Cobbled pavements - Bath Street

The Bath St. cobbled pavements were laid by Anthony Jackson in 1837.

Lytham's pebble pavements

Sea cobbles (large pebbles) were a local building material. Roads, garden paths, boundary walls, and some of the earliest pavements were made from them until well into the 19th century. A cobble wall encompasses a large part of the Lytham Hall estate. Houses built only of cobble are rare but many are a mixture of cobble and brick. It was not permitted to take cobbles from the beach without the squire’s permission, but nowadays the shore is being regularly and illegally robbed for garden features.

The Lytham pebble pavements are a most attractive feature. In the 1840s, Bath Street was the show street of the town and a main thoroughfare from Clifton Street to the Beach. All the properties on either side between South Clifton Street and the beach road are listed. The pavement on the east side of Bath Street is dated 1831, and each house has a different pattern, including a bird, a windmill, an anchor, and a sailing boat.

We are concerned that the pavements are not currently protected. They could easily be damaged by insensitive contractors. We are told they cannot be listed because they are not deemed to be “structures”. The Civic Society aims to ask English Heritage to give them some form of protection – perhaps as a scheduled ‘Ancient Monument’. [Listed in 2015]

A section of pavement dated 1854 also remains in Queen Street, and evidence suggests that originally there was more, for in 1925 the Lytham Standard reported “Until a comparatively few years ago the original cobble-paved roadway, composed of shingle from the beach in various designs, existed in Queen Street, only a small portion now remaining, together with the old pavements in Bath Street."

Much later designs reflect this vernacular heritage. The colourful pebble mosaic by Maggy Howarth (1998) in Clifton Square was partly paid for by lottery money. It is a major contribution to the pedestrianisation of the Square, now oddly called by some a piazza

from "The listed buildings of Lytham St. Annes" - Lytham St. Annes Civic Society 2003