Cockle Hall is a historic location in

Thornton-Cleveleys Thornton-Cleveleys is a conurbation consisting of the village of Thornton and the town of Cleveleys. The two settlements formed a joint urban district from 1927 until 1974, before becoming part of Wyre. Political geography The civil parish ...

Lancashire Lancashire ( , ; abbreviated ''Lancs'') is a ceremonial county in North West England. It is bordered by Cumbria to the north, North Yorkshire and West Yorkshire to the east, Greater Manchester and Merseyside to the south, and the Irish Sea to ...

, England. Located in today's Wyre Estuary Country Park, it was the location of one of the earliest crossings of the

River Wyre The River Wyre, in Lancashire, England, flows into the Irish Sea at Fleetwood. It is 28 miles (45 km) long and has a sheltered estuary which penetrates deep into the Fylde peninsula. Etymology The name ''Wyre'' is of pre-Roman, likely, ...

, and was used as such until the 1930s. It is also the former site of a two-storey cottage occupied by the Lawrenson family of thirteen. It was located a short distance along today's footpath running from the car park at Wyre Estuary, along the western banks of the river. The

ferryman A ferry is a boat or ship that transports passengers, and occasionally vehicles and cargo, across a body of water. A small passenger ferry with multiple stops, like those in Venice, Italy, is sometimes referred to as a water taxi or water bus. ...

who took people to and brought people from Wardleys Creek, on the eastern side of the river, also lived there. As C. Allen Clarke discovered, the original tenant of the cottage called himself the Squire of Cockle Hall, and said he was "the only

squire In the Middle Ages, a squire was the shield- or armour-bearer of a knight. Boys served a knight as an attendant, doing simple but important tasks such as saddling a horse or caring for the knight's weapons and armour. Terminology ''Squire'' ...

this side o' th' Wyre". A former

Roman road Roman roads ( ; singular: ; meaning "Roman way") were physical infrastructure vital to the maintenance and development of the Roman state, built from about 300 BC through the expansion and consolidation of the Roman Republic and the Roman Em ...

was reused in

Victorian times In the history of the United Kingdom and the British Empire, the Victorian era was the reign of Queen Victoria, from 20 June 1837 until her death on 22 January 1901. Slightly different definitions are sometimes used. The era followed th ...

by people walking from nearby Underbank Road to the ferry, across a hilly field. It is a

public footpath A footpath (also pedestrian way, walking trail, nature trail) is a type of thoroughfare that is intended for use only by pedestrians and not other forms of traffic such as motorized vehicles, bicycles and horses. They can be found in a wide va ...

today. In the late 19th century, the Fleetwood Estate Company purchased the cottage from

Peter Hesketh-Fleetwood Sir Peter Hesketh-Fleetwood, 1st Baronet, (9 May 1801 – 12 April 1866) was an English landowner, developer and Member of Parliament who founded the town of Fleetwood, in Lancashire, England. Born Peter Hesketh, he changed his name by ...

. The cottage appears on the

Ordnance Survey The Ordnance Survey (OS) is the national mapping agency for Great Britain. The agency's name indicates its original military purpose (see Artillery, ordnance and surveying), which was to map Scotland in the wake of the Jacobite rising of ...

maps from the 1840s. File:Cockle Hall 2.png, The rear of the cottage, viewed from the elevated field behind it File:Cockle Hall 2024 2.jpg, The same view in 2024 File:Across the Wyre to Stanah (geograph 7090856).jpg, Viewed from Wardleys Creek

References

{{reflist

External links

"The Tale of Cockle Hall (part one)"
– The Fylde & Wyre Antiquarian, 2008

– The Fylde & Wyre Antiquarian, 2008 Former populated places in England Geography of the Borough of Wyre The Fylde