Page:History of the Fylde of Lancashire (IA historyoffyldeof00portiala).pdf/329

 marriage, one thing is certain, his speculation prospered, and at the end of fifty years he retired on what at that era was considered a fortune. The house in which he had laboured for half a century was situated in the fields now occupied by General Street and the neighbouring houses, on the site of what not long ago was a ladies' school; in appearance, it was a very ordinary cottage with the usual straw thatch, somewhat oblong in form and possessing few attractions to tempt the stranger to prolong his stay, but in spite of all its disadvantages, the fascination of the sea and the novelty of the surroundings filled it with guests summer after summer. This dwelling claims the honour of having been the first ever fitted up and arranged as a lodging house in Blackpool. On the retirement of Whiteside, who a few years afterwards died at Layton, it passed into the hands of a noted aboriginal, called Tom the Cobbler, who appears to have held more ambitious views than his predecessor, and converted the cottage into an inn, or at least embellished its exterior with a rude lettered sign, and procured a license to supply exciseable commodities within. Those who had been accustomed to the scrupulous care and cleanliness of Whiteside and his thrifty wife, must have experienced a considerable shock from the eccentricities of the new proprietor; each day at the dinner hour he entered in working costume amongst the assembled guests, and with grimy fingers produced from the depths of his well rosined apron the allotted portion of bread for each. How this peculiarity was appreciated by his visitors there are no means of ascertaining, but as his dwelling did not develope in the course of years into a modern and commodious hotel like the other licensed houses which sprang up about that time and a little later, we are inclined to fear that some internal mismanagement caused its collapse.

In 1769 the whole hamlet comprised no more than twenty-eight houses, or more correctly speaking hovels, for, with the exception of four that had been raised to the dignity of slate roofs and a small inn on the site of the present Clifton Arms Hotel, they were little if any better. These were scattered widely apart along the beach, and one of them standing on the ground now occupied by the Lane Ends Hotel, and adjoining a small blacksmith's shed, was a favourite resort of visitors in search of refreshment. Turf stacks fronted almost every door, and the refuse of the household was