Weeton, Lancashire
Encyclopedia
Weeton with Preese is a civil parish
in the Borough of Fylde in Lancashire
, England
, beside the Blackpool to Preston railway line and the M55 motorway
, just east of Blackpool
and 3.5 miles (5.6 km) north west of Kirkham
. It contains the village of Weeton.
. Weeton is in the Fylde parliamentary constituency
and is in the Staining and Weeton electoral ward.
The parish covers an area of 2876 acres (11.6 km²) east of Blackpool, and has a population of 1,096. Preese — which has recognition in the official name — has no separate measurement while Mythop (or less commonly Mythorp) has its area recorded as 677 acres (2.7 km²). Mythop, not recognised in the parish name, is divided from Weeton by mossland and the track of the Preston to Blackpool railway.
In the east, Weeton occupies most of the southern half of the parish, with Mythop in the south western corner, the northern half containing Preese on the west and Swarbrick on the east. Watson argues that these sub-manors — each with its own hall — may be based on the ancient pre-Conquest quarterland divisions characteristic of the Irish Sea
cultural basin of Celtic North Wales
and the Isle of Man
. Each of the four manors occupies an area of slightly higher ground, each divided from the others by depressions: Weeton is 112 feet (34.1 m) above sea level, Swarbrick and Preese 100 feet (30.5 m) and Mythop 50 feet (15.2 m).
In an unpublished article, Watson (1994) “chases the shadows left on the ground” by suggesting that the Manx Balla or Treen and the Welsh Tref offer a model for the Lancastrian township with its fourfold manorial division of approximately five thousand acres of land".
Although the modern day Weeton with Preese is just over half this size, Watson argues that “the documentary facts support the still discernable evidence of the quarterland skeletal frame of the townships surviving from the days of the comital estates. The evidence is further bolstered by the existence of four principal houses in most of the lowland and non-vaccary townships in the [Amounderness] Hundred”.
A road from Kirkham goes west and then north to Weeton and through Swarbrick to Singleton
. From Weeton a road goes west through Mythop to Marton
and Blackpool, another east to Greenhalgh and another south to Great Plumpton. The main road from Preston to Fleetwood
runs north-west through the parish and the branch line to Blackpool crosses the south-west corner (cutting beneath the Mythop Road, south-east of Westfield Cottages).
as Widetun — derives from the Old English wiðig (willow) and -tun (settlement). The village presumably derived its name from the presence of indigenous or farmed willows. To this day, there are fine specimens of willow trees in Weeton.
After 1066, the lordship of Weeton passed from the Northumbrian Earl Tostig
to the Norman warlord Roger of Poitou. Weeton’s value at this time was assessed at “two carucates” (an area of arable land that could be worked in one day by two ploughteams).
Some time after the Domesday survey, the lordship of Weeton passed to the Butler family, early lords of Amounderness
, who in 1328 became the Earls of Ormondein. By the fourteenth century, the Butlers owned extensive lands, mills and fisheries in the manors of Weeton, Little Marton, Treales, Wesham
, Mowbreck, Greenhalgh, Thistleton
, Out Rawcliffe
, Bradkirk, Medlar and Esprick.
The manors of Weeton, Preese, Mythop and Swarbrick were acquired by Sir Thomas Stanley of Lathom, later the first Earl of Derby
, in 1400. They continued as part of the family estate until 1955. In the nineteenth century, the Earl of Derby commonly used the title ‘Baron of Weeton’. The title is no longer used and although there is evidence it may also have been used by Theobald Walter in the twelfth century, Weeton’s status as a barony was it seems always a matter of dispute.
By 1522, the estate had expanded to include the manors of Treales, Wesham, Out Rawcliffe, Little Marton, Greenhalgh, Plumpton and other lands. On 4 October 1637, William, 6th Earl of Derby
, surrendered to James, Lord Strange, the manor of Weeton and various other ones, to enable him to make leases.
In 1670, a charter from Charles II granted Weeton an annual fair for the sale of cattle and small wares to take place on the Tuesday and Wednesday following Trinity Sunday
Tolls were to be paid to the Earl of Derby and are recorded in the Bailiff ’s Accounts for the manor from 1682 (they amounted to £4 12s in that year). During the seventeenth century, a weekly fair also took place in the parish. The Trinity fair began to falter in the 1920s as local cattle-farmers sought richer markets for their stock. The fair was eventually reduced to a huddle of bring-and-buy stalls on the triangular “goose green” at the centre of the village, and was eventually replaced by the annual Gala.
The village also had a windmill
, Weeton Windmill, which was built in 1812. It fell into disrepair and was demolished in the 1950s.
One of the most notable local families were the Jollys of Mythop who dominated village life for more than three hundred years. Members of the family were largely responsible for the draining of Marton Mere in the eighteenth century. Their most renowned son was Edward Jolly (1664–1738) declared Master of Mythop in 1715 for his exploits in the Battle of Preston
(known colloquially as the Preston Fight). The family was also related to Major James Jolly, Oliver Cromwell
's Provost-Marshal General for Lancashire, and Thomas Jolly, founder of Congregationalism
.
, and one primary school, Weeton St. Michael's Church of England Junior School.
The one public house
in the village, the Eagle & Child, dates back to 1585 and takes its name from the family crest of local landowner Lord Derby. In front of the pub stands the old mounting steps, dating back to 1755 and the only part of the premises which are officially listed. During the years of the English Civil War
Cromwell is reputed to have stayed at the premises.
Each year the village hosts the Weeton Gala with a parade through the village and a garden party.
In October 2007 one of the largest sales in the region for some time of Holstein cattle
took place at Preese Hall Farm with the first sale to disperse the milking portion of the Loftus family’s noted old established Weeton herd.
which was founded in 1843 and has a number of historic gravestones in the graveyard, including many relating to the Jolly family.
Civil parish
In England, a civil parish is a territorial designation and, where they are found, the lowest tier of local government below districts and counties...
in the Borough of Fylde in Lancashire
Lancashire
Lancashire is a non-metropolitan county of historic origin in the North West of England. It takes its name from the city of Lancaster, and is sometimes known as the County of Lancaster. Although Lancaster is still considered to be the county town, Lancashire County Council is based in Preston...
, England
England
England is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. It shares land borders with Scotland to the north and Wales to the west; the Irish Sea is to the north west, the Celtic Sea to the south west, with the North Sea to the east and the English Channel to the south separating it from continental...
, beside the Blackpool to Preston railway line and the M55 motorway
M55 motorway
The M55 is a motorway in Lancashire, England, which can also be referred to as the Preston Northern Bypass. It connects the seaside resort of Blackpool to the M6 at Preston. It is 11.4 miles in length.-Route:...
, just east of Blackpool
Blackpool
Blackpool is a borough, seaside town, and unitary authority area of Lancashire, in North West England. It is situated along England's west coast by the Irish Sea, between the Ribble and Wyre estuaries, northwest of Preston, north of Liverpool, and northwest of Manchester...
and 3.5 miles (5.6 km) north west of Kirkham
Kirkham, Lancashire
Kirkham, or as it once was known, Kirkam-in-Amounderness is a town and civil parish in the Borough of Fylde in Lancashire, England, midway between Blackpool and Preston and adjacent to the smaller town of Wesham. It owes its existence to Carr Hill upon which it was built and which was the location...
. It contains the village of Weeton.
Geography and administration
The area is mostly ruralRural
Rural areas or the country or countryside are areas that are not urbanized, though when large areas are described, country towns and smaller cities will be included. They have a low population density, and typically much of the land is devoted to agriculture...
. Weeton is in the Fylde parliamentary constituency
Fylde (UK Parliament constituency)
Fylde is a county constituency represented in the House of Commons of the Parliament of the United Kingdom. It elects one Member of Parliament by the first past the post system of election.-History:...
and is in the Staining and Weeton electoral ward.
The parish covers an area of 2876 acres (11.6 km²) east of Blackpool, and has a population of 1,096. Preese — which has recognition in the official name — has no separate measurement while Mythop (or less commonly Mythorp) has its area recorded as 677 acres (2.7 km²). Mythop, not recognised in the parish name, is divided from Weeton by mossland and the track of the Preston to Blackpool railway.
In the east, Weeton occupies most of the southern half of the parish, with Mythop in the south western corner, the northern half containing Preese on the west and Swarbrick on the east. Watson argues that these sub-manors — each with its own hall — may be based on the ancient pre-Conquest quarterland divisions characteristic of the Irish Sea
Irish Sea
The Irish Sea separates the islands of Ireland and Great Britain. It is connected to the Celtic Sea in the south by St George's Channel, and to the Atlantic Ocean in the north by the North Channel. Anglesey is the largest island within the Irish Sea, followed by the Isle of Man...
cultural basin of Celtic North Wales
North Wales
North Wales is the northernmost unofficial region of Wales. It is bordered to the south by the counties of Ceredigion and Powys in Mid Wales and to the east by the counties of Shropshire in the West Midlands and Cheshire in North West England...
and the Isle of Man
Isle of Man
The Isle of Man , otherwise known simply as Mann , is a self-governing British Crown Dependency, located in the Irish Sea between the islands of Great Britain and Ireland, within the British Isles. The head of state is Queen Elizabeth II, who holds the title of Lord of Mann. The Lord of Mann is...
. Each of the four manors occupies an area of slightly higher ground, each divided from the others by depressions: Weeton is 112 feet (34.1 m) above sea level, Swarbrick and Preese 100 feet (30.5 m) and Mythop 50 feet (15.2 m).
In an unpublished article, Watson (1994) “chases the shadows left on the ground” by suggesting that the Manx Balla or Treen and the Welsh Tref offer a model for the Lancastrian township with its fourfold manorial division of approximately five thousand acres of land".
Although the modern day Weeton with Preese is just over half this size, Watson argues that “the documentary facts support the still discernable evidence of the quarterland skeletal frame of the townships surviving from the days of the comital estates. The evidence is further bolstered by the existence of four principal houses in most of the lowland and non-vaccary townships in the [Amounderness] Hundred”.
A road from Kirkham goes west and then north to Weeton and through Swarbrick to Singleton
Singleton, Lancashire
Singleton is a village and civil parish in Lancashire, England. It is situated on the coastal plain called The Fylde. It is located south-east of Poulton le Fylde, and as of the 2001 census had a population of 877...
. From Weeton a road goes west through Mythop to Marton
Marton, Blackpool
Marton is a settlement on the coastal plain of the Fylde in Lancashire, England, most of which is now part of the seaside town of Blackpool. Marton, which consisted of Great Marton, Little Marton, Marton Fold and The Peel, was originally part of the parish of Poulton-le-Fylde, before the...
and Blackpool, another east to Greenhalgh and another south to Great Plumpton. The main road from Preston to Fleetwood
Fleetwood
Fleetwood is a town within the Wyre district of Lancashire, England, lying at the northwest corner of the Fylde. It had a population of 26,840 people at the 2001 Census. It forms part of the Greater Blackpool conurbation. The town was the first planned community of the Victorian era...
runs north-west through the parish and the branch line to Blackpool crosses the south-west corner (cutting beneath the Mythop Road, south-east of Westfield Cottages).
History
The place-name Weeton — first recorded in the Domesday BookDomesday Book
Domesday Book , now held at The National Archives, Kew, Richmond upon Thames in South West London, is the record of the great survey of much of England and parts of Wales completed in 1086...
as Widetun — derives from the Old English wiðig (willow) and -tun (settlement). The village presumably derived its name from the presence of indigenous or farmed willows. To this day, there are fine specimens of willow trees in Weeton.
After 1066, the lordship of Weeton passed from the Northumbrian Earl Tostig
Tostig Godwinson
Tostig Godwinson was an Anglo-Saxon Earl of Northumbria and brother of King Harold Godwinson, the last crowned english King of England.-Early life:...
to the Norman warlord Roger of Poitou. Weeton’s value at this time was assessed at “two carucates” (an area of arable land that could be worked in one day by two ploughteams).
Some time after the Domesday survey, the lordship of Weeton passed to the Butler family, early lords of Amounderness
Amounderness
Amounderness was a hundred of Lancashire in North West England. Formerly, the name had been used for territories now in Lancashire and north of the River Ribble that had been included in Domesday Yorkshire.-Etymology and history:...
, who in 1328 became the Earls of Ormondein. By the fourteenth century, the Butlers owned extensive lands, mills and fisheries in the manors of Weeton, Little Marton, Treales, Wesham
Wesham
Medlar with Wesham is civil parish on the Fylde in Lancashire, England. It lies within the Borough of Fylde, and had a population of 3,245 in 1,294 households recorded in the 2001 census....
, Mowbreck, Greenhalgh, Thistleton
Thistleton, Lancashire
Greenhalgh-with-Thistleton is a civil parish on The Fylde in Lancashire, England. It has a population of 462.The parish is in the Borough of Fylde, and contains the hamlets of Greenhalgh, Thistleton, Esprick and Corner Row. It is part of the ward of Singleton and Greenhalgh, which elects one...
, Out Rawcliffe
Out Rawcliffe
Out Rawcliffe is a village and civil parish on the north bank of the River Wyre in the Over Wyre area of the Fylde in Lancashire, England.It is the location of the medieval Rawcliffe Hall...
, Bradkirk, Medlar and Esprick.
The manors of Weeton, Preese, Mythop and Swarbrick were acquired by Sir Thomas Stanley of Lathom, later the first Earl of Derby
Thomas Stanley, 1st Earl of Derby
Thomas Stanley, 1st Earl of Derby, KG was titular King of Mann, an English nobleman and stepfather to King Henry VII of England...
, in 1400. They continued as part of the family estate until 1955. In the nineteenth century, the Earl of Derby commonly used the title ‘Baron of Weeton’. The title is no longer used and although there is evidence it may also have been used by Theobald Walter in the twelfth century, Weeton’s status as a barony was it seems always a matter of dispute.
By 1522, the estate had expanded to include the manors of Treales, Wesham, Out Rawcliffe, Little Marton, Greenhalgh, Plumpton and other lands. On 4 October 1637, William, 6th Earl of Derby
William Stanley, 6th Earl of Derby
William Stanley, 6th Earl of Derby was an English nobleman. Stanley inherited a prominent social position that was both dangerous and unstable, as his mother was heir to Queen Elizabeth I under the Third Succession Act, a position that fell to his deceased brother's oldest daughter in 1596,...
, surrendered to James, Lord Strange, the manor of Weeton and various other ones, to enable him to make leases.
In 1670, a charter from Charles II granted Weeton an annual fair for the sale of cattle and small wares to take place on the Tuesday and Wednesday following Trinity Sunday
Trinity Sunday
Trinity Sunday is the first Sunday after Pentecost in the Western Christian liturgical calendar, and the Sunday of Pentecost in Eastern Christianity...
Tolls were to be paid to the Earl of Derby and are recorded in the Bailiff ’s Accounts for the manor from 1682 (they amounted to £4 12s in that year). During the seventeenth century, a weekly fair also took place in the parish. The Trinity fair began to falter in the 1920s as local cattle-farmers sought richer markets for their stock. The fair was eventually reduced to a huddle of bring-and-buy stalls on the triangular “goose green” at the centre of the village, and was eventually replaced by the annual Gala.
The village also had a windmill
Windmill
A windmill is a machine which converts the energy of wind into rotational energy by means of vanes called sails or blades. Originally windmills were developed for milling grain for food production. In the course of history the windmill was adapted to many other industrial uses. An important...
, Weeton Windmill, which was built in 1812. It fell into disrepair and was demolished in the 1950s.
One of the most notable local families were the Jollys of Mythop who dominated village life for more than three hundred years. Members of the family were largely responsible for the draining of Marton Mere in the eighteenth century. Their most renowned son was Edward Jolly (1664–1738) declared Master of Mythop in 1715 for his exploits in the Battle of Preston
Battle of Preston (1715)
The Battle of Preston , also referred to as the Preston Fight, was fought during the Jacobite Rising of 1715 ....
(known colloquially as the Preston Fight). The family was also related to Major James Jolly, Oliver Cromwell
Oliver Cromwell
Oliver Cromwell was an English military and political leader who overthrew the English monarchy and temporarily turned England into a republican Commonwealth, and served as Lord Protector of England, Scotland, and Ireland....
's Provost-Marshal General for Lancashire, and Thomas Jolly, founder of Congregationalism
Congregational church
Congregational churches are Protestant Christian churches practicing Congregationalist church governance, in which each congregation independently and autonomously runs its own affairs....
.
Modern day village
The village has one church, St. Michael'sSt Michael's Church, Weeton
St Michael's Church is an Anglican church in the village of Weeton, Lancashire, England. It is an active parish church in the Diocese of Blackburn. It was built in 1843 and enlarged in 1846. It has been designated a Grade II listed building by English Heritage....
, and one primary school, Weeton St. Michael's Church of England Junior School.
The one public house
Public house
A public house, informally known as a pub, is a drinking establishment fundamental to the culture of Britain, Ireland, Australia and New Zealand. There are approximately 53,500 public houses in the United Kingdom. This number has been declining every year, so that nearly half of the smaller...
in the village, the Eagle & Child, dates back to 1585 and takes its name from the family crest of local landowner Lord Derby. In front of the pub stands the old mounting steps, dating back to 1755 and the only part of the premises which are officially listed. During the years of the English Civil War
English Civil War
The English Civil War was a series of armed conflicts and political machinations between Parliamentarians and Royalists...
Cromwell is reputed to have stayed at the premises.
Each year the village hosts the Weeton Gala with a parade through the village and a garden party.
In October 2007 one of the largest sales in the region for some time of Holstein cattle
Holstein (cattle)
Holstein cattle is a breed of cattle known today as the world's highest production dairy animal. Originating in Europe, Holsteins were bred in what is now the Netherlands and more specifically in the two northern provinces of North Holland and Friesland...
took place at Preese Hall Farm with the first sale to disperse the milking portion of the Loftus family’s noted old established Weeton herd.
Weeton Army Barracks
One mile from the village is the Weeton Army Barracks. which is currently home to a regular battalion of the North West's local regiment, the 2nd Battalion the Duke of Lancaster's Regiment 'Lions of England', who moved into the Barracks on 23rd August 2011 after completing the longest operational tour in contemporary history - over 15 months - in Afghanistan, as the Theatre Reserve Battalion, from their previous base in Episkopi Cantonment in Cyprus.The Weeton Annual Reunion
Weeton is also home to the annual reunion of the King's Own Royal Border Regiment. The Weeton Annual Reunion (WAR) is celebrated at the Eagle and Child Inn at the end of June. Up to 200 people attend the WAR, making it one of the village's largest annual gatherings.The Church
The Church of St. Michael'sSt Michael's Church, Weeton
St Michael's Church is an Anglican church in the village of Weeton, Lancashire, England. It is an active parish church in the Diocese of Blackburn. It was built in 1843 and enlarged in 1846. It has been designated a Grade II listed building by English Heritage....
which was founded in 1843 and has a number of historic gravestones in the graveyard, including many relating to the Jolly family.
Notable people
- Bob BirkettBob BirkettRobert Kirkham "Bob" Birket was an English professional footballer who spent his entire ten-year football league career with Blackpool after signing from Fleetwood Rangers....
- former professional footballer, born in Weeton in 1876 and spent his entire career at Blackpool F.C.Blackpool F.C.Blackpool Football Club are an English football club founded in 1887 from the Lancashire seaside town of Blackpool. They are competing in the 2011–12 season of the The Championship, the second tier of professional football in England, having been relegated from the Premier League at the end of the... - Edward Jolly (1664-1738), Master of Mythop, hero of the 1715 Preston RebellionBattle of Preston (1715)The Battle of Preston , also referred to as the Preston Fight, was fought during the Jacobite Rising of 1715 ....