Welcome to Poulton-Le-Fylde...
Poulton-le-Fylde is a small market town about 4 miles from Blackpool in Lancashire. It is listed together with 60 other small communities in Domesday when it was in the area then known as Amounderness.
The earliest reference to the church – dedicated to St Chad – is 1094, though there is circumstantial evidence that there would have been a church here much earlier. In March 2008 the site of at least two Romano-British round houses and Roman pottery, together with medieval pottery and evidence of ridge and furrow, was found on the outskirts of the town during pipelaying – an exciting and important discovery for this part of Lancashire.
Poulton's famous five antiquities are regarded as one of the finest groups in Britain today.
The cross is the oldest of the group, with its base steps forming the seat for the stocks. The Market Cross was a sign in mediaeval England that even in business the church had overall control and was placed high up so all could see and be reminded of Christianity when trading. The Stocks in Poulton were used for offenders in detention, who suffered the indignity and humiliation of being pelted with rotten eggs and vegetables whilst secured within the stocks.
The fish slab would be used for cutting fish on markets days, as would the whipping post when criminals were ordered to be publicly flogged and their wrongdoings proclaimed for all to hear. The only one of the group that can be dated accurately is Queen Victoria's lamp, which was erected to commemorate her Golden Jubilee in 1887.