CONDITION, CUSTOMS, AND SUPERSTITIONS OF THE PEOPLE.
There is little to be remarked, because little is known, respecting
the social and moral aspects of the untutored race which, in the
earliest historic age, sought a domicile or refuge amidst the forests
of the Fylde, or invaded its glades in search of prey. The habits of
the Setantii were simply those of other savage tribes who depended for
their daily sustenance upon their skill and prowess in the chase, and
whose intercommunion with the world beyond their own limited domains,
was confined to hostile or friendly meetings with equally barbarous
races whose frontiers adjoined their own. Certain disinterred roots were
necessary adjuncts to their repasts, and indeed, on many occasions, when
outwitted by the wild tenants of the woods, formed the sole item. Their
Druidical faith and the supreme power of the priesthood over their almost
every action, both secular and religious, have already been referred to
in an earlier page. The remorseless sacrifice of fellow beings on their
unhallowed altars, and the general spirit of cruelty and inhumanity
which pervaded all their rites, are not to be regarded as disclosing a
naturally callous and brutal disposition on the part of the Setantii, but
as indications of the deplorable ignorance in which they existed, and
the blind obedience which they yielded to the principles indoctrinated
by the Druids. That the Setantii, however submissive to the dictates
and requirements of their priests, were far from passively allowing the
encroachments of others on their liberties is shown by the promptitude
and fierceness with which they combatted the progress of the Roman
legions through their territory. No portion of the British conquest
cost the conquerors more trouble, time, and bloodshed, than did the land
peopled by the hardy and valorous Brigantes with their comparatively
small, but equally intrepid, neighbours and allies the Setantii. The two
most striking characteristics of the aboriginal Fylde inhabitants were
their ignorance and bravery, and whilst the former rivetted the chains
which held them in subjection to the priesthood, the latter incited them
to oppose to the death the usurpations of the stranger. There is nothing
of local interest to recount during the period the Romans held the
soil, but after their abdication, when the Anglo-Saxons violated their
faith and traitorously seized a land which they had come professedly
to protect, the Fylde began to evince symptoms of greater animation;
villages sprang up in different spots on the open grounds or clearings
in the woods; the solitary Roman settlement at Kirkham was appropriated
and renamed by the new arrivals, and, perhaps, for the first time a
population of numerical importance was established in the district.
During the earlier part of this era the inhabitants were graziers rather
than agriculturists or ploughmen. Three quarters, even, of the entire
kingdom were devoted to rearing and feeding cattle, so that the grain
produce of the country must have been extremely small when compared
with the superabundance of live stock, and as a consequence of such a
condition of things, those animals which could forage for themselves
and exist upon the wild herbage of the waste lands or the fallen
fruits of the trees, as acorns and beech-mast, were to be purchased
at prices almost nominal, whilst others which required the cultivated
products of the fields, as corn and hay, for their sustenance, were
disproportionately dear; thus about the end of the tenth century the
values of the former were:—
One Ox 7s. 0½d.
” Cow 5s. 6d.
” Pig 1s. 10½d.
” Sheep 1s. 2d.
” Goat 0s. 5½d.
The latter commanded these comparatively high prices—
One Horse £1 5s. 2d.
” Mare, or Colt £1 3s. 5d.
” Ass, or Mule £0 14s. 1d.
Trees were valued not by the circumference or magnitude of their trunks,
but by the amount of shelter their branches would afford to the cattle,
which seem to have lived almost entirely in the open pastures; and
bearing that in mind we are not surprised to read in the Saxon Chronicle
of periodical plagues or murrains breaking out amongst them. “In 1054,”
says that journal, “there was so great loss of cattle as was not
remembered for many winters before.” This, however, is only one extract
from frequent entries referring to similar misfortunes in different
years, both before and after the date quoted. Swine were kept in immense
herds throughout the kingdom, and there is every probability that in a
locality like the Fylde, where trees would still abound and provender
be plentifully scattered from the oaks and beeches, hogs would be
extensively bred. Indeed immediately after the close of the Saxon empire,
Roger de Poictou conveyed his newly acquired right to pawnage (swine’s
food) in the woods of Poulton, amongst other things, to the monastery
of St. Mary, in Lancaster, a circumstance strongly favourable to the
existence of swine there in considerable numbers. Kine, also, are usually
reported to have been a favourite stock with the breeders of Lancashire,
whilst sheep were rare in proportion, although in other places they were
exceedingly popular and profitable, chiefly from the sale of their wool.
The Saxon inhabitants of the small villages in the Fylde who were
engaged in agriculture had no knowledge of any manure beyond marl, which
they mixed with lighter and finer soils; nor were their farm-lands
cultivated all at one time, but a portion only of the estate was
subjected to the action of the plough, and when its fertility had been
thoroughly exhausted, the remainder was tilled and brought into service,
the first plot being allowed to lie fallow for a few years until its
productive powers had been renewed. Grain was not, as now, purchased
from the growers by dealers and stored up in warehouses, but each of
the neighbouring people, as soon as the crops had been gathered into
the barns, bought whatever quantity he thought would suffice for his
household wants until the ensuing harvest, and removed it to his own
residence. The universal waste and improvident consumption of grain
during this season of abundance, led frequently to famines in other
parts of the year, and many instances of that punishment following such
prodigality are related in the chronicle before named. One notice,
bearing the date 1044, says:—“This year there was very great hunger all
over England, and corn so dear as no man ever remembered before; so that
a sester of wheat rose to sixty pence and even further.”
The ploughs of our forefathers were, as would naturally be supposed,
somewhat rude and clumsy in construction, differing considerably in
appearance, although not in their _modus operandi_, from those which
may be seen furrowing the same land in the present day. Each plough
was furnished with an iron share, in front of which, attached to the
extremity of a beam projecting anteriorly, was a wheel of moderate
diameter, its purpose being to relieve the labour of the oxen and to
facilitate the guiding of the instrument, especially in turning. The
oxen employed were ordinarily four, and yoked to the plough by means of
twisted willow bands. Horses were prohibited by law from being used on
the land, but there must have been little need, one would imagine, for a
legal prohibition in the matter when it is remembered that horses were
nearly four times as valuable as oxen, and that the latter were fully
efficient at the task. The month of January commenced their season for
preparing the ground, and during the period thus occupied the labours
of the ploughman began each morning at sunrise, when the oxen were
tethered and conducted to the fields, where the duty of the husbandman
was lightened by the assistance of a boy, who superintended the cattle,
driving or leading them whilst at work. In the inclement months of
winter these oxen were fed and tended in sheds under the special care
of the ploughman, but during summer they shared a common lot with
the other cattle and were turned out to pasture in the fields, being
transferred to the charge of the cowherd. Other implements of husbandry
in use, in addition to the plough, were scythes, sickles, axes, spades,
pruning-hooks, forks, and flails, besides which the farmers possessed
carts and waggons of rather a cumbersome pattern. It is doubtful whether
the harrow was known here so early, but opinion usually refers its
introduction to a later date.
Of the moral tone of our Saxon settlers it is difficult to judge,
but that their business transactions were not always governed by a
very strict sense of honour is intimated by the following enactment,
apparently framed to check repudiations of bargains and, perhaps, to
insure fair dealing:—“No one shall buy either what is living or what
is dead to the value of four pennies without four witnesses either of
the borough or of the village.” William of Malmesbury, who wrote about
a century after the Norman Conquest, informs us that “excessive eating
and drinking were the common vices of the Saxons, in which they spent
whole nights and days without intermission.” It may, however, with much
probability be conjectured that not only is the statement in some degree
exaggerated, but that its application was designed more particularly for
the inhabitants of the larger towns than those of comparatively sparsely
populated districts like our own. Nevertheless it cannot be claimed, with
any show of reason, that the small section of the nation established
in the Fylde was entirely uninfected by the vices which enervated and
degraded the wealthier and more populous regions of the kingdom. The
evil of intemperance in both food and drink, especially the latter,
pervaded the whole community, but as its indulgence required both means
and opportunity, its loathsome features were less prominently visible in
localities where these were scarce than in others where they abounded.
The Church used every effort to awaken a better feeling in the minds
of her degenerate sons, and liberate them from the chains of a passion
which had so thoroughly enslaved them. Canons were directed against the
“sin of drunkenness,” and in order that no plea of ignorance could be
urged by any who had overstepped the bounds of sobriety, a curious and
minute description of the condition of body and brain which constituted
inebriation was appended to one of them, as here quoted:—“This is
drunkenness—when the state of the mind is changed, the tongue stammers,
the eyes are disturbed, the head is giddy, the belly is swelled, and pain
follows.” Ale and mead were the beverages on which these excesses were
committed, and cow-horns the drinking cups. It would seem that there was
yet another national blemish, that of gambling, which even invaded the
cloister and threw its veil of fascination over the clergy themselves,
for a canon of the reign of Edgar ordered—“That no priest be a hunter, or
fowler, or player at tables, but let him play upon his books, as becometh
his calling.”
Water-mills, planted on the banks of streams and consisting of square
weather-boarded structures, usually open at the top, were the means
possessed during the Saxon era for grinding the cereal products of the
Fylde. The wheel which received the pressure of the current, and conveyed
its motive power to the simple machinery within the fabric, differed
little from those still in use in various parts of the country, one of
which until recently was connected with a small mill on the brink of
the brook which drains the mere at Marton into the river Wyre, and less
than a century ago another mill, situated in the township of Marton and
worked on a similar principle, was turned by a stream from the same
mere. A water-mill is at present in use near Great Eccleston. After the
grinding process had been completed the bran and flour were separated
by hand-sieves. About seventy or eighty years after the Normans had
settled in the district these primitive sheds were superseded by a fresh
species of mill, in which sails supplied the place of the wheel, and
another element was called into service. The new erections were of wood,
and separated from the ground by a pivot of slight altitude, on which
they turned bodily in order to be fixed in the most favourable position
for their sails to reap a full harvest of wind. Solitary specimens of
this early piece of mechanical ingenuity are still visible hereabouts,
but most of the old mills were pulled down about a hundred years ago,
or less, and rebuilt with more stable material, whilst the modern
improvement of a revolving top only, did away with the necessity for the
venerable pivot, and allowed the foundations of the edifices to be more
intimately associated with mother earth than formerly.
Throughout the whole of the Saxon dynasty the mass of the inhabitants
would be what were termed the “villani,” that is, a class forming a
link between abject slavery and perfect independence. They were not
bound to any master but to the soil on which they happened to be
born, and on no plea were they permitted to leave such localities. To
the lord of the manor each of the “villani” gave annually a certain
portion of the produce of the ground he tilled, but beyond that they
acknowledged no claim to the proceeds of their thrift by the large
territorial proprietors. When a manor changed ownership the “villani”
were transferred with it in exactly the same condition as before, so that
really they seem to have occupied the position of small tenants paying
rent in kind, with the important addition that they were forced to pass
their lives in the district where they had first seen the light of day.
It should be noted that any “villani” not having domiciles of their own
were compelled to enter the service of others who were more fortunately
situated in that respect.
During the twelfth century the house-wife’s plan of preparing bread
for the table, in the absence of public bakehouses, common in some
neighbourhoods, was to knead the dough into large flat cakes and lay them
on the hearth in full glare of the fire, where they were permitted to
remain until thoroughly baked. Bread from pure wheat of the best quality
was a luxury unattainable except by those of high station or wealth,
the bulk of the people having to content themselves with an inferior
quality, brownish in colour and made from rye, oats, and barley. The
amount of this indispensable commodity to be sold at a specified price
was regulated by law, and the punishments for not supplying the proper
measure, or for “lack of size” as it was termed, were—for the first
offence, loss of the bread; for the second, imprisonment; and for the
third, the pillory or tumbrel.[46] In 1185 the maximum charges to be made
for certain provisions were settled by an act which decreed that the
highest price for a hen should be ½d., a sheep 5½d., a ram 8d., a hog
1s., an ox 5s. 8d., and a cow 4s. 6d.
In the ensuing century no restrictions were placed upon the tenants
of the Fylde as to the course of husbandry to be pursued, but each on
renting his farm or parcel of ground cultivated it according to the
dictates of his own inclination or experience, the only stipulation
being that the soil should suffer no deterioration from any ignorant or
imprudent action on the part of the holder. Oats and barley mixed, and
a light description of wheat, very inferior to the best grain, were the
favourite crops, the former being known as “draget,” and the latter as
“siligo.” Arable land was let at 4d. per acre, and the annual yield of
each acre sown with wheat, usually amounted to 12 bushels, the value of
the grain itself averaging about 4s. 6d. per quarter. Demand notices were
sent in two days after the rent had become due, and if not complied with
in two weeks the landlord distrained without further ceremony; after an
interval of another fortnight, if the money still remained unpaid, the
tenant was summarily ejected, and the owner seized both farm and stock.
The meals consumed by the peasantry comprised only two during the
twenty-four hours, one, called dinner, being eaten at nine in the
morning, and the other, supper, at five in the afternoon. It is very
possible, however, that during the summer those farm servants whose
arduous duties were entered on at daybreak, partook of some slight repast
at an early hour of the morning, but the only meals for which regular
times were appointed were the two mentioned. During harvest the diet
of the labourers consisted for the most part of herrings, bread, and
an allowance of beer, whilst messes of pottage were far from uncommon
objects on the rustic boards. Between the year 1314 and 1326 the prices
of live stock were again arranged, as under:—
The best grass fed ox 16s. 0d.
The best cow (fat) 12s. 0d.
The best short-horn sheep 1s. 2d.
The best goose 0s. 3d.
The best hen 0s. 1½d.
The best chickens, per couple 0s. 1½d.
Eggs, twenty for 0s. 1d.
In 1338 no domestic or husbandry servant residing in the Hundred of
Amounderness was allowed to pass beyond the boundaries of the Wapentake
on profession of going to dwell or serve elsewhere, or of setting out
on a pilgrimage, without bearing with him a letter patent stating the
reason of his departure and the date of his return. This law, which
applied to all Hundreds alike, was intended to prevent the threatened
decay of agriculture from a dearth of labourers, who heretofore had been
in the habit of deserting their employment and wandering away into other
divisions of the country, where they supported an idle and frequently
vicious existence by soliciting alms and by petty thefts.
It will scarcely surprise the reader to learn that superstition was rife
amongst the populace during the periods so far noticed, and that nothing
was too absurd to be accepted as an omen, either of good or evil, by our
credulous forefathers. A timid hare encountered in their walks abroad
announced the approach of some unforeseen calamity, as also did a blind
or lame man, a woman with dishevelled hair, or even a monk; whilst the
visions of a wolf crossing the path, St. Martin’s birds flying from
left to right, a humpbacked man, or the sound of distant thunder, were
welcomed as heralds of prosperity. All amusements were of an athletic
kind, and consisted of archery, casting heavy stones, spear darting,
wrestling, running, leaping, and sword and buckler playing. On festivals,
and occasionally at other seasons, the barbarous and cruel sports of bull
and bear-baiting were indulged in,[47] but cock-fighting was considered,
until a later epoch, an entertainment only suitable for children, and on
Shrove Tuesday each boy took his pet bird to the school-house, which was
for that day converted into a cock-pit, superintended by the master.
In 1444, the wages received by different classes of agricultural servants
were:—
A bailiff £1 3s. 4d. per year, and 5s. for clothing, with
board.
A chief hind ⎫
” carter ⎬ £1 0s. 0d. ” and 4s. for clothing, ”
” shepherd ⎭
A woman servant £0 10s. 0d. ” and 4s. for clothing, ”
A boy under 14 £0 6s. 0d. ” and 3s. for clothing, ”
A common husbandman £0 15s. 0d. ” and 40d. for clothing, ”
At harvest time, when special labour was required, the scale of
remuneration was:—
A mower 4d. per day, with board.
” 6d. ” without ”
A reaper or carter 3d. ” with ”
” 5d. ” without ”
A woman labourer, or other labourer 2½d. ” with ”
” 4½d. ” without ”
The statute which arranged the above rates of payment concluded by saying
that “such as deserve less shall take less, and also in places where less
is used to be given less shall be given from henceforth;” so that the
table just completed would seem to represent the maximum rather than the
ordinary scale of wages. This statute also enacted that farm servants who
purposed leaving their employers, must engage themselves to other masters
and give reasonable warning before leaving their present ones, by which
idleness and mendicancy were effectually guarded against.
The common pastimes of the inhabitants during the fifteenth and sixteenth
centuries, in addition to some of those already enumerated which still
held their sway, were club, and trap-ball, bowling, prisoners’-bars,
hood-man blind, (a game similar to the modern blindman’s-buff, but
entered into by adults alone,) battledore and shuttlecock, and during
hard frosts skating, at first by means of the shank bone of a sheep
fastened on to the sole of the boot and afterwards with iron-shod
skates. Hawking and hunting were confined to the families of position
who resided at the ancient Halls of the Fylde and to others of similar
social standing, forming but a small proportion of the entire population.
At Christmas the largest log obtainable was lighted on the hearth and
denominated the yule log. If the mass burned throughout the night and
the whole of the next day, it was regarded as an omen of good fortune by
the members of the household, but if it were consumed or extinguished
before that time had expired, it was looked upon as auguring adversely
for their prosperity. The first Monday after Twelfth Day was called
Plough Monday, a name still familiar to many an old Fylde man, and was
observed as a general holiday by the men whose labours were associated
with that instrument, who on this day went about the villages from house
to house asking for plough-money to spend in ale. Their processions,
if such they could be called, consisted of a plough, which was dragged
along by a number of sword-dancers; a labourer, dressed to resemble an
old woman; and another, who was clothed in skins, and wore the tail of
some animal hanging down his back. These two oddly garbed individuals
solicited small contributions from the people whilst the remainder were
engaged in dancing, and if anyone refused to disburse some trifling sum
when requested, they turned up the ground fronting his doorway with
the plough. During Christmas week the country people blackened their
faces, and thus disguised committed all sorts of frolics and absurdities
amongst their neighbours. The chief rustic festival, however, was
appointed for the first of May, on which day the May-pole was drawn
to the village green by several oxen, whose horns were decorated with
bunches of flowers, and accompanied by a joyous band of revellers, who
after its erection on the accustomed site held their jubilee of feasting
and dancing around it. The pole itself was covered with floral garlands,
and streamed with flags and handkerchiefs from its summit. A Lord and
Lady, or Queen, of May were elected by a general vote, and to them
belonged the honour of presiding over the festivities. The costumes of
these pseudo-regal personages were liberally adorned with scarfs and
ribbons, so that their appearances should be in unison with the rest of
the gay preparations. The morris-dance formed an important feature of
the festival, and the performers in that somewhat vigorous exercise wore
richly decorated habits on to which small bells, varying in tone, had
been fastened. The new year was ushered in with feasting and joviality,
whilst friendly interchanges of presents took place amongst all classes.
In the evening, a huge wassail-bowl filled with spiced ale was carried
to the different houses of the villages, and all who quaffed its
exhilarating contents drank prosperity to the coming year, and rewarded
the cup-bearers, usually female farm-servants, with some small donation;
the following carol in a more antique form, or some similar one, was sung
on the occasion:—
“Good Dame, here at your door,
Our Wassel we begin,
We are all maidens poor,
We pray now let us in,
With our Wassel.
“Our Wassel we do fill,
With apples and with spice,
Then grant us your good will
To taste here once or twice
Of our Wassel.
...
“Some bounty from your hands
Our Wassel to maintain.
We’ll buy no house nor lands
With that which we do gain,
With our Wassel.”
On Shrove Tuesday a barbarous custom prevailed of tying cocks to a stake
driven into the ground, and throwing at them with sticks, until death
ensued from repeated blows. St. Valentine’s day received a merry welcome
from the country swains and maidens, who at that auspicious time made
choice of, or more properly speaking were mated to, their true loves for
the year. The all important selection was made by writing the names of an
equal number of each sex on separate slips of paper, and then dividing
them into two lots, one of which represented the males and the other the
females. The women drew from the male heap, and the men from that of the
females, so that each person became possessed of two sweethearts, and the
final pairing was really the only element of real choice in the matter;
in this the men usually claimed the girl whom each of them had drawn,
and thus an amicable settlement was soon arrived at. After the mirthful
ceremony had been completed and each happy couple duly united, the men
gave treats and dances to their sweethearts, and wore their billets for
several days pinned on to their breasts or coat sleeves. Another, and
much simpler, plan of choosing a valentine was to look out of the door or
window on the eventful morning, and the first person seen was regarded as
the special selection of the patron Saint, provided always the individual
was of the opposite sex, and unfettered by the silken bonds of Hymen.
Whitsun-ales and Easter-ales were assemblies held within, or in the
immediate neighbourhood of, the church-yards, at which the beverage,
giving the title to these festivities, was sold by the clergy or their
assistants, and consumed by the country people, the proceeds being
devoted to ecclesiastical purposes and the relief of the poor. Wakes
originated in an ancient custom of gathering together on the evening
before the birthday of a Saint or the day appointed for the dedication of
a church, and passing the night in devotion and prayer. These watches,
however, were soon altered in character, and instead of religious
exercises employing the period of vigil, feasting and debauchery became
the recognized occupations.
The festival of Rush-bearing is of such antiquity that its origin has
become in a great measure obscured, but there is a strong probability
that the practice arose from a recommendation given by Pope Gregory IV.
to Mellitus, who was associated with St. Augustine in christianising
the inhabitants of England, to celebrate the anniversaries of the
dedications of those places of worship, which they had rescued from Pagan
influences, “by building themselves huts of the boughs of trees about
such churches, and celebrating the solemnities with religious feastings.”
The rush-cart, decorated with flowers and ribbons, was paraded through
the village streets, accompanied by morris-dancers and others bearing
flags or banners. One of the mummers, dressed in a motley suit, somewhat
resembling that of a circus jester, jingled a horse-collar hung with
bells, and kept up a constant succession of small jokes at the expense
of the bystanders as the procession advanced. In early days before
churches were flagged it was the annual custom to strew their floors with
rushes on the day of the dedication of the sacred edifice, and in the
parish register of Kirkham we find, as follows:—“1604. Rushes to strew
the church cost this year 9s. 6d.” From the register at Poulton church
we have also extracted an entry, at random, from similar ones occurring
each year:—“Aug. 6th, 1784. To Edward Whiteside for rushes, 6s. 8d.” The
practice appears to have arisen simply from a desire to promote warmth
and comfort within the churches by providing a covering for the bare
earth, and its connection with rush-bearing, when it existed, must be
regarded as having been purely accidental. Brand has discovered another
motive for rush-strewing, more especially in private houses, and one
not very flattering to our forefathers:—“As our ancestors,” writes he,
“rarely washed their floors, disguises of uncleanliness became very
necessary.” Erasmus, also, a Greek Professor at Oxford in the time of
Henry VIII., in describing the hovels in which the agricultural labourers
and others of the lower classes lived, says:—“The floors are commonly
of clay strewed with rushes; under which lies unmolested an ancient
collection of beer, grease, fragments, bones, spittle, and everything
that is nasty.”
From 1589 to 1590 inclusive, the daily wages, without board, of a
ditcher were 4d., a thresher 6d., a hedger 4d., a gardener 10d., and a
master-mason 14d. In 1533 it was enacted that no tenant should hold more
than two farms at once; and fifty-five years later sundry penalties were
imposed upon any one erecting cottages for the agricultural population
without attaching four acres of land to each, also for allowing more than
one family to occupy a cottage at the same time.[48] A law was passed
in 1597, directing that all houses of husbandry which had fallen into
decay within a period of seven years should be rebuilt, and from twenty
to forty acres of ground apportioned to each.[49] The average yields of
grain per acre on well-cultivated soils during the latter half of the
sixteenth century were—wheat 20 bushels, barley 32 bushels, and oats 40
bushels. The subjoined tables contain the average prices of some of the
common articles of consumption:—
In 1500. In 1541. In 1590. In 1597.
12 Pigeons 4d. 0s. 10d. 1s. 0d. 4s. 3d.
100 Eggs 7d. 1s. 6d. 3s. 6d.
1 Goose 4d. 0s. 8d.
1 Chicken 1d. 0s. 8d.
1 Lb. of Butter 0s. 3d. 0s. 4d.
In 1581, the charge for shoeing a horse was 10d., and sometimes 12d. Here
it may be noticed, although perhaps rather digressive, that the herb
tobacco was introduced into this country sometime during the summer of
1586, by a party of Englishmen, who for a short time colonised the island
of Roanoak, near the coast of Virginia, but, having quarrelled with the
aborigines, were removed home in the ships of Sir Francis Drake. Camden,
writing of these men, says:—“They were the first that I know of that
brought into England that Indian plant which they called _tabacca_ and
_nicotia_, or _tobacco_, which they used against crudities, being taught
it by the Indians. Certainly, from that time forward, it began to grow
into great request, and to be sold at a high rate; whilst in a short time
many men, everywhere, some for wantonness, some for health sake, with
insatiable desires and greediness, sucked in the stinking smoke thereof
through an earthen pipe, which presently they blew out again at their
nostrils; insomuch that tobacco-shops are now as ordinary in most towns
as tap-houses and taverns.”
The following rhymes, descriptive of the games and recreations common
in Lancashire amongst the youth of both sexes, were written in 1600, by
Samuel Rowland:—
“Any they dare challenge for to throw the sledge,
To jump or leap over ditch or hedge;
To wrestle, play at stool-ball, or to run,
To pitch the bar or to shoot off a gun;
To play at loggats, nine-holes, or ten-pins,
To try it out at foot-ball by the shins;
At tick-tacke, seize-noddy, maw, and ruff;
At hot-cockles, leap-frog, or blindman’s buff;
To drink the halper-pots, or deal at the whole can;
To play at chess, or pue, and inkhorn;
To dance the morris, play at barley-brake;
At all exploits a man can think or speak:
At shove-groat, venter-point, or cross and pile;
At ‘beshrew him that’s last at any style’;
At leaping over a Christmas bonfire,
Or at ‘drawing the dame out of the mire’;
At shoot-cock, Gregory, stool-ball, and what-not;
Pick-point, top and scourge, to make him hot.”
Many of these games have long since become obsolete. Tick-tacke resembled
backgammon, but was rather more complicated; seize-noddy, maw, and ruff
were games of cards, the first being somewhat similar to cribbage, while
the two latter have no modern representatives, although the expression
_to ruff_ is frequently used at the whist-table; ‘cross and pile’ is
merely an earlier name of ‘pitch and toss’; and shoot-cock has been
modernised into shuttlecock.
During the seventeenth century occasional village fairs were held in the
Fylde, at which such uncouth games as “grinning through a horse-collar,”
as well as trials in whistling, etc., were common amusements, while
pedlars’ stalls, puppet shows, raffling tables, and drinking booths were
well attended by the holidaymakers. At that period any damsel, wishing to
learn something, be it ever so little, of her future mate, was directed
to run until out of breath on hearing the first notes of the cuckoo,
and on removing her shoe she would find a hair of the same colour as
that of the husband whom fate had selected for her. On May-day a snail
placed upon the ashes of the hearth would trace the initial letter, or
letters, of the lover’s name; or the rind, peeled from an apple and
thrown backwards over the head, would by its arrangement on falling to
the ground effect a similar purpose:—
“Last May-day fair I search’d to find a snail
That might my secret lover’s name reveal:
Upon a gooseberry bush a snail I found,
For always snails near sweetest fruit abound.
I seiz’d the vermin; home I quickly sped,
And on the hearth the milk white embers spread,
Slow crawled the snail, and if I right can spell
In the soft ashes marked a curious L.”[50]
This couplet was recited by young maidens after capturing an insect
called a Lady-bird, and on releasing it:—
“Fly, Lady-bird, fly south, east, or west;
Fly where the man is that I love best.”
The following extracts from an “inventarye of all the goods and chattels
of Peter Birket, late of Borrands,” taken after his decease in 1661,
will furnish a pretty accurate idea of the monetary worth of certain
articles of farming stock at that time:—“One outshoote of hay, £1 6s.
8d.; one stack of hay without dores, 10s.; one scaffold of hay, 10s.;
one mare and one colt, £3; five geese, 4s.; 13 sheepe, £3; one cock and
five hens, 2s.; one calfe, 10s.; two heiffers, £3; one heiffer, £2; one
cow, £2 10s.; another cow, £3 10s.” Whether this gentleman was a fair
representative of his class or not we are unable to say, but if so, the
small farmers of Lancashire, to whom he appears to have belonged, were
not over indulgent in articles of dress or comfort, for the whole of
his wearing apparel was valued at no more than £1, whilst his bedding
realised only 5s.
In 1725 the Lancashire justices arranged and ordered that the rate of
wages in all parts of this county should be:—
A bailiff in husbandry,
or chief hind £6 0s. 0d. per year, with board.
A chief servant in husbandry,
able to mow or sow 5 0 0 ” ”
A common servant in husbandry
of 24 years of age and upwards 4 0 0 ” ”
A man servant from 20
to 24 years of age 3 10 0 ” ”
A man servant from 16
to 20 years of age 2 10 0 ” ”
The best woman servant,
able to cook 2 10 0 ” ”
Dairy man, or lower servant 2 0 0 ” ”
Woman servant under
16 years of age 1 10 0 ” ”
The best of millers 5 0 0 ” ”
They also appointed the hours of labour for those hired by the day to be,
between the middle of March and the middle of September, from five in the
morning until half-past seven in the evening, and during the remainder of
the year from sunrise to sunset, resting half-an-hour at breakfast, an
hour at dinner, and half-an-hour at “drinking,” as the meal corresponding
to our “tea” was termed. “In the summer half,” added the magisterial
mandate, “the labourers may sleep each day half-an-hour; else for every
hour’s absence to defaulk a penny; and every Saturday afternoon or eve of
a holiday, that they cease to work, is to be accounted but half a day.”
The day wages, as fixed by the same authorities, were:—
The best kind of husbandry labourer 12d. without, and 6d. with board.
An ordinary labourer 10d. ” and 5d. ”
A male haymaker 10d. ” and 6d. ”
A woman haymaker 7d. ” and 3d. ”
A mower 15d. ” and 9d. ”
A man shearer 12d. ” and 6d. ”
A woman shearer 10d. ” and 6d. ”
Hedgers, Ditchers, Threshers, and
persons employed in task work 10d. ” and 6d. ”
Masons, Joiners, Plumbers, Tilers,
Slaters, Coopers, and Turners 12d. ” and 6d. ”
Master workman, acting as foreman 14d. without board.
From 1660 to 1690, the average price of mutton was 2d. per pound; from
1706 to 1730, 2½d.; and from 1730 to 1760, 3d. per pound. The prices of
beef, veal, and lamb in 1710, were respectively 1⅒d., 2⅗d., and 2⁹⁄₁₀d.,
per pound.
During the eighteenth and earlier part of the nineteenth centuries
there was perhaps no pastime more popular amongst the adult members of
all classes than the callous sport of cock-fighting; every village and
hamlet in the Fylde had its pit, where mains were held at all times and
seasons. The following were the rules pretty generally adopted in this
neighbourhood for the regulation of the contests:—
“1.—To begin the main by fighting the lighter pair of cocks which
fall in match first, proceeding upwards towards the end, that
every lighter pair may fight earlier than those that are heavier.
“2.—In matching, with relation to the battles, after the cocks of
the main are weighed, the match bills are to be compared.
“3.—That every pair of equal weight are separated, and fight
against others; provided it appears that the main can be enlarged
by adding thereto.”
Skippool was one of the favourite resorts for the gentry of our district
when wishful to indulge in their favourite amusement, and frequent
allusions to the cockpit there are to be found in the journal of Thomas
Tyldesley, of Fox Hall, as—“June 9, 1714, ... thence to Skipall, where
at a cockin I meet with a deal of gentlemen. Gave Ned M⸺y 1s. for his
expenses; spent 1s., and won 2s. 6d. of Dr. Hesketh’s cockes.” In 1790 a
notice appeared in Liverpool that “The great main of cocks between John
Clifton, Esq., of Lytham, and Thomas Townley Parker, Esq., of Cuerden,
would be fought on Easter Monday, the 5th of April, and the three
following days, at the new cockpit in Cockspur Street—to show forty-one
cocks each. Ten guineas each battle, and two hundred guineas the main.”
The great-grandfather of the present Lord Derby compelled each of his
tenants to maintain a game-cock for his benefit, and many were the birds
supplied from the Fylde to uphold his great reputation as a successful
cock-fighter.
One of the most ancient punishments amongst our forefathers was that
of the Brank or Scolds’ Bridle, a specimen of which was possessed by
Kirkham, and doubtless many others existed in the Fylde. This instrument
was but little removed in severity from those implements of torture in
vogue at the time of the Inquisition, but differed from them in one
important particular—it was intended to control or silence, and not to
stimulate, the tongue of its victim. The Brank consisted of an iron
framework, which was fitted on to the head of the offender, usually some
woman whose intemperate language had incensed her husband; and a metal
spike, attached to the front of it, was so inserted into the mouth that
the slightest movement of the tongue brought that sensitive organ in
contact with its sharp edge or point. Doctor Plott, who appears to have
held the Brank in high estimation, and to have considered it greatly
superior to another mode of correction, much in fashion during his day,
says:—“This artifice is much to be preferred to the ducking-stool, which
not only endangers the health of the party, but gives liberty of tongue
betwixt every dip.”
The Ducking-stool or Cuck-stool consisted of a substantial chair,
fastened to the extremity of a long pole, and suspended over a pool of
water. The middle of the pole rested on an upright post near the edge of
the pond, and was attached to it by means of a pivot-hinge, so that the
chair could be swung round to the side to receive its victim, and, after
being freighted and restored to its original position, plunged into the
water by raising the other end of the shaft as often as those on the
bank deemed it necessary to cool the anger of the unfortunate scold.
Several pools in different parts of the Fylde still retain their names
of Cucking-ponds, and the last person condemned to suffer the barbarous
punishment was a young woman at Poulton, but she was happily rescued by
the kindly intervention of Madam Hornby, who became surety for her good
conduct in future.
In the belfry of Bispham church there formerly stood a plain-looking
wooden frame, which in earlier times had done duty as a pennance-stool,
but some years since the chair was removed, and probably destroyed, as no
trace of its existence has since been discovered. The last to perform
pennance in this church and sit upon the stool was a woman, who seems to
have been living as recently as 1836. A public pennance was exacted by
the Church from all frail maidens, who desired to obtain pardon for the
sins into which they had fallen. The ceremony consisted of parading the
aisles of the parish church with a candle in each hand, barefooted, and
clothed in white. Jane Breckal, of Poulton, was the last to undergo the
ceremony at that place, some time during the ministry of the Rev. Thos.
Turner, 1770 to 1810. The sobs and cries of the unfortunate girl aroused
the indignation of the inhabitants against the pennance, and the cruel
and degrading exhibition was never repeated.
Riding Stang was another plan of punishment formerly inflicted on
quarrelsome or adulterous persons, and a woman named Idle, of Great
Layton, is mentioned as being the last of its victims in that locality,
and very likely in the whole of the Fylde. There seem to have been two
ways adopted of Riding Stang, one of which was to mount the offending
party or parties on a ladder, supported at each end on the shoulders of
one or sometimes two men, and carry them about the neighbourhood for
several hours, accompanied by a band of men and boys beating tin kettles,
frying-pans, etc.; the other mode, and perhaps the more antique one, was
to place a youth astride a ladder, borne as in the previous case, and
arm him with a hand-bell, so that he was fully equipped to undertake
the duties of town crier. A procession was then formed, and, amidst the
discordant sounds of the instruments just alluded to, paraded through
the streets of the village, whilst the crier, who usually did his part
with great gusto, shouted out the following doggrel rhymes, varying some
portions of them when occasion required:—
“Ran a dan, ran a dan, dan, dan,
But for ... has been banging his good dame.
He banged her, he banged her, he banged her, indeed,
He banged her, poor woman, before she stood need;
For neither wasting his substance nor spending his brass,
But she was a woman, and he was an ass.
Now, all good people that live in this row,
I would have you take warning, for this is our law,
And if you do your good wives bang,
For you three nights we will ride this stang.
Hurrah! hurrah!”
When the offender happened to be some woman, who had inflicted
chastisement on the person of her spouse, the rhyme was altered to suit
her sex, and asserted that “he was a coward, and she was an ass.” The
remains of stocks in various states of preservation, are still to be seen
in many old villages, and their use is of too recent a date to require
any elucidation in this volume.
On the fifth Sunday in Lent, Carling Sunday, the villagers prepared a
feast, consisting chiefly of peas, first steeped in water, and afterwards
fried in butter, which were eaten on the afternoon of that day. Small
troops or companies of pace-egg mummers went from house to house in
Passion week enacting a short dramatic piece, and afterwards soliciting
money, or, in some cases, eggs, from their audience. The _dramatis
personæ_ usually represented St. George, the champion of England; a Turk,
dressed in national costume; the Doctor, of the quack fraternity; the
Fool; and one or two others. In the play, the Turk was wounded by St.
George, and being left for dead upon the field, guarded by the Fool, was
restored to health and strength by the Doctor, who opportunely arrived,
and concluded his self-laudatory harangue over the body of the apparently
defunct Turk, thus:—
“Here, Jack, take a little out of my bottle,
And let it run down thy throttle;
If thou be not quite slain,
Rise, Jack, and fight again.”
Easter mumming is now rapidly becoming obsolete, and at present amounts
to nothing more entertaining than the recital of a few weak, almost
meaningless, rhymes, by, usually, five young boys, decorated with ribbons
and coloured paper, and supposed to represent Lord Nelson, a Jack-Tar, a
Lovely Youth, Old Toss-pot, and Old Bessy Branbags.
“Lifting at Easter” was an old-established practice, existing in the
villages, of hoisting individuals in the air, either in a chair or by any
other means that might be convenient, until they purchased their release
by payment of a forfeit, generally some small coin. On Ascension-day
the parochial schoolmaster conducted his pupils, armed with peeled
willow wands, round the limits of the parish, and each pupil struck the
various boundary marks with his stick as he passed them. All-Hallows’
E’en was the time when the young people tested the durability of love or
friendship by burning nuts:—
“Two hazel nuts I threw into the flame,
And to each nut I gave a sweetheart’s name:
This with the loudest bounce, me sore amazed,
That in a flame of brightest colour blazed;
As blazed the nut, so may thy passion grow,
For ’twas thy nut that did so brightly glow!”[51]
Other pastimes contributed to the evening’s amusement, such as “ducking
for apples,” and “snatch apple”—a tub, in the former case, having been
nearly filled with water, and the fruit placed in it, each in turn, with
hands bound behind them, endeavoured to seize the prize with the teeth;
in the latter game, an apple was fastened to one extremity of a rod and a
lighted candle to the other, the whole being suspended by a string from
the ceiling, and the players, bound as before, snapped at the apple, and
avoided the flame as well as they were able.
Until within the last fifty or sixty years, the mosses of Marton and
the hills in the vicinity of the Fylde were illuminated with bonfires
on All-Hallows’ Eve, or Teanlay-night, as it was called, kindled by
the country people with the avowed object of succouring their friends
who were lingering in the imaginary regions of a middle state. A field
near Poulton received the name of “Purgatory” from the mummery of the
“Teanlays” having, on one occasion at least, been celebrated there.[52]
This ceremony was simple in its performance, and consisted merely of a
circle of men raising masses of blazing straw on high with pitch-forks.
On All Souls’ Day our Catholic forefathers were accustomed to bake cakes
of oatmeal and aromatic seeds, named Soul-cakes, and these, together with
pasties and furmety, formed a feast invariably eaten at that season.
Remnants of this custom existed even in late years amongst the youths of
Marton and some other townships and villages, who on the day of ancient
festival solicited money, under the name of Soul-pence, from their
neighbours.
We will now enumerate some of the superstitions and beliefs that have
prevailed in the Fylde more recently than those to which allusion has
been made in the earlier part of the chapter.
The following adage, showing the signification of certain marks on the
nails, will probably be familiar to many of our readers, and it is
questionable whether, even yet, it is not regarded by a few of the less
enlightened of the peasantry as something more than a mere saying:—
“Specks on the fingers,
Fortune often lingers;
Specks on the thumbs,
Fortune surely comes.”
No sick person could die if the bed or pillow upon which he lay contained
a pigeon’s feather; and, at an earlier date, the dwellers near the
coast firmly believed that life could only depart with the ebbing tide.
A horse-shoe nailed against the stable or barn-door, or a broom-stick
placed across the threshold of the dwelling, prevented the entrance of
witches or evil persons; also a hot heater placed in the churn, and
the mark of a cross, protected respectively the cream and baking of
dough from their presence. The advent of guests was made known to the
family circle by certain conditions of the fire-grate; thus, a flake
of soot hanging from the topmost bar foretold a boy visitor, from the
second a man, from the third a woman, and from the fourth a girl. Cats
were popularly supposed to have the power of drawing the breath, and
as a natural consequence the life, out of children when asleep, and
for this reason great care was taken to exclude them from bedchambers.
Should a dark complexioned person be the first to enter a dwelling on
New Year’s morning, the household looked forward with confidence to a
prosperous year; but if the person happened to be light, more especially
if he had red hair, the omen was regarded as unpropitious. Moon-beams
shining through the windows of bedrooms were considered injurious to the
sleepers, and even capable of distorting their features, or rendering
them imbecile. Children were taught to recite these simple lines whenever
the moon shone into their chambers:—
“I see the moon,
The moon sees me;
God bless the priest
That christened me.”
A tooth, after extraction, was sprinkled with salt and thrown into the
fire in order to insure peace and comfort to the person from whose mouth
it had been removed. A pair of shoes placed under the bed so that the
tips of the toes alone were visible, formed a certain remedy for cramp.
Warts were removed by rubbing them with a piece of stolen beef, which was
afterwards carefully and secretly buried to render the charm complete;
a snail hung on to a thorn was equally efficacious in removing these
excrescences, which gradually faded away as the snail itself melted and
vanished. A bag, containing small stones of the same number as the warts,
thrown over the left shoulder, transmitted them to the person who had
the misfortune to pick up the pebbles. People labouring under attacks of
ague, jaundice, or other ailments, applied for relief to the wise-men
of the neighbourhood, who professed to cure them by incantations. The
two following receipts are taken from an old medical work, published as
early as 1612, and in its time a highly popular authority on matters of
“Phisicke and Chirurgerie” amongst our rural populations:—
“A good Medicine to staunch the bleeding of the Nose, although it
bleed never so freely.
“Take an egg and breake it on the top, in such sorte that all
the white and yolke may issue cleane forthe of it; then fill the
egg-shell with some of the bloud of the party which bleedeth, and
put it in the fire, and there let it remaine until it be harde,
and then burne it to ashes, and it will staunch the bleeding
immediately without all doubt.”
“A very good Medicine to staunch bloud when nothing else will do
it, by reason the veine is cut, or that the wound is greate.
“Take a Toade and dry him very well in the sunne, and then put
him in a linen Bagge, and hang him about the necke of him that
bleedeth with a stringe, and let it hange so low that it may
touch his breaste on the left side neere unto his hart, and
commonly this will stay all manner of bleeding at the mouth,
nose, wound, or otherwise whatever. Probatum est.”
A woman named Bamber, living at Marton, attained to considerable
celebrity amongst the peasantry and others by her skill in checking
bleeding, which she is reported to have accomplished by the utterance of
some mystic words.
The people of the Fylde were not exempt from the common belief in the
miraculous power of the Royal touch in that particular form of disease
known as king’s evil, for amongst the records of the Thirty-men of
Kirkham is a notice that in 1632 a sum of money was “given to Ricd.
Barnes’s child, that had the king’s evil, to help him up to London,” to
be touched by Charles I.
The fairies of the Fylde were supposed, like those of other localities,
to reside in the earth; the vicinity of a cold spring, situated between
Hardhorn and Newton, was one of their legendary resorts, and from such
reputation acquired the name of “Fairies’ well.” Many stories are told
of the mischievous, or good-natured doings of these imaginary beings;
one or two of which we will here narrate:—A poor woman when filling her
pitcher at the above well, in order to bathe the weak eyes of her infant,
was gently addressed by a handsome man, who gave her a small box of
ointment, and told her at the same time that it would prove an infallible
remedy for the ailment of her child. The woman, although grateful for
the present, either overcome by that irresistible curiosity which is
commonly, but perhaps erroneously, supposed to attach itself to her sex,
or doubtful of the efficacy which the stranger had assigned to the drug,
applied it to one of her own eyes. A few days afterwards she had occasion
to go to Preston, and whilst there detected her benefactor in the act of
stealing corn from the open mouths of some sacks exposed for sale, and,
having accosted him, began to remonstrate with him on the wickedness of
his proceedings, when he inquired with evident surprise, how she became
enabled to observe him, as he was invisible to all else. She explained
the use that had been made of his ointment, and pointed to the powerful
eye; but hardly had the words been uttered and the organ of supernatural
vision indicated, before he raised his clenched hand, and with one blow
struck out the offending optic, or rather reduced it to a state of total
and irrecoverable blindness. Another anecdote refers to a milkmaid, who,
whilst engaged in her avocation, perceived a jug and sixpence placed
near to her by some invisible means; but no way disconcerted by the
singular event, and probably attributing it to the agency of one of the
elvan tribes, she filled the pitcher with milk, and, having watched its
mysterious disappearance and, with unerring commercial instinct, pocketed
the silver coin, took her departure. This episode was repeated for many
successive mornings, until the maiden, overjoyed at her good fortune,
revealed the curious adventures to her lover, and from that hour the
hobgoblins appear either to have grown less thirsty, or, annoyed at what
they might consider the betrayal of their secret, to have removed their
custom to some other dairy, for neither jug nor sixpence ever gladdened
the morning labours of the milkmaid again. A ploughman had his good
nature, in cheerfully repairing the broken “spittle” of a lady liberally
rewarded. The fairy, for such she proved to be, made known her presence
to the agriculturist by suddenly crying in a distressed tone—“I have
broken my speet,” and then held out in her hands the useless instrument
with a hammer and nails. No sooner had she received her property,
restored to a state of utility, than she vanished into the earth, but
not, however, without leaving a substantial acknowledgment of his skill
and kindness in the palm of the astonished husbandman.
We can only discover a record of one witch in the Fylde; this person of
unenviable notoriety is stated to have had her abode in Singleton, and
to have been known to the villagers as Mag Shelton. Her food, according
to local tradition, was composed of boiled groats mixed with thyme or
parsley, and numerous are the anecdotes related of her evil machinations
and doings in the neighbourhood—the cows of the country people were
constantly milked by her, whilst the pitcher walked before her in the
form of a goose; lives were blighted and prosperity checked by the
influence of her evil eye. Once, however, she was foiled by a girl, who
fastened her to a chair by sticking a bodkin, crossed with two weavers’
healds, about her dress when seated before a large fire.
Some idea of the spiritual condition of the peasantry may be obtained
from the perusal of the following prayer, a common one amongst the
children of the Fylde about one hundred years ago:—
“Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John,
Bless the bed that I lie on;
There are four corners to my bed,
And four angels overspread,
Two at the feet and two at the head.
If any ill thing me betide,
Beneath your wings my body hide.
Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John,
Bless the bed that I lie on.”
Bacon was considered to prove the finest and best if the hogs were
slaughtered before the moon began to wane, and in some month whose name
contained the letter R:—
“Unless your bacon you would mar
Kill not your pig without the R.”
The dumb-cake was made by unmarried women who wished to divine the
selection of fate as to their future husbands. The cake was baked in
strict silence by two maidens on Midsummer’s eve, and afterwards broken
into three pieces by another, who placed one under each of their pillows;
during sleep the expectant fair ones were rewarded with a vision of their
lovers, but the charm was ruined if only a single word were spoken.
Hemp-seed, also, was sown by young maidens, who whilst scattering it
recited the words “Hemp-seed I sow, hemp-seed I hoe, and he that is my
true-love come after me and mow.” After repeating the rhyme three times
it was only necessary to look over the shoulder, and the apparition of
the destined swain would never fail to appear:—
“At eve last Midsummer no sleep I sought,
But to the field a bag of hemp-seed brought;
I scattered round the seed on every side,
And three times, in a trembling accent cried:
‘This hemp-seed with my virgin hand I sow,
Who shall my true love be the crop shall mow.’
I straight looked back, and, if my eyes speak truth,
With his keen scythe behind me came a youth.”[53]
A spinster who fasted on Midsummer’s eve, and at midnight laid a clean
cloth, with bread, cheese, and ale, and sat down to the table as though
about to eat, would be gratified with a sight of the person to whom
she would be married. This individual was supposed to pass through the
doorway, left open for the purpose, as the clock struck twelve, and,
approaching the table, to salute his future partner with a bow and a
pretence of drinking her health, after which he vanished, and the maid
retired to her couch to rejoice or mourn, according as she admired or
contemned the prospect in store for her. Cuttings or combings from the
hair were thrown into the fire, and upon their blazing brightly or
smouldering away depended the duration of life likely to be enjoyed
by the person from whose head they had been taken. Wishing-wells and
gates were visited by credulous rustics, who were anxious to make use
of their mysterious power in obtaining their desires in matters of love
or business. The forefinger was deemed venomous, and on that account
children were instructed not to spread salve or ointment with it.
About a century ago oats formed the chief production, and nearly, if
indeed not quite, the only grain crop cultivated in the Fylde. When
reaped, in harvest time, this commodity was carried on the backs of
pack-horses to the markets of Poulton, Kirkham, Garstang, and Preston.
The “horse bridge” between Carleton and Poulton was originally a narrow
structure, capable only of affording passage to a single horse at once,
and it was from the practice of the farmers, with their laden cattle,
crossing the stream by its aid, when journeying to market, that the
bridge derived its name. These horses followed a leader ornamented
with a bell, and after they had arrived at their destination and been
relieved of their burdens, returned home in the same order without a
driver, leaving him to attend to his duties at the market. The old bridge
in use at the period to which we allude, still exists, but is built
over and hidden by the present erection. Later experience has taught
the agriculturist that the soil of the Fylde is capable of producing,
under proper tillage, other crops, equal in their abundance to the one
to which it appears formerly to have been mainly devoted, and it would
be difficult at the present day to enumerate with accuracy the many and
varied fruits of the earth that have found a home in the Corn-field of
Amounderness.
We mentioned about the commencement of the chapter that marl was in
general use as a manure in the Anglo-Saxon era, and here it is perhaps
hardly necessary to state that this substance, so rich in lime and so
adapted for giving consistency to the sandy soils, is still occasionally
had recourse to by the husbandman. Guano was first introduced into this
country about the year 1842, but it is probable that it was not commonly
used in our district until the beginning of 1845, when a cargo was
imported from Ichaboe to Fleetwood by Messrs. Kemp and Co., and offered
for sale to the farmers of the neighbourhood. Other cargoes followed.
Subjoined are arranged some tables showing the average market values of
certain productions of the Fylde in the two years given:—
1847. 1867.
Inclusive. Inclusive.
Jan. to July to Jan. to July to
June. Dec. June. Dec.
Wheat, per windle 39s. 6d. 25s. 6d. 31s. 8d. 32s. 6d.
Meal, per load 52s. 6d. 41s. 6d. 37s. 0d. 37s. 6d.
Beans, per windle 25s. 6d. 22s. 6d.
Oats, per bushel 5s. 10½d. 4s. 8d. 4s. 5d. 4s. 6d.
Potatoes, per windle 21s. 6d.[54] 7s. 0d. 12s. 8d. 11s. 6d.
Butter, per pound 1s. 1d. 1s. 1½d. 1s. 5d. 1s. 3d.
Eggs, per dozen 0s. 10d. 0s. 10d. 0s. 11d. 1s. 0d.
Pork, per pound 0s. 6d. 0s. 6d. 0s. 5½d. 0s. 6d.
Beef ” 0s. 6½d. 0s. 7½d. 0s. 7¾d. 0s. 6¾d.
Mutton ” 0s. 6¾d. 0s. 8½d. 0s. 8d. 0s. 7d.
Geese ” 0s. 6¾d.[55]
[Illustration]
[Illustration]