A lost landscape under Preston Dock

When the River Ribble was diverted to make way for Preston Dock, a whole slice of Penwortham moved over to what became the opposite bank of the river.

The landscape before the diversion is captured on the first Ordnance Survey map of the district published in 1849. By the time of the next survey in the 1890s, the earlier landscape had disappeared, with the Preston Dock estate superimposed upon it.

The diversion took over Penwortham Marsh, several fields, a farm, a cottage and the ‘Pedestal of a Stone Cross’. The cross had probably marked the start of one of the fords that used to cross the Ribble, before the first Penwortham bridge was built in the 18th century.

I don’t think there is any documentary evidence of the cross, but it would almost certainly pre-date the Reformation in the early 16th century.

Any remains of the pedestal of the cross will now be under the path alongside the river, just over 500 yards before the Bull Nose. Any remains of Marsh Farm are now below the river bed, just short of 300 yards downstream from the Penwortham flyover. And Marsh Cottage stood on the site now occupied by Burger King.

Nothing survives above ground. I had a faint hope that the dock excavators might have spared some trace of the stone cross pedestal, but, as the photograph shows, there is nothing to be seen.

These structures are only a small part of the lost landscape that lies under the Dock estate and its surroundings. The diversion of the Ribble, the excavation of the dock basin and the redevelopment of the surrounding district meant the loss of the Marsh End community, with its pub, the Ship, an earlier dock and a shipyard. These were all part of the Tulketh Hall estate.

I’ll post about these other parts of the lost landscape shortly.