Layton & Carleton. viewed from the top of Blackpool Tower. Photo taken between 1894 and 1906.
This view shows the railway line from Talbot Road railway station (later Blackpool North) going towards Poulton. You can quite clearly see Bispham railway station (now Layton) also the original Bispham Road level crossing and signal box. The large stone built house to the right of the station was demolished about 2006.
The red brick built bridge over the railway in the foreground of the picture on the left carried a lane that connected Warbreck with Layton. The lane started at the western end of Warbreck Hill Road opposite Leys Road and finished south of the railway where Mansfield Road is today. There was a connecting path from the end of the lane to just south of the “Mill Inn” (“The Windmill P.H.) on Westcliffe Drive.
The lane still seems to have been in use until at least 1933, however the bridge, which was identical to the one that still exists at Carleton, was demolished by the 1950’s. The embankment on the left hand side of the photograph was also all removed. I remember in the 1960’s the northern section of the abandoned lane being flanked by small tress on either side of it. This was all bulldozed away in 1968 when the new Warbreck Boys School (now Beacon Hill High School) was being built. The location of this section would have been approximately at the eastern end of the school playground at the top of the grass embankment that slopes down to the playing fields.
A small section of the route of the lane can still be seen today on Warley Road where it would have crossed at right angles. On the north side of Warley Road a very short length of the route forms the driveway to the garage at the rear of property No. 4 Mexford Avenue, adjacent to the electricity substation. The width of this driveway is the same width as the lane. The rear boundary fences of property Nos. 1 – 17 (inclusive) Cotswold Road runs along the former western boundary of the lane. On the south side of Warley Road the lane ran through what is now the garden at the side of property No.275 Warley Road, adjacent to its boundary with No. 273. There are no other traces remaining of the lane.
Photo: Ted Lightbown Collection
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