Blackpool Historical Information
Introduction
Blackpool is in the County of Lancashire, about 18 miles west and just north
of Preston and about 35 miles north-west of Manchester. Blackpool has 7 miles of
sandy beaches and over 16 million people visit the town every year. The 1086
Domesday Diary listed many of Fyldes villages which their names show to have been
Anglo Saxon settlements.
Since the eighteenth century Blackpool has grown and
been transformed, from what was once a small hamlet assembled around a black
pool, to a large, popular seaside resort. The black pool was a pool of
discoloured water that the stream draining Marton Mere and Marton Moss had left
behind. The stream flowed through peat lands, which left the water discoloured,
thus becoming the 'black pool'. A fishing village was built nearby and named
after it.
By 1745, Blackpool as it was now known, began to attract visitors.
People were heading for Blackpool beaches and by the 1840s bathing machines
started to appear. These machines were huts on wheels where the ladies could get
changed into their swimming costumes, and they were then towed to the sea by
horse and the ladies would cautiously get into the water.
Blackpool History, page 1
Blackpool History, page 2
Photograph taken By Albert Cooper ©2000
