There is a lot of history to be uncovered on the Fylde coast, most of which is accessible through the internet, but here's a small selection to whet your appetite!
In the 'News' section you'll find fascinating photos of when the outer revetment collapsed and was rebuilt near The Venue in 1947.
Cleveleys is allied to nearby Thornton and a good local history website is Thornton Through Time.
In recent times..... On the night of 31st January 2008, a storm blew the Riverdance Ferry off the course of its Ireland to Heysham sailing, and it ended up on the beach at Ancholsholme, just on the southern edge of the Cleveleys shore.
It was an overnight tourist attraction – of course the disaster had been on the TV so in the first few days Cleveleys was gridlocked with people driving here to see the sight, and the shops had a bumper winter like no other because the place was so busy. Very quickly the side roads around Princes Promenade had to be closed off because there was so much traffic trying to get around them, and the residents of those streets must have been mystified by the hoards of sightseers in those first few months. Cleveleys quickly got used to the sight of the huge ferry laid on the sand, and over a period of time the erosion of the sea moved it on the beach and its position could be seen to change.
The curtain sided container lorries that had been on the top deck quickly lost their loads in the first few nights, and bit by bit, there were strange things on these shores! McVities Chocolate Digestives came first, and there was a rumour of bottles of whisky (but that could have been local legend!) followed by planks of wood. Then there were huge blue plastic barrels littered across the beach, and then came the clear plastic drinking cups – and a wind - so they blew everywhere! All in all, Riverdance provided months of sightseeing for locals and visitors alike, after all, it’s not very often you can get so near to a shipwreck and see it so clearly.
Ironically, Riverdance managed to fall on the beach right on an outfall pipe that goes out into the sea. This created another problem, and when a camera was used to check the pipe, it was found to be damaged. So the Riverdance wreck site bore the next tourist attraction which was the Cofferdam used to repair the pipe. The Cofferdam looked like a little oil rig, with corrugated sheet steel piled into the seabed so that water and sand could be pumped out of the hole and enable the sections of pipe to be replaced. Work was completed in Spring 2010 and when the Cofferdam was finally dismantled there was no remaining sign of the night of 31st January 2008.
