St Anne's on the Sea
Peter ShakeshaftClick HERE to download some sample pages. The illustrations you see are very low resolution, but you will get some idea of how beautiful the book is.
St Anne’s on the Sea did not exist until the 1870s. When a new railway connection between Lytham and Blackpool was opened, the land-owning Clifton family hit upon the idea of persuading the railway company to build an intermediate station on the line. A new church – dedicated to St Anne – was built, and a Land and Building Company set up. Parcels of land were leased, and the new town was born.
St Anne’s was a Victorian new town, its genteel character a product of deliberate planning. With the booming, bustling working-class seaside resort of Blackpool just a few miles up the coast, the developers of St Anne’s were determined to cater for a slightly higher social class.
Wander around the town today and you can easily discern tell-tale signs of the original town foundation: broad avenues, the relatively uniform middle-class villas, and the regular street pattern.
What you cannot so easily discern is the previous history of the region, and this is where Peter Shakeshaft’s book differs from most. He takes the reader back to the earliest references to the rural settlements of Heyhouses and Kilgrimol. Part I of this important new book deals exclusively with the history of the area before the establishment of the Victorian new town.
Part II looks in detail at the first 130 years of St Anne’s history: foundation, local government, disputes, even a proposed amalgamation with Blackpool. The book is beautifully illustrated, with many old and new photographs reproduced in full colour.