the surplus health or pleasure-seekers were lodged in barns or any outbuildings sufficiently protected from the weather. The village possessed two bowling greens of diminutive size, one of which occupied the land at the south-west corner of Lytham Street, whilst the other was in connection with the Yorkshire House, afterwards the York Hotel, and since purchased by a company of gentlemen, who razed it to the ground in order to erect more suitable buildings on the site. There was also a theatre, if that will bear the name which during nine months of the year existed under the more modest title of a barn; rows of benches were placed one behind another, and separated into a front and back division, designated respectively pit and gallery. This house is said to have been capable of holding six pounds, the prices of admission being one and two shillings. At that period bathing vans were scarce, the majority of bathers making use of boxes, which were placed for their convenience along the shore, and as the mode in which they secured privacy and a proper separation of the sexes during indulgence in this pastime was both ingenious and entertaining, we will give a brief sketch of their arrangements. At a certain hour each day, varying according to the changes of the tide, a bell was rung when the water had risen almost to its highest. On hearing the signal, the whole of the gentlemen, however agreeably occupied, were compelled, under a penalty of one bottle of wine for each offence, to vacate the shore and betake themselves to their several hotels or apartments, whilst the ladies, after sufficient time had elapsed for any stray member of the sterner sex to get safely and securely housed, emerged singly or in small groups from the different doorways, and, hurrying down to the edge of the sea, quickly threw off their loose bathing robes, and in a moment were sporting amid the waves like a colony of nereids or mermaids. When these had finished their revels and duly retired to their homes, the bell rang a second time, and the males, released from durance vile, made their way to the beach, and were not long in following the example of their fair predecessors.

Mr. Hutton, in his small pamphlet descriptive of Blackpool in 1788, says:—“The tables here are well supplied; if I say too well for the price I may please the innkeepers, but not their guests. Shrimps are plentiful; five or six people make it their business to catch them at low water, and produce several gallons a day, which satisfy all but the catchers. They excel in cooking, nor is it surprising, for forty pounds and her maintenance is given to a cook for the season only. Though salt water is brought in plenty to their very doors, yet this is not the case with fresh. The place yields only one spring for family use; and the water is carried by some half a mile, but is well worth carrying, for I thought it the most pleasant I ever tasted.”

The prices at the inns and boarding-houses had risen as the accommodation they offered had improved in quality and increased in extent, so that it was no longer possible to subsist on the daily expenditure of a few pence as in former times. In hotels of the first class 3s. 4d. per day, exclusive of liquors, was the charge for board and lodging; dinner and supper being charged 1s. each to the casual visitor, and tea or breakfast 8d. In those of the second-class and some of the lodging-houses, 2s. 6d. per day covered everything with the exception of tea, coffee, sugar, and liquors; whilst the smaller lodging-houses, generally crowded with visitors who were either willing or compelled to content themselves with the more frugal fare provided, charged only 1s. 6d. per day for each guest.

A promenade, six yards wide, carpeted with grass and separated from the road by white wooden railings, ran along the verge of the sea bank for a distance of two hundred yards, and was ornamented at one end with an alcove, whilst the other terminated abruptly at a rough clayey excavation, afterwards used as a brick croft. “Here,” says the topographer already quoted, “is a full display of beauty and of fashion. Here the eye faithful to its trust, conveys intelligence from the heart of one sex to that of the other; gentle tumults rise in the breast; intercourse opens in tender language; the softer passions are called into action; Hymen approaches, kindles his torch, and cements that union which continues for life. Here may be seen folly flushed with money, shoe-strings, and a phæton and four. Keen envy sparkles in the eye at the display of a new bonnet. The heiress of eighteen trimmed in black, and a hundred thousand pounds, plentifully squanders her looks of disdain, or the stale Belle, who has outstood her market, offers her fading charms upon easy terms.”

This parade was extended some years later by means of a bridge thrown from its south extremity over the road leading down to the shore, and on to the cliffs of the opposite side. Riding or walking, for those who were not fortunate enough to possess a horse or equipage, on the sands or promenade, and excursions into the country as far as the “Number 3 Hotel,” where many of the company amused themselves with drinking “fine ale,” were the favourite pastimes during the day, varied, however, with an occasional practice at the butts for bow and arrow shooting, the diurnal bathe, and contests on the bowling greens, to which we have already alluded; in the evening or during unfavourable weather cards and backgammon, or the theatre, were the means with which the visitors beguiled the wearisomeness of the quiet hours. The “Number 3 Hotel” above-mentioned stood behind the present building bearing that name, at the corner of the Layton and Marton roads.