Imágenes de páginas
PDF
EPUB

B

CHAPTER XI.

BLACKPOOL.

LACKPOOL is situated in the township of Laytonwith-Warbreck, and occupies a station on the west coast, about midway between the estuaries of the rivers Ribble and Wyre. The watering-place of to-day with its noble promenade, elegant piers, handsome hotels, and princely terraces, forms a wonderful and pleasing contrast to the meagre group of thatched cabins which once reared their lowly heads near the peaty pool, whose dark waters gave rise to the name of the town. This pool, which was located at the south end of Blackpool, is stated to have been half a mile in breadth, and was due to the accumulation of black, or more correctly speaking, chocolate-coloured waters,' from Marton Mere and the turf fields composing the swampy region usually designated the "Moss." It remained until the supplies were cut off by diverting their currents towards other and more convenient outlets, when its contents gradually decreased, finally leaving no trace of their former site beyond a small streamlet, which now discharges itself with the flows of Spendike into the sea, opposite the point where the Lytham Road branches from the promenade. The principal portion of the town' stands a little removed from the edge of a long line of cliffs, whose altitude, trifling at first, considerably increases as they travel northwards; and from that broad range of frontage streets and houses in compact masses

1. The following is extracted from a paper, written by Mr. Henry Moon, of Kirkham, about 1783, and refers to this pool :-"The liquid is of a chocolate or liver colour, as all water must be which passes through a peaty soil, so that the place might, with as much propriety, bear the name of Liver-pool, as Black-pool."

run backwards towards the country, covering an annually extending area.

One of the oldest and most interesting relics of antiquity is still preserved in the Fox Hall Hotel, or Vaux Hall, as it is sometimes, but we opine, for reasons stated hereafter, incorrectly written, although its name, site, and long cobble wall are nearly the only mementoes that time and change have failed to remove. It was here in the reign of Charles II. that Edward, the son of the gallant and loyal Sir Thomas Tyldesley who was slain at the battle of Wigan-lane in 1651, having been led to expect a grant of the lands of Layton Hawes, or Heys Side, from the king, after the restoration, in return for his own and his father's staunch adherence to the royal cause, built a small sequestered residence as a summer retreat for his family. Modest and unpretending as the dimensions appear to have been, no doubt at that time it was regarded as a stately mansion, and looked upon with becoming respect and admiration by the inhabitants of the few clay-built and rush-roofed huts which were scattered around it. The house itself was a three gabled structure with a species of tower, affording an extensive survey over the neighbouring country; there were four or five rooms on each story, and one wing of the building was fitted up and used as a chapel, the officiating priest being most probably the Rev. W. Westby, the "W. W." of the diary kept by Thomas Tyldesley during the years he resided there. The chapel portion of the old house was at a later period, when the remainder, after experiencing various fortunes, had fallen into decay, converted into a cottage. Over the chief entrance Edward had inscribed the words "Seris factura Nepotibus," the motto of an order of Knighthood, called the Royal Oak, which Charles II. contemplated establishing when first he regained his throne, but afterwards for certain reasons' altered his mind, as he also appears to have done in regard to the Hawes property, for it never passed into the possession of the Tyldesleys by royal favour, or in any other way. A fox secured by a chain was allowed to ramble for a short distance in front of the doorway, and whether the presence of that animal, together with the use of the Hall as a hunting seat, as well as a summer retreat, originated its name, or its first title was Vaux,

1. For a list of the Knights of the Royal Oak, and other matters concerning that Order see page 72.

and by an easy and simple process of change became altered to Fox, the reader must decide for himself; but after he has perused the following extract from the Tyldesley Diary, in which the priest already mentioned is alluded to as "W: W.," he will, we venture to think, have little difficulty in concluding that the cognomen Vaux is merely a modern adaptation when applied to this Hall :

66

May 14, 1712.-Left Lan" about ffive; pd 3d. ffor a shooe at Thurnham Cocking, having lost one. Thence to Great Singleton to prayers, and ffrom thence to Litham to din ", ffound Mr. Blackborne, of Orford; stayed there II at night. Soe to ffox hall. Gave W: W: Is."

Edward Tyldesley surrounded the Hall with a high and massive wall of cobble stones, strongly cemented together, as a protection very needful in those times of turmoil and persecution. A large portion of the wall still exists in an almost perfect state of preservation, notwithstanding the fierce gales and boisterous tides that have, at intervals, battered against it for more than two centuries. This, with the additional safeguards that nature had provided by means of the broad sea to the front, a small stream running over swampy, almost impassable, ground to the south, and a pool' under its east side, rendered the house a secure asylum for those who were constrained to practise

"The better part of valour,"

and remove themselves for a season from the eyes of the world and their enemies. Over the high gateway at the south end of the enclosure he placed a stone carved with the crest of the Tyldesley family—a pelican feeding its young-encircled by the loyal and patriotic motto-"Tantum valet amor regis et patriæ": for long the roughly finished piece of carving was visible in the wall of an outbuilding, from which, however, it has recently been removed. Fox Hall was not without its plot of garden ground, a considerable space, being devoted to the useful products, was known as the kitchen garden, whilst another space was devoted to an apiary, and flowers must be supposed to have been an accompanyment of bees. It also boasted a bowling green and an ancient fig tree.

Thomas, the son of Edward Tyldesley, born in 1657, succeeded to the family estates on the death of his father, and later married, as his second wife, Mary, sister and co-heiress, with Elizabeth

1. Black-pool.

Colley, of Sir Alexander Rigby, knt., of Layton Hall, High-sheriff of the county of Lancashire in 1691, whose father had erected a monument to the memory of Sir Thomas Tyldesley near the spot where he was slain.

During the year 1690, when the dethroned monarch James II. invaded Ireland in the hope of regaining his crown, Thomas Tyldesley prepared a secret chamber for his reception in the interior of the Hall. The closet or hiding-place was afterwards known as the King's Cupboard. The Pretender, also, was reported to have been concealed for some time within Fox Hall, and although it is certain that this aspirant to the British throne was never within its friendly walls, still the secret recesses, called "priests' holes," with which it appears to have been liberally provided, formed excellent refuges for the clergy and other members of the Romish Church, who on the slightest alarm were enclosed therein, and so secluded from the prying eyes of their hostile countrymen until the danger had passed. These latter incidents did not take place until after the decease of Thomas Tyldesley, who died in 1715, shortly before the outbreak of the rebellion, and was buried at Churchtown, near Garstang. His son Edward, who succeeded him, was arrested for taking part with the rebels, and escaped conviction and punishment only by the mercy or sympathy of the jury, who after returning their verdict of acquittal were severely censured by the presiding judge for their incompetency and disaffection. Edward Tyldesley died in 1725. At what date Fox Hall passed out of the hands of the Tyldesleys, it is impossible to trace, but it is doubtful whether the Edward here named ever resided there, as he is always described as of Myerscough Lodge, another seat of the family. Mary Tyldesley, the widow of his father, whom it will be remembered he married as his second wife, was living there as owner in 1720, and from that circumstance we must infer that the Blackpool house was bequeathed to her by her husband Thomas Tyldesley, and that the other portion only of the estates fell to Edward, the 'son of his first marriage and his heir. Poverty seems to have overtaken the family with rapid strides; their different lands and residences were either mortgaged or sold, and whether Fox Hall

[blocks in formation]

descended to the children of Mary Tyldesley, or returned again into the more direct line, it is certain that not many years after the death of Thomas Tyldesley it had ceased to be one of their possessions.

Thus, the annals of the founders of this solitary mansion carry us back to the period between 1660 and 1685, that is from the restoration to the death of Charles II., but certain entries in the register of Bispham church show that there must have been dwellings and a population, however thinly scattered, on the soil anterior to that period, sometime during the sixteenth century, and it was doubtless the descendants of these people who inhabited the neighbourhood when Edward Tyldesley appeared upon the scene and erected Fox Hall. The primitive structures forming the habitations of these aborigines were built of clay, roughly plastered on to wattles, and thatched with rushes more fréquently than straw, the whole fabric being supported on crooks driven into the ground. About the epoch of Thomas Tyldesley drainage and cultivation began to render the aspect of the country more inviting, and fresh families were tempted to come down to the coast and rear their humble abodes under the wing of the great mansion, so that after a while a small hamlet of clustering huts was formed. It is more than probable that the morals and conduct of the dwellers in these huts were influenced in some way or other by the sojourners at the Hall, but whether for good or evil we are unable to say, as the time is now so hopelessly remote and no records of their habits and doings are extant, so that in the absence of any proof to the contrary, it is only fair and charitable to surmise that their lives were as simple as their surroundings

Whether the Tyldesleys were induced to locate themselves on this spot solely by a prospect of possessing some of the territory around, or were actuated also by a desire to have a retreat far removed from the scenes of disturbance with which the different factions were constantly vexing the land, is a matter of little importance, but to their presence it was due that the natural. beauties of Blackpool were brought before the people at an early date. There can be no doubt that the priests and others, who had fled to the Hall as a harbour of refuge, would, on returning to their own districts, circulate glowing and eulogistic accounts of

« AnteriorContinuar »