Blackpool St John, Lancashire Family History Guide

Blackpool St John is an Ecclesiastical Parish in the county of Lancashire, created in 1822 from Bispham Ancient Parish.

Alternative names: Bispham with Borbreck Blackpool St John, Blackpool and South Shore

Parish church:

Parish registers begin:

Parish registers: 1821
Bishop’s Transcripts: 1826

Nonconformists include: Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, Independent/Congregational, Wesleyan Methodist, and Wesleyan Methodist Reform.

Table of Contents

Adjacent Parishes

Bispham

Parish History

A Topographical Dictionary of England 1848

BLACKPOOL, a chapelry and bathing-place, in the township of Layton with Warbrick, parish of Bispham, union of the Fylde, hundred of Amounderness, N. division of the county of Lancaster, 4 miles (S. W. by W.) from Poulton, 19 (W. by N.) from Preston, and 25 (S. W. by W.) from Lancaster; containing 1304 inhabitants.

This place perhaps acquired its name from a boggy pool at the southern end of the village: until within the last 90 years it was an inconsiderable hamlet; but owing to its eligibility for sea-bathing, it has become a very favourite locality. No bathing-place can be better situated; it opens out to the sea, is refreshed by a pure and bracing air, presents a fine smooth sand, new modelled by every tide, but always firm, safe, and elastic, and is furnished with excellent accommodations.

The village at the height of the season commonly numbers a thousand visiters; many of them of rank and fashion, mixed with good company from the manufacturing districts. The houses of public reception, and the villas, are scattered along the coast, and in the rear are the habitations of the villagers; when viewed from the sea, the place has a large and imposing appearance.

The parade forms an agreeable promenade, from which there is an extensive view of the fells in Westmorland and Cumberland, and the mountains in North Wales. Assemblies occasionally take place at the principal hotels; a news-room has been established; and much is otherwise done to conduce to the pleasure and comfort of the increasing number of families who sojourn here.

The sea has receded towards the south, but appears to have encroached considerably on the shore towards the north; a large rock called Penny-stone, lying on the sands about half a mile from the shore, is stated by tradition to mark the site on which a public-house formerly stood.

An act was passed in 1845 for making a branch to this village of the Preston and Wyre railway; the branch, 3¼ miles long, has been completed, and the communication between Blackpool and the important town of Preston is thus easy and rapid.

Fox Hall, once a sequestered residence of the gallant family of Tildesley, is now a farmhouse.

The living is a perpetual curacy in the patronage of certain Trustees; net income, £150, with a house. The chapel was built in 1821, at a cost of £1150, and has been twice enlarged.

There is a place of worship for Wesleyans; and a free school, established in 1817, is conducted on Dr. Bell’s plan. In the peat bog here, numerous antediluvian trees are found.

Source: A Topographical Dictionary of England by Samuel Lewis 1848.

Blackpool Parish Records

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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