Page:History of the Fylde of Lancashire (IA historyoffyldeof00portiala).pdf/455

 the land of the present Market-house, surrounded by a palisading and planted with flowers and shrubs. A carriage road also had been lately made from the village to the church of St. Cuthbert.

In 1831 the census of Lytham showed a total of 1,523 residents, being an increase of 231 over the population ten years before; and three years subsequently the ancient church of the parish was levelled to the ground and the erection of the present edifice commenced. The early growth of the summer resort was much retarded by the exceedingly short terms upon which building leases were granted. Previous to 1820 all land reverted to the lord of the manor forty years after its provisional purchase had been effected, so that there was little inducement for either the speculative or private individual to upraise habitations where the tenure was so unsatisfactory. About that date the duration of leases was extended to sixty years, and even this slight advance in a more liberal direction was not without influence in promoting the development of the place, but no great rapidity characterised the multiplication of houses until a later epoch, when periods of 99 and 999 years were offered to purchasers. In 1839 the Roman Catholics erected a chapel, dedicated to St. Peter, at the east corner of Clifton Street. Previously the members of this sect had worshipped in a small chapel belonging to Lytham Hall, which had superseded the domestic oratory of the Cliftons, in the days when they professed the Romish creed. The edifice in Clifton Street is of brick and has a priests' residence and schools attached, the whole being prettily encircled by willow trees and a low wall.

The returning seasons brought increasing streams of visitors to the shores of Lytham, and practically proved that the delightful and invigorating influences of the climate and sea were well and widely appreciated by the populace of the large inland towns. The marine esplanade and the firm sands left by the receding tide were ever alive with crowds of people, who either for health or pleasure, or a combination of the two, had arrived in the watering-place. The bathing vans were still unequal to the demands on their accommodation, and many were compelled to dispense with their decorous shelter, and unrobe themselves on the more secluded parts of the beach. To have returned home again without immersing their body in the buoyant sea would to most