Tag: Landmarks

Fleetwood’s Lower Lighthouse

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The Beach Lighthouse (also known as the Lower Lighthouse) is a 44-foot (13 m) tall sandstone lighthouse in Fleetwood, Lancashire, England. The lighthouse was designed in 1839 by Decimus Burton and Capt H.M. Denham. Burton had been commissioned three years previously by Sir Peter Hesketh Fleetwood as the architect of the new town of Fleetwood. Unusual for a lighthouse, it is in neoclassical style with a square colonnaded base, square tower, and octagonal lantern and gallery. The Lower Light stands on Fleetwood sea front and was built with its counterpart—the Upper Light, or Pharos Lighthouse—to provide a navigational guide to… Read more »

The Windmill at Marsh Mill Village in Thornton

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Marsh Mill Village, located in Thornton, near Blackpool, is a historic site centered around Marsh Mill, an 18th-century windmill. It was built in 1794 by Ralph Slater for Bold Hesketh and was a corn mill used to grind grain until the 1920s. Wyre Council leased the mill from Melrose Development Services for 25 years before the lease ended. Melrose Development Services then bought the mill from the council for £1.4 million. The surrounding area has been developed into Marsh Mill Village, a courtyard complex that includes retail units, offices, and the Tavern at the Mill pub. There is also a fine… Read more »

The Carnegie Library Opens in Lytham St Annes

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The Carnegie Library is in Lytham St Annes, Lancashire. The foundation stone of St. Anne’s Library was laid in August 1904 and the building was officially opened on 10 January 1906. The land was given by the St. Anne’s on the Sea Land and Building Company, and Andrew Carnegie paid for the building itself. This was the first library in the town. Until 2016, there was also a library at Lytham. The library was administered by the St Anne’s on the Sea Urban District until 1922 when the Urban District Council amalgamated with Lytham UDC to form the municipal borough… Read more »

The Old Lifeboat House in Lytham St. Annes

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The old Lifeboat House in Lytham St. Annes, marked by a blue plaque from the Lytham St. Annes Civic Society, which served as a lifeboat station from 1881 to 1925. It was the base for the “Laura Janet” lifeboat, which notably launched to assist the German barque “Mexico” in 1886. The “Mexico” disaster resulted in the loss of all 13 crew members from the St. Annes lifeboat and 14 from the Southport lifeboat, making it the RNLI’s worst loss of life in a single incident. The blue plaque commemorates the station’s history, highlighting the 45 lives saved from the house… Read more »

St Annes Church Parish Rooms

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St. Anne’s Parish Rooms, adjacent to St. Anne’s Parish Church in Lytham St. Annes, were built in 1911 to serve as a community space for church-related activities and various local groups. The church itself, initially a chapel of ease to St. Cuthbert’s in Lytham, was commissioned by Lady Clifton in the early 1870s and named in memory of her aunt, Anne. The town of St. Annes grew up around the church, taking its name from it. The church was built to serve the growing population of the hamlet of Heyhouses, which was a few miles walk from St. Cuthbert’s in… Read more »

Sir Nigel Gresley Marries Ethel Fullagar at St Annes Parish Church

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Sir (Herbert) Nigel Gresley (19th June 1876 – 5th April 1941) was one of Britain’s most famous steam locomotive engineers, who rose to become Chief Mechanical Engineer of the London and North Eastern Railway. He was an apprentice at The Horwich ‘Loco’ works and later became a locomotive foreman in Blackpool. He met Ethel Frances Fullagar in Blackpool in 1899 and married her at St Annes Parish Church in October 1901. The plaque, funded by St Annes town council, commemorates the marriage. He was knighted in 1936. Gresley was the designer of some of the most famous steam locomotives in… Read more »

St Annes College Moves to Current Location

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St. Annes College is an independent co-educational day school for students from 2 to 18 years of age. There are three main departments; a Nursery for children aged 2 to 4+, an Infant and Junior School for children aged 4+ to 11 and a Grammar School for students aged from 11 to 18+. One of the main features of the College and one of its greatest strengths is the individual attention given to the students by virtue of the small classes. Classes in the College generally do not exceed 16 pupils and in such a small community both staff and… Read more »

The First Brick House in St Annes

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In May, 1875, there wasn’t a brick house in St. Annes, though the hotel was in course of erection, and the first permanent house tenanted was occupied by Mr. Clement Rawstron in August, 1875. That house was in St. Andrew’s Road South. It has yielded to the march of progress, and is, along with its neighbour, being turned into shop premises. With this house is associated much that tells of the progress of St. Annes. Dr. Andrew Wilson said St. Annes had been created as “if by rubbing an Aladdin’s lamp,” and to many who live in the town St…. Read more »

Official Opening of St Annes’s Public Offices

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St Annes’s Public Offices is a municipal building in Clifton Drive, St Anne’s-on-the-Sea, Lancashire, England. The building, which was the headquarters of St Anne’s-on-the-Sea Urban District Council, is Grade II listed. A local board of health was established in the rapidly developing town of St Anne’s-on-the-Sea in 1878. Following significant population growth, largely associated with seaside tourism, the town became an urban district in 1894 In this context civic leaders decided to procure new public offices: the site they chose formed part of the garden of an adjacent residential property. The new building was designed by Thomas Muirhead in the… Read more »

Blackpool Born Pioneer Develops Contact Lens in St Annes

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Frank Dickinson (1906-1978) was an Optometrist and contact lens pioneer, researcher and writer, who developed the micro-corneal lens and was born in Blackpool in 1906. In 1921, he was articled to his aunt, Maud Farnworth, who had an optical practice in Lytham St Annes. He obtained a diploma of the British Optical Association from the College of Technology in Manchester at the age of nineteen, though he was not able to use this professional qualification until he reached twenty-one. In 1930 he set up his own optical practice, moving premises two years’ later to 35 The Square in St Annes… Read more »