Fleetwood - History

History

Ptolemy's Geographia in the 2nd century AD records a tribe known as the Setantii living in what is believed to be present-day West Lancashire, and a seaport built by the Romans called PORTVS SETANTIORVM ('the port of the Setantii') abutting Moricambe Aestuarium (presumably Morecambe Bay). There is also evidence of a Roman road running from Ribchester to Kirkham (12 miles southeast of Fleetwood) which then makes a sharp turn to the northwest. Together, these suggest that Fleetwood may well have been the location of this Roman port. No direct evidence of the port has been found, but in 2007, an Iron Age settlement was discovered at Bourne Hill, just south of present-day Fleetwood, suggesting the area was populated in pre-Roman times.

There is evidence that the eastern side of the River Wyre was occupied during the Danish invasions of the 9th and 10th centuries, and by the time of the Domesday Book in 1086, the land on which Fleetwood now stands was part of the Hundred of Amounderness.

A manor house at present-day Rossall, in the southwest of the town, was in the possession of the Allen family by the time of Henry VIII. The Allens were prominent Roman Catholics, and Henry VIII repossessed the land. Cardinal William Allen was born at the manor house in 1532. It was ultimately sold to Thomas Fleetwood, comptroller of the Royal Mint, whose son Edmund, expanded the house into Rossall Hall. The land remained in the Fleetwood family for 300 years.