There is now an ecclesiastical parochial district attached to the church, of which the incumbent is the vicar.

On Thursday, the 24th of March, 1869, the corner stone of a Wesleyan chapel in Rawcliffe Street, built at the sole expense of Francis Parnell, esq., of South Shore, who subsequently added the schools, was laid by Mrs. Parnell, wife of the donor. For four or five years the members of this denomination had met on the Sabbath in a small room in Bolton Street, originally designed for a coach-house, and the necessity for more suitable and extended accommodation through growing numbers had of late pressed urgently upon the limited and not over wealthy assembly, so that the generous offer of their townsman was gratefully appreciated. The structure is in the Gothic style of architecture, about fifty feet in length and forty feet in width, with brick walls and stone facings, and will contain upwards of three hundred persons. Service was first held in the new place of worship, styled the Ebenezer Wesleyan Chapel, on Thursday, the 2nd of September, 1869, the officiating minister being the Rev. W. H. Taylor, of Manchester. The room in Bolton Street was subsequently converted into a Temperance Hall, and remained in that capacity until the 30th of March, 1873, when it was appropriated as a meeting-house by the Baptist sect. The progress of South Shore has not until the last two or three years been marked by that wonderful rapidity which has already been

noticed whilst delineating the prosperous career of Blackpool. Nevertheless a steadily-increasing patronage was always extended to the milder climate of the village under consideration, from its earliest existence. Terraces of pretty and commodious residences arose at intervals along the marine frontage, whilst elegant villas have been erected both opposite the sea and nearer to the Lytham Road. Building is at present (1876) being pushed forward with great activity, houses springing up in endless succession along the sides of thoroughfares but recently mapped out.

CHAPTER XII.

THE PARISH OF KIRKHAM.

KIRKHAM.

HE township of Kirkham was probably the earliest inhabited locality in the Fylde district; and although it is impossible to assert that the very site of the present town was a spot fixed upon by the Romans for erecting their habitations, still as the road formed by those people passed over it, and many remnants of their domestic utensils, funereal urns, and other relics have been discovered in the surrounding soil, there is strong presumptive evidence that an ancient settlement was at least close at hand. Amongst the traces of the old warriors disinterred in this neighbourhood may be mentioned a large quantity of stones prepared for building purposes, and numerous fragments of urns, ploughed up about. half a mile from Kirkham. The Mill Hill Field has also disclosed frequent witnesses to the former presence of the Romans, notably abundant specimens of their pottery and coinage, but perhaps the greatest curiosity found in the vicinity is the boss or umbo of a shield, wrought in brass, which was removed from a brook in the field specified during the year 1792. In form the shield is somewhat oval, having its central portion semi-globular, whilst the outer rim is flat. The entire diameter is about eight inches, of which the embossment supplies five. The horizontal and encircling part is perforated in four separate places, apparently for the passage of thongs or rivets. The highest surface of the boss holds the representation of a human figure seated, with an eagle to the left, the sides being adorned with an athlete

respectively. Birds, swords, diminutive shields, etc., complete the decorations.

From the year 418, when the Romans vacated the island, up to the compilation of the Domesday Book by William the Conqueror in 1080-86, a period of over six and a half centuries, history preserves no record of any matter or event directly connected with the town, as distinct from the Hundred in which it is situated. Nevertheless it is obvious that Kirkham must have sprung into being some time during that protracted era, insomuch as it appears amongst the places existing in Amounderness in the Norman survey just indicated. The name is a compound derived from the Anglo-Saxons and Danes, and although the syllable "Kirk," coming from the latter, and signifying a church, could not have been in use until those pirates first invaded the land in 787, and probably was not applied until the mistaken policy of Alfred the Great allowed them to colonise this and other parts of Northumbria, one hundred years later, still it would scarcely be justifiable to conclude that there was no dwelling or village here, as the Anglo-Saxon "ham" implies, anterior to that date. The location of the place on the margin of an open thoroughfare, and the former establishment of the Romans within or near to its boundaries, incline us rather to the opinion that from the earliest arrival of the Anglo-Saxons they had selected this site for the foundation of a small settlement, and that the "ham" or hamlet so created bore a purely Saxon title until the advent of the Danes, under whose influence the orthography became altered by the substitution from their vocabulary of the word "kirk" for the one originally bestowed upon it.

Some idea of the condition of Kirkham at the Norman Conquest may be gleaned from the report concerning the Fylde in the Domesday Book, in which it is stated that of the 840 statute acres comprised in the township, only 400 (four carucates) were under cultivation, the rest being waste, that is, untilled, but very possibly in service as forage ground for swine. At that period the town undoubtedly possessed a church, one of the three mentioned in the record above-named, as standing in Amounderness, but the era of its erection is conjectural merely. The name of Kirkham, however, the church hamlet, is manifestly of ecclesiastical origin, and the Danish derivation of "kirk"

implies that some religious building existed there, very likely about the year 900, when that nation colonised the district, but that a sacred edifice of some description had been constructed long before may be deduced from the fact that Christianity had been pretty generally embraced by the Anglo-Saxons dwelling in this locality about the middle of the seventh century.

From the commencement of the Norman dominion the history of Kirkham rises out of the mist which has obscured its earlier ages, and we are enabled from the disclosures of ancient documents, to follow out its career in a more satisfactory manner. The church and tithes of Kirkham were presented amongst other possessions, as a portion of the Hundred of Amounderness, by William the Conqueror to the baron Roger de Poictou, and were conferred by that nobleman about the year 1100, on the priory of St. Mary's, Lancaster,'-a monastic institution founded by him from the Abbey of Sees in Normandy. This priory retained possession of the church for only a few years, when it reverted to its former owner, and was bestowed by him on the convent of Shrewsbury, as shown by the charter of William, archbishop of York, as follows:

"The monks of Salop in the day of my ancestors were often making complaints that their church was unjustly robbed of the church of Kirckaham, because it had been legally bestowed upon it by Roger, count of Poictou, and confirmed by Thomas, archbishop, by authority of grants under seal. At length they have come before us to state their complaints; and we, thus constrained and by the command of lord Henry, legate of the apostolical see, committed their cause to be laid before the synod of York."

The archbishop Thomas here mentioned died either in 1100 or 1113, whilst William, the writer of the charter, died in 1154. The York tribunal decided, after seeing the writings touching the confirmation of the grant of the church of Kirkham to the Shrewsbury convent, which the monks of Salop had sealed with the seal of Thomas, the archbishop, that "the aforesaid church should be restored to the church of Peter of Salop."

In 1195 "a great controversy arose between Theobald Walter, on the one part, and the abbot of Shrewsbury, on the other, concerning the right of patronage of the church, which was thus settled: a certain fine was levied in the king's court that the abbot and his

1. Regist. S. Maria Lanc. MS.