Local history
Introduction
Poulton-le-Fylde has a long and varied history. It is recorded in the Domesday survey of 1086, along with over 60 other small communities in Amounderness, a remote and sparsely populated rural area of north-west Lancashire. Most of these communities still exist.

From its earliest days Poulton served as a market town, supplying goods and services needed by the outlying farms and communities. The ancient parish church dedicated to St Chad stands at the head of the Market Place.

Whilst retaining its medieval street layout, house building and other developments made over recent years have changed Poulton from the small rural market town of the early twentieth century to the urban community of today. Inevitably some of the town’s historical legacy has been lost but some elements of its past still remain – if you know where to look!
Early Records and Events
1086 Domesday

Lancashire did not exist as a county in 1086 and Poulton appears in the Yorkshire section of the Domesday Survey, one of over 60 local villages in Amounderness. Unfortunately no details are given about these communities. Domesday records 3 churches in Amounderness but does not say where they were. However it is extremely likely that a church has stood in Poulton since Anglo-Saxon times.
Poulton was part of a very large Anglo-Saxon parish of Kirkham. The dedication of the church to St Chad, an Anglo-Saxon bishop, is taken as further evidence that a church stood in Poulton well before the Norman Conquest.
1094 Roger de Poitou
The first written evidence for a church in Poulton is a document drawn up in 1094 when Roger de Poitou, the Norman knight to whom Amounderness had been granted after the Conquest, presented the church in Poulton to the Abbey at Sees in Normandy. It was accepted practice for this to be done, and Poulton church, together with other churches in Amounderness, including the newly built church dedicated to St Mary at Lancaster, remained in the hold of the Norman Abbey until Henry IV dissolved the power of foreign abbeys to hold land in England.
Until the early nineteenth century when the Victorians began a major programme of church building on the Fylde coast, the parish of St Chad, Poulton stretched from what is now Squires Gate Lane in Blackpool, where it met the parish of Lytham, to the banks of the River Wyre where Fleetwood now stands. (Over a period of about eight hundred years Bispham church was at different times both a chapel of ease to Poulton and a separate parish.)
Poulton has never belonged to a major landowner and so the township has no important and useful documents such as Manor Court Rolls. Queen Elizabeth passed the church to members of the Fleetwood family after the Reformation, but the majority of landowners in Poulton continued to be local people owning small farms.
A Market Town
Built on one of the few low hills in the western part of the Fylde, near to the River Wyre, for centuries Poulton provided a natural social and commercial centre for the many tiny hamlets which lay over a wide area reaching from Lytham to Kirkham. Over the centuries Poulton became an important market town providing local farmers and families with the many services they needed – blacksmiths, farriers, nail makers carpenters and joiners, shoemakers, dressmakers and tailors and all manner of food suppliers. The market cross still standing in the square is a reminder of the days when it served as a sign that regular markets were held there. Poulton has no market charter, and the earliest mention yet found of a market in Poulton was identified by Dr Alan Crosby in a document of 1628, but it is very likely that markets have been held here for centuries.

17th & 18th Centuries
General Lifestyles, etc.
Life in Poulton would have been very hard for the average family. Most of the population, probably in the region of 300 around that time (climbing to 769 by 1801 when the first census was held, including part of Skippool and Little Poulton), would have lived in small cobble-built cottages with mud floors and thatched roofs which huddled round the Market Place and the six streets leading off it. Parish registers and gravestones show the high death rate, particularly amongst children. Poulton was badly hit by a ‘plague’ in the winters of 1622-24 during which many people died; it decimated the population of nearby Kirkham and caused havoc throughout the north west. Poor living conditions and an unhealthy diet meant people were unable to withstand any epidemic and many would not survive a particularly harsh winter.
The area round Moorland Road, being close to the River Wyre and low lying, including Little Poulton, would have been where local people gathered rushes and cut wood to be put to various uses in their homes and the church – rushes for the floor, wood for furniture, agricultural tools, etc. The lack of any large areas of woodland left the land of the coastal Fylde unprotected from the salt winds and the bleak outlook was increased by the starkness of the great mounds of black peat stacked by each cottage to be used as fuel.
People living in Poulton during the Civil War would have had divided loyalties as men from Lancashire were drafted into the armies of both Parliamentarians and Royalists, and this was more complex due to a high population of Roman Catholics. In 1642 a ship of Royalist supporters was stranded in the River Wyre.
Most inhabitants of Poulton at this time lived close to the Market Place, with a small pocket of cottages in the nearly hamlet of Little Poulton. Each cottager would have a small piece of land where produce for the family’s use would be grown and a few animals kept. Common grazing land situated on the outskirts of the town would be used in the summer months, probably the origin of ‘Higher Green’ and ‘Lower Green’, known in the 19th century simply as ‘The Green’.
During the 18th century improvements were made in methods of agriculture across the whole country which helped to raise the living conditions of the poorer people. Food prices stabilised, methods of farming improved and the devastation caused by epidemics lessened. Life in Poulton also improved for its inhabitants.
In late medieval times a Moot Hall (or town hall) stood at one end of the Market Place and stalls ran down each side selling food and other produce. Stepping stones enabled people to cross the unpaved streets without stepping into the mud. Small cottages surrounded the Market Place, with the exception of the few grand three storey town houses with their slate roofs, built by local gentry such as the Walmsley and Rigby families.
1717 James Baines Endowment
James Baines, a wool merchant whose house overlooked the stocks and whipping post, left money in his 1717 will for free schooling and apprenticeships to be provided for poor boys of Poulton, Marton and Thornton. All three schools still exist today.
James Baines’ house was originally larger with six bays (or windows) but when the site next door became a bank a section of Baines’ house was absorbed. The house, with its handsome front door, stands at the south end of the market place; it is unusual in having two crucks on the second floor.

1732 Great Fire

The buildings on the west side of the Market Place were erected all at one time, in contrast to those on the opposite side. The awful events which necessitated this rebuilding must have remained in the memories of the inhabitants who witnessed it all their lives. As the funeral procession of Geoffrey Hornby passed through the Market Place to the church on March 5th, 1732, sparks from tapers set fire to the thatched roofs of the cottages on the west side of the Market Place resulting in the destruction of all the property. It was several years before the present buildings were erected in their place. A national collection was organised – known as a ‘brief’ – and the estimated cost of rebuilding was put at £1034. Timber that was re-used after the fire of 1732 was re-exposed when re-roofing work was being carried out on a shop on the west side, and has been preserved.
18th century Poulton ports
Poulton had two ports one on either bank of the River Wyre, on the south side at Skippool and on the north side at Wardley’s in Hambleton. During the 18th century this was an important trading facility for Poulton, having its own customs house, dealing in mahogany and flax with Baltic ports and coastal trade with farm produce to Liverpool, Lancaster and Cumbria. The rise of Glasson Dock and Fleetwood ended Skippool’s importance as a port. It then became a popular venue for sailing.
19th Century
19th Century Street Names
A tithebarn, a station and a chapel have all come and gone in Poulton, leaving only street names to remind us of their presence. The tithebarn was replaced in 1969 by a car park. Its position so near to the centre of the town suggests it was an ancient site.
Poulton’s original railway line opened in 1840 running between Preston and the newly built town of Fleetwood, with the station at the corner of Station Road and the Breck. In 1896 it was rebuilt in its present position at the top of the Breck near to the town centre. The original Methodist chapel stood on the corner of Chapel Street and Queen’s Square until a new one replaced it on Queensway in 1968.
Read More
Poulton streets at the start of the 19th century were either streets, lanes, alleys, or parts of a square or place. The name Street implied that the area was fully developed as housing or shops; Lane implied that it was probably undeveloped when named, either connecting two more major thoroughfares or leading to something such as a farm; Alleys were very narrow but with a number of buildings; Squares and Places, were not streets as such but closely-grouped buildings that were usually accessible from streets. Parts of a street name were usually separated by hyphens with the only capital letter being at the start, such as Ball-street.
A road usually connected one developed settlement, be it town, village, or hamlet, to another. Most roads were not named but known as the settlement to which they led. For instance, the Blackpool Road would lead you from Poulton to Blackpool, but if you were in Blackpool you would call it the Poulton Road.
The list below has been compiled from records including street lists from 1825 to 1841:-
● Back Lane, later renamed Station Road
● Back Street, renamed Chapel Street, then renamed Bank Street before reverting to Chapel Street
● Ball Street, for a little while known as Golden Ball Street before reverting to Ball Street
● Breck Street, renamed as part of Breck Road
● The Breck, still known locally by this name. The part nearest Skippool became known as Skippool Road, whilst a portion of it between Breck Street and Skippool Road, became known as Breck Road, now the name of all the road between Poulton and Skippool.
● Bull Street, renamed as part of Blackpool Old Road (formerly Blackpool Road)
● Church Street
● Green Street, leading to the Green, now known as Higher Green and Lower Green
● Market Place
● Mill Street, possibly now part of Poulton Road in Carleton
● Potts Lane, or Alley,later renamed Chapel Street Walk
● Sheaf Street, sometimes known as Wheatsheaf Street, now renamed as part of Hardhorn Road
● Vicarage Lane, later renamed Vicarage Road
● Workhouse Square, renamed Queens Square, possibly following the 1838 coronation celebrations for Queen Victoria
Other streets were either unnamed or were developed in the latter half of the 19th century. One such unnamed street was Burlington Avenue, a ramshackle row of buildings to the east of the King’s Arms Inn, which was at the top end of the west side of Market Place (where it meets Church Street) and is now Chadwick’s Insurance and a Vape shop. The avenue was demolished to build the Teanlowe Centre.
1840 The Railway Arrives

The Preston and Wyre Railway opened the first railway through Poulton in 1840. The line linked Preston to Fleetwood and was used for goods and passengers.
The Preston to Fleetwood line was originally planned as a main route from London to Scotland. At the time it was thought that it would not be possible to put a railway line over Shap Fell, or make engines powerful enough to get over it. However, in 1848 they succeeded in doing so and the London to Scotland route via Fleetwood was bypassed.
The original station was at the junction of Station Road and Breck Road on the land now occupied by McCarthy & Stone Crocus Court apartments.
20th Century to Today
1902 Coronation procession
In 1902 Poulton’s Gala Day was held on 26th June, the date King Edward VII was meant to have his Coronation. Due to the King being admitted to hospital for urgent surgery his Coronation was postponed until 9 August. Poulton; like most other towns followed the King’s request that coronation celebrations continued on the original date. The map below shows the lengthy route of the procession around the town.


1910 Town centre clearance


In 1910 many buildings on the south side of Ball Street and the east side of Church Street were demolished. The demolition widened both streets and revealed St. Chads Church to view.

Current Day Crocuses
Poulton continues to grow and attracts many visitors throughout the year. In early spring the churchyard is a carpet of purple and yellow crocuses. A series of historical plaques have been placed on various sites and buildings in the conservation area, although not all of them remain, and a town trail help the visitor to learn more of Poulton’s history, and both the Council and this Society are engaged in finding new ways to expand this.
