Welcome to Blackpool
Blackpool is situated on the Irish Sea on England's Fylde coast. It is Britain's archetypal seaside resort drawing over 7 million visitors each year to its many famed attractions. Amongst these are its long sandy beaches and promenade, Blackpool Tower (Britain's equivalent of the Eiffel Tower at 158 metres in height) and, of course, Blackpool Pleasure Beach which, situated on 40 acres of land, is amongst Britain's largest theme parks and the county's most popular tourist attraction. Meanwhile shows, cabarets, circuses, concerts, bars and clubs contribute to Blackpool's unique variety of entertainment.
There was little sign that Blackpool would become such a bustling place until the mid 19th Century. Centuries earlier one would have been surprised to find any kind of settlement could have been built here at all. The retreat of the ice fields at the end of the last ice age revealed a landscape of impassable bogs and areas where oak trees were to struggle to take root over hundreds of years. The town's name owes its origin to this once inhospitable terrain; the thick peaty soil discoloured the water of the Spen Dyke Stream, which once passed near to Manchester Square, into a black pool. Nonetheless, early peoples proved their resilience in carving out a living here. Across from Blackpool Sixth Form College the discovery in 1970 of flint arrowheads by the skeleton of an elk confirm that man has been hunting here since around 9000 BC.
The marshes and forests of Fylde have been incorporated into petty kingdoms and large empires alike. In ancient times they were dominated by Celtic speaking peoples known as the Brigantes. Later the Romans came and conquered them. The Romans most likely administered Fylde from nearby Dowbridge. After the Romans, Fylde was settled by the Saxons, Vikings and, after 1066, by the Normans. A number of settlements are recorded in the Domesday Book of 1086, in which the Normans set about surveying their new kingdom, in the area of Blackpool and its surrounds.
Once securely part of England the lands would become the dominion of a number of families who ruled the lands as vassals of the Anglo-Norman king. By far the most important family in early Fylde was the Botillers (later the Butlers). William le Botiller was confirmed by Henry III as ruler of Fylde as Baron of Warrington in 1257 and permitted to hold a market at nearby Layton.
Amidst such evidence of local development early records also tell of great hardship in Fylde. In particular the floods of 1532 and 1555 washed away many coastal settlements and caused many deaths. A settlement at modern day Blackpool, then referred to as Pul, was inundated by the sea on both of these occasions. Despite these catastrophes the settlement survived. Indeed, in 1602, it was first mentioned by its modern name in a parish register which mentions a “childe” belonging to a couple resident beside the “Black Poole”. Such residents would most likely have made a living from agriculture and fishing.
Increasingly, however, there were other sources of income available to locals. Growth in overseas trade meant an increase in shipwrecks and valuable cargos being washed onto Britain's shores. This was either used by coastal dwellers or sold on. Interestingly, the first major recorded incidence of ‘wreckers' in Blackpool was not the townspeople but the Royalist army of King Charles I in 1643, which raced the Cromwellians to Rossall beach to seize the cargo of a Spanish vessel which had come ashore there. Another notable wreck occurred in 1755 when a cargo of lace was washed ashore at Blackpool. It is said that homes were decorated with the lace for years afterwards. The effect shipwrecks had on the economy should not be underestimated; local landowners even increased the rent in areas most prone to wrecks so that they could share in the booty, albeit without running the risk of being penalised by the authorities.
The first signs of the economic change which would transform Blackpool also came in the 17th Century. In 1650 Edward Tyldesley, a staunch Royalist who had fought for Charles I, built Foxhall House to entertain the local gentry. Denied the patronage of the Royal family, to whom he had been so loyal, the house fell into decline before becoming a farmhouse. This enterprise may have been a failure but it was a sign of things to come.
Over the following two centuries land improvement, in particular the building of dykes and the redirecting of rivers, helped Fylde to dry out. In the 1780s four substantial hotels were built in Blackpool, which was increasingly gaining a reputation as a retreat for the overworked employees of the growing industrial cities. In the early 1800s the purchase of much of the town's land by Henry Banks, the so called 'Father of Blackpool' and his construction of the first holiday cottages, further enhanced this growing reputation. Before long the arrival of the Railway, which replaced a two day coach trip from Manchester, provided the single biggest impetus to Blackpool's growth. The population exploded. Even Foxhall House re-emerged as Foxhall Hotel, which it remains to this day. In the latter half of the 19th Century the Blackpool we know today finally began to emerge; its emblematic tower, piers and tram system were built and the pleasure beach and Blackpool's 'Golden Mile' of accommodation, stalls and shops came into being. Built on such firm foundations Blackpool has never faltered.
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