Page:History of the Fylde of Lancashire (IA historyoffyldeof00portiala).pdf/340

 of green pasture-land, now known as the Horse-bank; and in more recent years a long range of star-hills ran southward from opposite the Royal Hotel, protecting a highway, fields, and four or five cottages from the waves, whilst a little further north a boat-house afterwards a shoemaker's shop, stood in the centre of a grassy plot, all of which have vanished, and their sites are now covered and obliterated by the sand and pebbles of the beach. The several roads, which had been formed at different seasons, leading over the cliffs to Bispham, were sapped away and destroyed so rapidly by the incursions of the tide that one more inland and circuitous was obliged to be made. On the sands, about three miles to the north of Blackpool, and so far distant from the shore that it is only visible when the water has receded to its lowest ebb, stands the famous Penny-stone. Near the spot marked by the huge boulder, tradition affirms that in days of yore there existed a small road-side inn, celebrated far and wide for its strong ale, which was retailed at one penny per pot, and that whilst the thirsty traveller was refreshing himself within, and listening to the gossip of "mine host," his horse was tethered to an iron ring fixed in this stone. It is stated that documents relating to the ancient hostelry are still preserved, but as the assertion is unsupported by any evidence of its veracity, we are prohibited from accepting it as conclusive proof that the inn owes its reputed existence to something more substantial than the lively imaginations of our ancestors. There is, certainly, one thing which gives some colouring of possibility, or perhaps, out of veneration for the antiquity of the tradition, we may advance a step and say, reasonable probability, to the story, and that is the historic fact, that at no very great distance from the locality there stood a village called Singleton Thorp until 1555, when it was submerged and annihilated by a sudden and fearful irruption of the sea. Several other boulders of various sizes are lying about in the neighbourhood of Penny-stone, bearing the names of Old Mother's Head, Bear and Staff, Carlin and its Colts, Higher and Lower Jingle, each of which is covered in a greater or less degree with shells, corallines, anemonies, and other treasures of the deep.

In 1811 the census of the persons residing in the township before specified, was again taken, and amounted to 580, showing