Page:History of the Fylde of Lancashire (IA historyoffyldeof00portiala).pdf/334

 under the more modest title of a barn; rows of benches were placed one behind another, and separated into a front and back division, designated respectively pit and gallery. This house is said to have been capable of holding six pounds, the prices of admission being one and two shillings. At that period bathing vans were scarce, the majority of bathers making use of boxes, which were placed for their convenience along the shore, and as the mode in which they secured privacy and a proper separation of the sexes during indulgence in this pastime was both ingenious and entertaining, we will give a brief sketch of their arrangements. At a certain hour each day, varying according to the changes of the tide, a bell was rung when the water had risen almost to its highest. On hearing the signal, the whole of the gentlemen, however agreeably occupied, were compelled, under a penalty of one bottle of wine for each offence, to vacate the shore and betake themselves to their several hotels or apartments, whilst the ladies, after sufficient time had elapsed for any stray member of the sterner sex to get safely and securely housed, emerged singly or in small groups from the different doorways, and, hurrying down to the edge of the sea, quickly threw off their loose bathing robes, and in a moment were sporting amid the waves like a colony of nereids or mermaids. When these had finished their revels and duly retired to their homes, the bell rang a second time, and the males, released from durance vile, made their way to the beach, and were not long in following the example of their fair predecessors.

Mr. Hutton, in his small pamphlet descriptive of Blackpool in 1788, says:—"The tables here are well supplied; if I say too well for the price I may please the innkeepers, but not their guests. Shrimps are plentiful; five or six people make it their business to catch them at low water, and produce several gallons a day, which satisfy all but the catchers. They excel in cooking, nor is it surprising, for forty pounds and her maintenance is given to a cook for the season only. Though salt water is brought in plenty to their very doors, yet this is not the case with fresh. The place yields only one spring for family use; and the water is carried by some half a mile, but is well worth carrying, for I thought it the most pleasant I ever tasted."

The prices at the inns and boarding-houses had risen as the