Page:History of the Fylde of Lancashire (IA historyoffyldeof00portiala).pdf/457

 Rawstorne. The train departed amid a volley of cheers and discharge of cannon, and proceeded to Kirkham; the return journey was performed in fifteen minutes. The carriage station was 140 feet long by 53 feet wide, and covered by a somewhat unique roof of twelve wooden arches, put together in segments and secured by nuts and screws, all the timber ends butting upon each other like the stones of an arch, but as solid, from their peculiar construction, as if the whole had been cut out of a single block of timber. The Lytham line diverged from the main railway at a point about a mile to the north-west of Kirkham, and was nearly five miles in length. It passed within a short distance of the village of Wrea, where a station was built, and terminated in the immediate vicinity of the Roman Catholic chapel in this town.

The impetus given to the building trade of Lytham by the opening of the railway and the almost simultaneous extension of ground leases was soon visible in the erection of numerous houses. A Wesleyan chapel, capable of holding 200 hearers, was built, before the close of the year, in Bath Street; but this structure having, as time progressed, become inadequate to the wants of the congregation, the foundation stone of a new one was laid on the 12th of September, 1867, by T. C. Hincksman, esq., of Lytham, at the corner of Park and Westby Streets, service being first conducted there on the 23rd of September in the ensuing year, by the Rev. John Bedford, of Manchester. The chapel is faced with Longridge stone and white brick. In front are stone columns and pilasters nearly thirty feet high, surmounted by Corinthian caps, massive cornice, parapet, pediment, etc. It contains seats for about 500 persons. The old Wesleyan chapel is now used as a literary and social Institute, established in 1872. In 1847 the growth and prosperity of Lytham rendered it necessary that some form of local government should be adopted, and the inhabitants applied for and obtained an Improvement Act, by which the regulation of all public matters was placed in the hands of a board of commissioners elected from amongst the ratepayers. On the 13th of May in that year, the corner stone of a substantial lighthouse was laid on the "Double Stanner" bank, by Peter Haydock, esq., chairman of the Ribble Navigation Company, at whose expense the work was accomplished; but on the 20th of January, 1863, a heavy storm swept over the coast, and amongst other damages