Lytham St Annes
Lytham St Annes is a seaside town in the Borough of Fylde, Lancashire, England. It is located on the Fylde coast, directly south of Blackpool, on the Ribble Estuary. The population of the built-up area at the 2021 census was 42,695.
The town is made up of four areas: Lytham, Ansdell, Fairhaven and St Annes-on-the-Sea. Lytham is the older settlement and the parish of Lytham used to cover the whole area. St Annes was founded as a new seaside resort in the 1870s on open land at the western end of the parish. From 1878, the two towns were administered separately; Fairhaven and Ansdell were part of Lytham. They were reunited in 1922 under the compound name Lytham St Annes. A civil parish called Saint Anne's on the Sea was created in 2005 to cover the western part of the built-up area.
Lytham St Annes has four golf courses and links, the most notable being the Royal Lytham & St Annes Golf Club which regularly hosts the Open Championship.
Lytham St Annes is a reasonably affluent area, with residents' earnings among the highest in the North of England.
Towns and districts
Lytham St Annes consists of four main areas:Lytham
The name Lytham comes from the Old English hlithum, plural of hlith meaning ' the slopes'.The Green, a strip of grass running between the shore and the main coastal road, is a notable Lytham landmark—the restored Windmill and Old Lifeboat House Museum are here. The Green overlooks the estuary of the River Ribble and the Welsh mountains. The centre of Lytham has several notable buildings, such as the former Lytham public library, Lytham railway station, the market hall, the Clifton Arms Hotel and Lytham Methodist Church.
Until the middle of the 20th century, the Clifton family was the leading family in Lytham and two of the town's main thoroughfares are named in their honour, with the main shopping street being named Clifton Street and one of two roads to Blackpool being Clifton Drive. Their estate on the outskirts of Lytham and Ansdell originally occupied a large area. Lytham Hall, the family seat, remained in the family's ownership until 1963, after which time it was passed on to Guardian Royal Exchange Insurance, and then to Lytham Town Trust in 1997. The grounds of the Hall are open during the week and on Sunday and events are organised, such as open-air plays and car shows. Several of the ornate gates to the estate and much of the distinctive pebble-bricked boundary wall survive. The parish church for Lytham is St Cuthbert's Church, on Church Road.
Lytham is the location of the Foulnaze cockle fishery. The fishery has only opened the cockle beds on the Lancashire coast three times in twenty years, most recently in August 2013.
Lytham Library closed in September 2016, as part of Lancashire County Council budget cuts.
St Annes
St Annes-on-the-Sea was a 19th-century planned town. St Anne's Church was built as a chapel of ease in 1873, and St Annes-on-the-Sea railway station opened in the same year. An official founding ceremony for the town was held on 31 March 1875, when the cornerstone of the St Anne's Hotel was laid. The town was developed from 1875 after Thomas Fair, agent to the Clifton Estate, sold leases to the St Anne's on the Sea Land and Building Company. Plans for the town were laid out by the Bury firm of architects Maxwell and Tuke who later went on to construct Blackpool Tower. There was an open-air seawater swimming pool from 1916 until the mid-1980s.St Annes is the original home of Premium Bonds and their prize-selecting computer ERNIE, which were on a site between Shepherd Road and Heyhouses Lane. Premium Bonds operated from there for more than 40 years before moving to Blackpool. The shopping area declined towards the end of the 20th century and was redeveloped in an attempt to attract more retailers and shoppers. As part of this project, a restaurant quarter was established, centred around Wood Street. The work included a £2m restoration of Ashton Gardens, a park near the town centre, in 2009.
The beach to the north of St Annes Pier was an internationally renowned sand yachting venue for many years, but this activity has been suspended since 2002 when a visitor to the beach died after being hit by a sand yacht. St Annes Beach hosts a number of kite flying events each year. In 2006 kite enthusiasts raised concerns about the future of these activities following a decision by Fylde Borough Council in 2006 to ban the flying of kites with two or more lines anywhere in the Fylde. Following representations from kite-fliers and completion of a risk assessment, the council rescinded the ban on condition that kite fliers remain at least 50m from the sand dunes.
A memorial statue of a lifeboatman looking out to sea was placed on the promenade at St Anne's after the Mexico Disaster of 1886. The original lifeboat station was established in 1881 but closed in 1925 due to silting of the channel. A lifeboat continued to operate from Lytham, but the main channel of the river also became silted up, so in 2000 the lifeboat was moved to a new all-weather RNLI base a few hundred yards south of St Annes Pier. St Annes-on-the-Sea Carnegie Library is just outside the town centre in an Edwardian, Carnegie-funded building.
There is some confusion, even among residents of the town, about whether the correct name is "St Annes" or "St Anne's". The apostrophe has been dropped from the name by many residents and has long been absent in many formal uses, such as the Lytham St Annes Express newspaper, St Annes Parish Church, and Lytham St Annes High School, although the spelling St. Anne's is still sometimes used. The area takes its name from St Annes Parish Church.
In October 2008, a bronze statue by sculptor Graham Ibbeson of comedian Les Dawson, who lived in the town, was unveiled by Dawson's widow and daughter in the ornamental gardens next to St Annes Pier. Entertainer George Formby also lived in the town, and there is a plaque outside the house where he lived from 1953 until his death in 1961.
Ansdell
Ansdell is a small district between Lytham and St Annes, on the landward side of the railway line, served by Ansdell and Fairhaven railway station; it also has the Ansdell Institute club and a public library. It is named after Richard Ansdell, an artist who lived in the area and painted numerous oils depicting hunting scenes. Ansdell enjoys the distinction of being the only place in England to be named after an artist.Ansdell hosts the largest school in Lancashire, Lytham St Annes High School, with around 1,500 students. Ansdell also encompasses the southern end of Royal Lytham & St Annes Golf Club. Ansdell is also the home of Fylde Rugby Club, established in May 1920, later to be closed during the war effort, and reopened in 1946. The club has reared many eminent players, notably Malcolm Phillips and Bill Beaumont.
Fairhaven
Fairhaven is the district between Lytham and St Annes on the coastal side of the railway. It has been suggested it is named after Thomas Fair, the land agent for the Clifton estate. It is believed by other researchers that Thomas Riley named his Master Plan for Fairhaven after the Bible passage Acts 27 verse 8 referring to Paul's journey to Rome; many of the road names are connected to Paul and his journey.Its main claim to fame is an artificial lake, known as Fairhaven Lake. In 1923, the new borough of Lytham St Annes was formed and subsequently purchased the lake with money quietly donated by Lord Ashton. In recognition of this, after extensive landscaping designed by T H Mawson, the lake was formally re-opened in 1926 and named Ashton Marine Park. After continuing confusion with Ashton Park in St Annes, the name reverted to Fairhaven Lake in 1974. It is an important wildfowl habitat.
Its other famous landmark is the Fairhaven United Reformed Church, which is of unusual design, being built in Byzantine style and faced with glazed white tiles, and commonly known as the White Church. Fairhaven contains the former King Edward VII and Queen Mary School, which has now merged with Arnold School of Blackpool to become AKS Lytham.
The sands and tidal mudflats of the area are an important feeding area for wintering waders. The RSPB operate a visitor centre from Fairhaven Lake to provide information and guided walks. The lake has been flooded by the sea in the distant past but is now protected by a substantial sea defence wall.
Fairhaven occupies an area of former sand dunes previously known as Starr Hills, which extended as far as St Annes town centre along the southern side of the railway. The name is still used for a residential home named after the eponymous residence constructed in the 1860s for Richard Ansdell, which was transformed into a hospital during World War I, before assuming its present use. The Fairhaven Estate was first laid out in 1892. Beginning in 1895, the estate was divided into parcels of land which could be purchased or leased for residential development.
History
The area is known to have been populated during the Bronze Age and scattered hamlets have existed there ever since, including a village called Kilgrimol or Kilgrimhow; this is believed to have been founded in around 900 AD by Vikings expelled from Dublin. The area including the Fylde was known in Anglo-Saxon and medieval times as Amounderness. Lytham is mentioned in the Domesday Book as Lidun. In 1199, Richard Fitzroger gave his Lytham estates to the Benedictine monks of Durham. The monks established a priory on the site of the present Lytham Hall. The priory existed until 1539; in 1540, the monastery at Durham was dissolved and the Crown became Lord of the Manor.The manor of Lytham passed through several owners when, in 1606, it was sold to Cuthbert Clifton for £4,300. Clifton enlarged the manor house and made it the family seat. The house was replaced in 1757 with the present Lytham Hall, designed by architect John Carr of York. At this time St Annes did not exist, but Lytham was large enough to be called a town, with its own promenade and a reputation as a resort.
Northwards along the coast from Lytham, within the Clifton estates, were mostly sand dunes. The only habitations were the tiny hamlet of Heyhouses and the rural Trawl Boat Inn; a name resurrected in recent times for a public house in Wood Street in St Annes, opened by Wetherspoons. In 1873, the Cliftons built a Chapel of Ease dedicated to St Anne in this area, to encourage better religious observance, as most inhabitants found the long journey to St Cuthbert's in Lytham too onerous; this became the parish church of St. Anne's. At the time it was built the church had no tower. On 14 October 1874, the St Anne's-on-the-Sea Land and Building Company Ltd was registered, mainly at the instigation of Elijah Hargreaves, a wealthy Lancashire mill owner from Rawtenstall, whose intention was to develop the area as a resort.
The land of St Annes was leased from the Clifton estate for 999 years, although the lease still gave the Cliftons the right to kill game on the land for this period. Building rapidly commenced with the St Anne's Hotel, the Hydro Terrace, which later became St Annes Square, and the railway station being among the first buildings. A separate company was formed to finance the construction of the pier, which was opened on 15 June 1885. At that time the main channel of the River Ribble ran by the end of the pier, and boats would bring people in from Lytham and Southport. The Ribble Navigation Act of 1883, which came into force in 1889, was intended to stabilise the often silted River Ribble to allow a steady trade into Preston docks. However, this work moved the main channel much further out and left St Annes Pier on flat sandbanks, where no ships could dock. In June 1910 the Floral Hall was opened at the end of the pier. It was a popular attraction and stars including Gracie Fields, Leslie Henson and Claude Hulbert performed there. Lytham and St Annes were consolidated in 1922. In 1974, a major fire seriously damaged the hall; it was restored to some extent, but ended up being used as a skatepark before another fire in July 1982 destroyed it. About half of the pier was then demolished to make the beach safe to use.
The Lytham St Annes Civic Society operates a local blue plaque scheme. These commemorate historic buildings and residents, including Sir John Alcock and George Formby.
The 2012 Olympic torch relay passed through St Annes, Fairhaven and Lytham before continuing onto nearby Warton and Freckleton.