Sixty years since Poulton contained a manufactory for sacking, sail-cloth, and sheeting, belonging to a Mr. Harrison, who lived in the house now in the occupation of R. Dunderdale, esq., J.P., and had his weaving shed at the rear of those premises. That gentleman employed from thirty to forty hands regularly during the time he conducted the business—a period of about fifteen years. An establishment connected with flax dressing and twine spinning, and employing several hands, was located in the house erected by Sir Alexander Rigby, of Layton; and a currier and leather dresser had his works in Church Street. Of other trades and professions in the town at that date, there were four attorneys, two surgeons, seven butchers, nine bakers and flour dealers, three wine and spirit merchants, two maltsters, ten boot and shoe makers, five linen and woollen drapers, four tailors, three milliners, four grocers, three ironmongers, three joiners, two wheelwrights, two coopers, two painters, three plumbers and glaziers, and two corn-millers. Subsequently Harrison’s residence was used for parochial purposes, and formed the town’s workhouse until the bill of Sir Robert Peel brought about the joint system of pauper relief and management under the name of Unions; and at one time small looms were placed in the old shed behind the workhouse, for the purpose of providing remunerative occupation for some of the inmates. Three fairs are held annually for cattle and cloth, and take place on the 3rd of February, the 13th of April, and the 3rd of November, whilst a general market, but very indifferently, if at all, attended, is appointed to be held each Monday. About the year 1840, when the Preston and Wyre Railway was completed and the Poulton Station erected, a dye-house of some considerable size, and one that had done a large business in the Fylde for many years, was taken down, and shortly afterwards the Royal Oak Hotel built on its site. About the same time the old brook, over which the cuckstool hung in earlier days, and whose waters had long been polluted by discharges from the dye-house, was arched over with brick and earth, and included in the station premises. The Railway Hotel was erected a little anterior to the inn just mentioned. The other hotels of Poulton, situated in the town itself, are ancient, and by their size and number, considering the smallness of the present population, are indicative of the former importance of its market and fairs, and intimate that its position as the centre of a wide district was the means of exciting and maintaining a large amount of commercial activity, such as would necessitate the frequent visits of business agents and others. Several private houses can be pointed out as having been in earlier days places of public entertainment, amongst which may be named one now used as a bakery and bread shop in Queen’s Square, and which formerly bore the name of the Spread Eagle Hotel;