Bispham, Blackpool - Village History

Village History

A 12,000 year old animal skeleton (the Carleton Elk) found with barbed arrowheads near Blackpool Sixth Form College in 1970 provided the first evidence of humans living on the Fylde as far back as the Palaeolithic era. The Fylde was also home to a British tribe, the Setantii (the "dwellers in the water") a sub-tribe of the Brigantes, who from about AD80 were controlled by Romans from their fort at Dowbridge, Kirkham. During the Roman occupation the area was covered by oak forests and bog land.

Bispham, known until 1910 as Bispham-with-Norbreck, was originally a village in its own right, pre-dating the town of Blackpool by several hundred years. In 1066 Bispham was part of Tostig Godwinson, the Earl of Northumbria's, Lordship of Amounderness. It is featured in the Domesday Book of 1086 as Biscopham.(meaning Bishop's estate or Bishop's house) Many of the settlements and villages on the Fylde were Anglo-Saxon settlements. Some though were 9th and 10th century Viking place names. The Vikings and Anglo-Saxons seem to have co-existed peacefully with some Anglo-Saxon and Viking place names later being joined together—such as Bispham-with-Norbreck. Bispham having the Anglo-Saxon place name ham and Norbreck having the Viking place name, breck. Bispham-with-Norbreck comprised three hamlets — Great (or Greater) Bispham, Little Bispham and Norbreck, with Anchorsholme (then Angersholme) part of Norbreck. Although the three hamlets were originally part of the Lordship of Amounderness, they were later divided with the moiety of Little Bispham and Norbreck being given to Shrewsbury Abbey and Great Bispham to the Lord of Warrington.

Great Bispham was a part of the Lordship of Layton. In 1539, it was bought by John Browne, who sold it to Thomas Fleetwood in 1550.

The moiety of Little Bispham and Norbreck was given to the monks of Shrewsbury Abbey by Roger of Poitou. In the early 12th century Henry I ordered Stephen Count of Mortain to hold the moiety "free and quit of all customs, pleas and suits of the hundred court. A few years after, David I of Scotland confirmed the moiety "to be held as freely as in the time of his predecessors." In about 1270 the abbot and convent of Shrewsbury granted Little Bispham and Norbreck to the Abbot and convent of Dieulacres Abbey, who held the adjoining Rossall estate. After the Dissolution of the Monasteries, it was granted as part of Rossall estate, in 1553 to Thomas Fleetwood. Thus by then all three hamlets were owned by Thomas Fleetwood.

In 1326 the spelling of the village was Byspham. Bispham and Poulton-le-Fylde were the two main populated centres in the Fylde in 1500, though the area was sparsely populated.

It was in Bispham that the first mention of "Blackpool" appeared, found in the Register of Bispham Parish Church in 1602 with the christening record of a child born on 22 September to a couple who lived "on the bank of the Black Pool". In the 17th century the Fylde coast was divided into three parishes—Bispham, Poulton-le-Fylde and Lytham. The parish of Bispham covered modern day Blackpool and Thornton Cleveleys and comprised the townships of Bispham-with-Norbreck and Layton-cum-Warbreck. In 1877 a detached part of Little Carleton (then known as Horsemans Hill) was placed in Bispham, then in 1883 the area known as Bispham Hawes, which was at the south end of Layton, was detached from Bispham and added to Layton. The population of Bispham-with-Norbreck in 1901 was 985.

Although the village centre used to be thatched with a number of pre-19th century houses, it was redesigned in the 1960s; only two of the old houses remain. Much of the housing today is of the design style consistent with that of the 1930s to the 1950s.