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New books

‘Lytham Priory – A History’

‘Voices of Freckleton’

‘Lancashire Studies: Historical essays in Honour of Alan Crosby’

‘The Diary of George Wylie Rigby of Freckleton’

‘Harry Clifton Squire of Lytham’

Harry Clifton Squire of Lytham – The Extraordinary Life of an English Eccentric

This is a new book about Harry, the last Clifton squire of Lytham who died in 1979. The author, Peter Watson, is a volunteer at Lytham Hall, and all profits will go to the Friends of Lytham Hall. Peter has done a lot of original research about Harry, and there is a foreword by Hamish Clifton who was Harry’s nephew.

The book is for sale at £7.50 and can be purchased from Lytham Hall when it is open, and from Plackitt and Booth’s bookshop in Lytham or via their website

https://plackittandbooth.co.uk

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New book on the story of Skippool, Poulton-le-Fylde, by local author Graham Evans

Poulton Life, Trade and Shipping in a small Lancashire Port 1577–1839

£14.99

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THE FOLLOWING REVIEW IS PUBLISHED BY KIND PERMISSION OF ANTHONY COPPIN

  of GARSTANG HISTORICAL SOCIETY

Thomas’s preserved sketches are of 18th century items such as clock casings, clothes chests, chests of drawers, doors, spice boxes, church pews, tables, cradles, bannisters, chairs and squabs (settees).
He travelled around the Fylde area doing both domestic and ecclesiastical work. The main author, Bill McCartney, points out in his introduction that currently it has not been possible to find any furniture made by Thomas still in family hands.

Designs for a pulpit and a church gallery are included in these fascinating pages. Which church they were crafted for is unknown. (There are similar style fixtures at the old St John the Baptist church, Pilling).
One of Thomas’s domestic customers was one Eling (Eileen?) Grimbildstone who wanted a made-to-order “Dressing Table.”


Throughout the book measurements, details of costs, expenses, payments, itemised listings of timber, jottings regarding accounts, financial borrowings and mathematical calculations show Thomas’s eye for detail.

Other unexpected jottings listed (and commented on) include a supposed cure for worms – not the timber-eating creepies.


The book is clearly of both specialist and wider interest.


Co-author Dr Adam Bowett of the Regional Furniture Society says Noblet’s notebook is “… a unique survival from the period, and it contains some of the earliest drawings and descriptions of a number of key eighteenth-century furniture archetypes. Most remarkable … is the fact that it comes, not from London or some other urban centre, but from a tiny village on the Fylde of Lancashire.”


More generally the book will be of interest to local and family historians. Numerous family surnames from the period covered by the book are extant in rural Fylde and Wyre today.

* The book is available from William McCartney, priced £12.99 (plus packing and postage).

He can be contacted at: willmccar@gmail.com

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For Kitchener From Kirkham

Men from Kirkham, Wesham

and the rural Fylde who served during the

Great War 1914 – 1918

Compiled by D. Parkinson

When the newspapers reported the assassination of some unknown Austrian Archduke and his wife in far off Bosnia, wherever that was, it did not cause much concern amongst the population of the rural Fylde.

However, over the next few weeks the situation was to become more and more tense, as old treaties and alliances brought the countries of Europe towards conflict, and by early August the main players had mobilized their forces and were ready to go to war.  France, Russia and Britain were the main contributors for the Allies, with Germany and Austria forming the Central Powers, with Turkey joining them shortly after hostilities had begun.  

By mid August the ‘Contemptible little British Army’, as the Kaiser had once called it, was beginning to land at the French ports before moving North into Belgium to engage a German Army which was by then advancing through the country.

On August 22nd near the Belgian town of Mons the small British Army met the German juggernaut head on and the fight began.