Lytham Lancashire Family History Guide

Lytham is an Ancient Parish in the county of Lancashire. Lytham St John is an Ecclesiastical Parish, created in 1851 from Lytham Parish.

Parish churches: St. Cuthbert, St John

Parish registers begin: 1679

Nonconformists include: Roman Catholic, Scotch Baptist, and Wesleyan Methodist.

Adjacent Parishes

• Marton
• Kirkham
• South Shore
• Warton

Parish History

Beeton’s British Gazetteer 1870

LYTHAM, a watering-place of England, in Lancashire, situated on the Ribble, 6 miles S.W. from Kirkham. It contains two churches, several chapels for nonconformists, baths, and assembly-rooms. The inhabitants are chiefly employed in shipbuilding and sail making. Post town, Preston. It has a money ord. off. Pop. 3194. It is a telegraph station, and a station on the Manchester and Preston and Wyre branch of the London and North Western Railway.

Source: Beeton’s British Gazetteer 1870. Ward, Lock & Tyler, Paternoster Row, London.

The Imperial Gazetteer of England & Wales 1870

LYTHAM, a small town, a parish, and a sub-district, in Fylde district, Lancashire. The town stands on the N shore of the Ribble estuary, at the meeting-point of two branch railways from respectively the Preston and Wyre railway and the town of Blackpool, 8 miles SSE of Blackpool, and 12 W of Preston.

It is a sub-port to Preston, a watering-place, and a seat of petty sessions; presents a new, neat, and clean appearance; enjoys fine amenities of beach, environs, and climate; has undergone many improvements by a board of commissioners under a local act; and has a post office under Preston, a railway station with telegraph, a neat market-house of 1848, a county constabulary station, assembly-rooms, public baths, billiard-rooms, several first-class hotels, a number of respectable lodging-houses, two churches, three dissenting chapels, a Roman Catholic chapel, two endowed schools, two national schools, several good private and boarding schools, a long marine parade, and a long steamboat pier.

St. Cuthbert’s or the parochial church was rebuilt in 1834; is a neat structure of red brick; consists of nave, aisles, and chancel, with porch and tower; and contains monuments of the Clifton family. St. John’s church stands on the E beach; was built in 1850; and is a stone edifice in the early English style. The Independent chapel stands in Westby-street, and is a handsome recent structure.

The marine parade was formed by levelling the beach; is 2 miles long; and commands a fine view across the estuary. The pier was constructed in 1865; is 914 feet long; and, besides serving for steamboats from Blackpool, Southport, and other places, forms a splendid promenade. The branch railway from the Preston and Wyre line was opened in 1846; and that from Blackpool was opened in 1863. Lytham Pool, about a mile E of the town, serves as an entrepôt to Preston; accommodates large vessels for the discharging of their cargoes into smaller crafts; and has a graving dock for building and repairing vessels. A custom-house is on the E beach; and a lifeboat station is near.

The parish comprises 5,177 acres of land, and 10,365 of water or foreshore. Real property, £15,425; of which £135 are in gas-works. Pop in 1851,2,698; in 1861, 3,194. Houses, 552. The increase of pop. arose mainly from the attractions of the town as a watering-place. The manor, with Lytham Hall, belongs to Col. John Talbot Clifton. The hall stands on the NW side of the town; was erected between 1757 and 1764: and is a spacious mansion. A Benedictine priory, a cell to Durham abbey, was founded on or near the site of the Hall, in the time of Richard I., by Roger Fitz-Roger; and some remains of it are included in the Hall.

A portion of the parish which had a pop. of 1,579 in 1861 was constituted a separate charge, under the name of L. St. John, in 1851. The head living is a vicarage, that of St. John a p. curacy, in the dio. of Chester. Value of the head living, £131:  of St. John, £60. Patron of both, Col. J. T. Clifton. The sub-district contains also the Poulton-le-Fylde hamlet of Little Marton. Pop., 3,627. Houses, 620.

Source: The Imperial Gazetteer of England & Wales [Wilson, John M]. A. Fullarton & Co. N. d. c. [1870-72].

Parish Registers

The Registers of Lytham 1679 to 1761

The Registers of Lytham 1679 to 1761 : Lancashire Parish Register Society : Free Download, Borrow, and Streaming : Internet Archive

The Catholic Registers of St Peter’s, Lytham, Lancashire 1758-1829

Parish Records

FamilySearch

Lancashire Historical Directories

Administration

• County: Lancashire
• Civil Registration District: Fylde
• Probate Court: Court of the Bishop (Consistory) of the Commissary of the Archdeaconry of Richmond Western Deaneries –
• Amounderness
• Diocese: Manchester
• Rural Deanery: Amounderness
• Poor Law Union: Fylde
• Hundred: Amounderness
• Province: York