THIS week completes my journey from the source of the river at Ribblehead to its estuary at Lytham - not really a seaside town at all but set firmly on the estuary of the River Ribble across from Southport.

The natural silting process has reduced the once wide and easily navigable river into a narrow ribbon fringed by wide expanses of salt marsh. Here grow sea lavender, sea aster and that lovely plant the thrift once featured on the reverse side of the old threepenny piece. Here we get the origin of the name thrifty.

Lytham is mentioned in the Domesday book under the name of Lidum, but evidence suggests that the settlement was established long before the Norman Conquest.

This is supported by the fact that the parish church is dedicated to St Cuthbert who lived in the 6th century. An old wooden chapel was rebuilt in stone during the 13th century, then again in 1770 and in 1834 as the popularity of the town increased the congregation.

In 1813 the Cursory Description of Lytham would no doubt have pleased the clergy when they read "one circumstance above all must render Lytham dear to those who have a strict regard to morality - vice has not yet erected her standard here.

"The numerous tribes of gamblers, unhappy profligators and fashionable swindlers find employment and rapine elewhere.

"Innocent recreational delights, riding, walking, sailing and other modes of pastime, banish cares from the mind, whilst the salubrity of the air expels disease from the body."

There is probably some truth in the story that the saint's bones were carried about by his followers to stop them being taken and destroyed by the Danes in the 9th century.What, you might ask, did the Danes want with a pile of dusty old bones?

The remains of saints were sources of income of monasteries and churches until the Reformation in the mid 16th century.

Pilgrims, many of whom were very rich, believed that the bones had magical powers and paid vast sums of money to touch them. The relics were kept in jewel encased boxes and it was these that the Danes were after.

Cuthbert's followers kept moving his bones and wherever they rested, a church, including the one at Lytham, was set up. The final and peaceful resting place was at Durham.

Following the dissolution of the monasteries by Henry VIII between 1536 and 1539 the Lytham holdings of the Durham monks were purchased by the Clifton family, whose distinguished history is one of the most impressive in Lancashire.

In 1846, as at Blackpool, the rail link arrived and day visitors began to influence genteel Lytham to such an extent that preachers bemoaned the loss of their Sunday congregations and called the exersions "Safe and Swift trips to Hell."

Would Lytham spread concrete all over the green grass and knock down the windmill to make room for a fun fair? Thanks to the insistence of the Clifton family, such developments were stoutly resisted.

There has been a mill on this site at Lytham since 1190 and it has always been ideally situated to pick up the slightest of sea breezes. The present white painted building was constructed in 1805 but has not worked since 1929 when a gale blasted the vanes which rotated the wrong way and shattered the mechanism.

Lytham had its own pier built in 1865 but which was demolished 100 years later. For a long and distinguished period Lytham doubled as a ship building town. Tugs were a speciality as were vessels called "stern wheelers" which were built with a shallow draught ideally suitable for use on the muddy rivers of Africa.

It was a Lytham vessel which was featured in the film Sanders of the River. The last vessel to be built from Lytham was a ferry built to operate on Windermere in 1954, but during the war secret work was carried out on the construction of parts of the Mulberry harbours. These played a vital role in the D-Day invasions.

Lytham, especially the still well-used creek, thus has history and an industrial heritage without losing its attractiveness. St Annes on the other hand was a product of the Victorian demand for a cross between a well-to-do dormitory and a holiday resort.

Converted for the new archive on 14 July 2000. Some images and formatting may have been lost in the conversion.