visitors during the summer, and for many years was a more popular resort than Blackpool. In Mr. Baines's account of Lytham, published in 1825, we read as follows:—"This is one of the most popular sea-bathing places in the county of Lancashire; and if the company is less fashionable than at Blackpool, it is generally more numerous, and usually very respectable."
A list of the Catholic Chapels and Chaplains, together with the number of their respective congregations, in the county of Lancaster, was collected in 1819, and subjoined are enumerated those situated in the Hundred of Amounderness:—
Place. Chapels. Priest. No. of
Congregation.
Preston 2 Revd. — Dunn }
" " — Morris} 6,000
" " — Gore }
" " — Bird }
Alston Lane 1 " — Cowburne 400
Fernyhalgh 1 " — Blakoe 500
The Hill 1 " — Martin 450
Claughton 1 " — Gradwell 800
Scorton 1 " — Lawrenson 350
Garstang 1 " — Storey 600
New House 1 " — Marsh 600
Cottam 1 " — Caton 300
Lea 1 " — Anderton 400
Willows 1 " — Sherburne 600
Westby 1 " — Butler 300
Lytham 1 " — Dawson 500
Poulton 1 " — Platt 400
Great Eccleston 1 " — Parkinson 450
Total 16 12,650[1]
In 1836 the first house of Fleetwood was erected, and in a few years the desolate warren at the mouth of the Wyre was converted into a rising and prosperous town. The rapidity of its early growth may be inferred from the following paragraph, extracted from a volume on Lancashire, published during the infancy of this new offspring of the Fylde:—"As a bathing place, it possesses very superior attractions: hot water baths, inns, and habitations of all kinds have sprung as if by magic on one of the most agreeable sites it is possible to imagine, very superior to any other
- ↑ A tract in the library of the British Museum, entitled "Catholic Chapels,
Chaplains." etc., and bearing the date 1819.
