Blackpool is situated in the township of Layton-with-Warbreck, and occupies a station on the west coast, about midway between the estuaries of the rivers Ribble and Wyre. The watering-place of to-day with its noble promenade, elegant piers, handsome hotels, and princely terraces, forms a wonderful and pleasing contrast to the meagre group of thatched cabins which once reared their lowly heads near the peaty pool, whose dark waters gave rise to the name of the town. This pool, which was located at the south end of Blackpool, is stated to have been half a mile in breadth, and was due to the accumulation of black, or more correctly speaking, chocolate-coloured waters,[129] from Marton Mere and the turf fields composing the swampy region usually designated the “Moss.” It remained until the supplies were cut off by diverting their currents towards other and more convenient outlets, when its contents gradually decreased, finally leaving no trace of their former site beyond a small streamlet, which now discharges itself with the flows of Spendike into the sea, opposite the point where the Lytham Road branches from the promenade. The principal portion of the town stands a little removed from the edge of a long line of cliffs, whose altitude, trifling at first, considerably increases as they travel northwards; and from that broad range of frontage streets and houses in compact masses run backwards towards the country, covering an annually extending area. One of the oldest and most interesting relics of antiquity is still preserved in the Fox Hall Hotel, or Vaux Hall, as it is sometimes, but we opine, for reasons stated hereafter, incorrectly written, although its name, site, and long cobble wall are nearly the only mementoes that time and change have failed to remove. It was here in the reign of Charles II. that Edward, the son of the gallant and loyal Sir Thomas Tyldesley who was slain at the battle of Wigan-lane in 1651, having been led to expect a grant of the lands of Layton Hawes, or Heys Side, from the king, after the restoration, in return for his own and his father’s staunch adherence to the royal cause, built a small sequestered residence as a summer retreat for his family. Modest and unpretending as the dimensions appear to have been, no doubt at that time it was regarded as a stately mansion, and looked upon with becoming respect and admiration by the inhabitants of the few clay-built and rush-roofed huts which were scattered around it. The house itself was a three gabled structure with a species of tower, affording an extensive survey over the neighbouring country; there were four or five rooms on each story, and one wing of the building was fitted up and used as a chapel, the officiating priest being most probably the Rev. W. Westby, the “W. W.” of the diary kept by Thomas Tyldesley during the years he resided there. The chapel portion of the old house was at a later period, when the remainder, after