At this time Blackpool was not only without a church, but in the whole place there was no room where the inhabitants or visitors were accustomed to assemble together for divine worship, and it was not until 1821 that the sacred edifice of St. John was completed and opened. In 1789 a subscription was started for the purpose of erecting a church, but was soon closed for want of support, barely one hundred pounds having been promised. Some years later a large room at one of the hotels was used as a meeting house on each Sabbath, the officiating ministers being obtained alternately from Bispham and Poulton, and occasionally from amongst the visitors themselves.
In 1799, the poorer inhabitants of Blackpool and its neighbourhood suffered severely, in common with others, from a failure in the grain and potato harvests. They, like most members of the working classes at that date, relied almost entirely upon good and plentiful crops of these important articles of diet, to furnish them with the means of sustenance throughout the year, so that a small yield, raising the prices exorbitantly, became a matter of serious moment to them, and in most instances, meant little less than ruin or starvation. After the cold and inclement approach of winter had banished the last stranger from their midst, the sums demanded for their accustomed provisions soon swallowed up the little these people had saved during the summer, and such occasional trifles as could be earned on the farm lands around whenever extra services were required. Their condition, deplorable from the first, gradually grew worse, until, reduced to the deepest distress, they became dependent for the bare necessaries of existence upon the charity of those whose positions, although seriously affected by the failure, were not placed in such great jeopardy as their own. After this precarious and pitiable state of things had lasted some time without any signs of amelioration, and it seemed difficult, if not impossible, to conjecture how the remaining months were to be provided for until the returning season brought fresh assistance to their homes, an unexpected, and, to them, providential occurrence relieved their sufferings. A large vessel laden with peas was wrecked upon the coast, and the cargo, washing out of the hold, was strewn upon the beach, supplying them with abundance of food until better days shone upon the impoverished village once more.
Reviewing the appearance of Blackpool at the opening of the nineteenth century we find that the whole hamlet was comprised between the Gynn to the north, and the ruins of the once aristocratic mansion of Fox Hall to the south. The houses with the exception of Bonny’s Hotel and a few scattered cottages, had all been erected along the sea bank, the great bulk lying to the south of Forshaw’s Hotel, and amounting to about thirty, whilst the space north of that spot as far as Bailey’s Hotel was only occupied by one or two dwellings of very humble dimensions. These with the Gynn and a few habitations standing south of it on Fumbler’s Hill, made up the number of houses to about forty. A detailed description of the different erections at that epoch is impossible, but we may state generally that those of modern origin, especially the hotels, although unpretending externally, were so arranged and provided that the comforts of the guests were fully insured, and in every way the accommodation they offered was immensely superior to any that could have been obtained thirty years before. The few old buildings that still remained had for the most part undergone considerable alterations, and been rendered more suitable for the purposes to which they were now devoted.
In 1801 the first official census of the inhabitants of the township of Layton-cum-Warbreck, in which Blackpool is situated, was taken, and furnished a total of 473 persons.
At that period many people attracted by the rising reputation of the watering-place were anxious to invest their capital in the purchase of land by its shores, and in the erection of houses adapted for the reception of visitors, but the proprietors of the hotels were the owners of a large portion of the soil, and fearing that the introduction of substantial and commodious apartments would interfere with the patronage of their inns, refused to dispose of any part of their lands, or at least placed such obstacles in the way of the would-be purchasers that bargains were seldom concluded. Had it not been for the energy and foresight displayed by one resident, Mr. H. Banks, who built several cottages and fitted them up with every convenience and requisite for summer dwellings, the prosperity of the village would have received a sudden check and doubtless a serious injury, for the provision made would have fallen far short of the requirements of an ever-increasing throng of visitors, and thus repeated disappointments would in the end have led to disgust and the absence of many when the following seasons rolled round. The probability of such a disastrous result seems at length to have been realised by the landlords themselves, who discovered that the plan to enlarge their own business was not to drive visitors away from the place by limiting the accommodation, but to offer them every inducement to come, and to have a sufficiency of houses ready to receive them when they had arrived. Under this new and more liberal impression greater facilities were offered both to purchasers of land and builders, so that the early error into which they had fallen was rectified before any great amount of harm had been done.
During the summer of 1808 the Preston volunteers were on duty at Blackpool for two weeks, and on the 4th of June celebrated the seventieth birthday of His Majesty George III. with many demonstrations of loyalty and rejoicing.
The small town now boasted five good class hotels, which, in their order from north to south, were named Dickson’s, Forshaw’s, Bank’s, Simpson’s, and the Yorkshire House. Simpson’s, formerly Hull’s, is now the Royal Hotel; Bank’s the Land Ends Hotel, and Dickson’s was the one already mentioned as Bailey’s Hotel. “Adjoining Forshaw’s Hotel,” writes a gentleman who visited Blackpool about that date; “there are two or three houses of genteel appearance, compared with the many small cottages leading thence to the street, which is the principal entrance from Preston. There is a promenade with an arbour at the end of it, and beyond it nearer to Dixon’s Hotel stands a cottage used as a warm bath. Beyond Dixon’s there is a public road where two four-wheeled vehicles can pass each other.” At a later period both the road and cottage alluded to had succumbed to the unchecked power of the advancing sea; and here it will be convenient to mention other and much more serious encroachments made by the same element in the course of years now long gone by. We can scarcely conceive, when gazing on the indolent deep in its placid mood, that at any time it could have been possessed with such a demon of fury and destruction as to swallow up broad fields, acres upon acres, of the foreland of the Fylde, and in its blind anger sweep away whole villages, levelling the house walls and uprooting the very foundations, so that no trace or vestige of their former existence should remain. History, however, points to a hamlet called Waddum Thorp, which once stood off the coast of Lytham, fenced from the sea by a broad area of green pasture-land, now known as the Horse-bank; and in more recent years a long range of star-hills ran southward from opposite the Royal Hotel, protecting a highway, fields, and four or five cottages from the waves, whilst a little further north a boat-house afterwards a shoemaker’s shop, stood in the centre of a grassy plot, all of which have vanished, and their sites are now covered and obliterated by the sand and pebbles of the beach. The several roads, which had been formed at different seasons, leading over the cliffs to Bispham, were sapped away and destroyed so rapidly by the incursions of the tide that one more inland and circuitous was obliged to be made. On the sands, about three miles to the north of Blackpool, and so far distant from the shore that it is only visible when the water has receded to its lowest ebb, stands the famous Penny-stone. Near the spot marked by the huge boulder, tradition affirms that in days of yore there existed a small road-side inn, celebrated far and wide for its strong ale, which was retailed at one penny per pot, and that whilst the thirsty traveller was refreshing himself within, and listening to the gossip of “mine host,” his horse was tethered to an iron ring fixed in this stone. It is stated that documents relating to the ancient hostelry are still preserved, but as the assertion is unsupported by any evidence of its veracity, we are prohibited from accepting it as conclusive proof that the inn owes its reputed existence to something more substantial than the lively imaginations of our ancestors. There is, certainly, one thing which gives some colouring of possibility, or perhaps, out of veneration for the antiquity of the tradition, we may advance a step and say, reasonable probability, to the story, and that is the historic fact, that at no very great distance from the locality there stood a village called Singleton Thorp until 1555, when it was submerged and annihilated by a sudden and fearful irruption of the sea. Several other boulders of various sizes are lying about in the neighbourhood of Penny-stone, bearing the names of Old Mother’s Head, Bear and Staff, Carlin and its Colts, Higher and Lower Jingle, each of which is covered in a greater or less degree with shells, corallines, anemonies, and other treasures of the deep.
In 1811 the census of the persons residing in the township before specified, was again taken, and amounted to 580, showing an increase of 107 in the number of inhabitants during the preceding ten years.
The year 1816 is remarkable as being the first in which public coaches ran regularly between Preston and Blackpool. Previously the chief communication between the village and outlying places had been by means of pack-horses, carts, and private vehicles, with only occasional coaches.
The following description of Blackpool about the year 1816 was furnished by one of its oldest inhabitants, and, although unavoidably entailing some repetition of what has been mentioned before, will, we trust, be interesting in itself, as well as useful in confirming the earlier parts of this history, which have necessarily been compiled from previous writings on the subject, and not from the evidence of living witnesses. The Gynn House formed the most northerly boundary of the village, and, passing from that hostelry in a southerly direction, the next dwelling arrived at was Hill-farm, which still exists, and is at present used as a laundry for the Imperial Hotel. A few gabled cottages stood on the eminence called Fumbler’s Hill, near the site of Carleton Terrace:—