Lathom | Images Of Burscough

The Three Oaks Beer Shop, Briars Lane, c1908. Nellie Glover can be seen standing in the doorway.

The Inn (Beer Shop) was situated opposite Ring O' Bells Lane. In 1861 the landlord was Thomas Swift. He was a wheelwright who employed one man and two apprentices. In 1871 Henry Nelson was the Beer seller and he was also the corn miller. In 1908 Mr James Glover was the landlord. He was also the stone...mason to the Earl of Lathom. In 1924 he bought the Three Oaks Inn from the Lathom Estate for £325. It is now two private cottages by Briarswood Garage. The name is still kept alive today as 'Three Oaks Cottage' and 'Three Oaks Close' is situated just across the road off Ring O'Bells Lane.

(Photo courtesy - Colin Williams, Alfapostcards)

(St. Gabriel's College), Blythe Hall, Lathom, c1930.

Blythe Hall is a large grade II listed country house in Lathom, Lancashire. It is a two storey building of rendered sandstone rubble with stone slate roofs to an originally H-shaped plan with added wings.

Blythe Hall was probably built in the late 16th century or early 17th century and altered in early 19th century.

The hall was once the property of Evan Blackledge, who died in 1612, after which it passed through several generations of the Blackledge family. It was sold to the Hill family of Burscough in 1698 and then to Thomas Langton in 1800, who never moved in but instead leased it to Edward Clifton.

In 1826 it was sold to Edward Bootle-Wilbraham, 1st Baron Skelmersdale whose eldest son and his wife Jessie lived there. Edward Bootle-Wilbraham, 1st Earl of Lathom was born in the house in 1837 and his sister, Rose Bootle-Wilbraham, was born there in 1842. Their mother died there in 1892, leaving it in the possession of Rose, who never married and died in 1918.

(St. Gabriel's College), Blythe Hall - East Wing, Lathom, c1930.

It was radically altered and enlarged c1918–21, at a cost of £60,000, by Edward Bootle-Wilbraham, 3rd Earl of Latham (1895–1930), who was reluctant to restore and re-occupy the family seat at Lathom House after the First World War. Many of the materials used at Blythe Hall were salvaged from Lathom House.

The third earl was a spendthrift with a passion for the London theatre and in the 1920s Blythe entertained theatrical celebrities such as Ivor Novello and Noël Coward. After the Earl's early death from tuberculosis the Earldom was extinguished and the property sold in 1930 to a cotton merchant named Taylor.

In 1933 it became a Catholic Seminary for training Priests and was called St Gabriel's Retreat (or College). In 1980 by hoteliers John and Diana Craig.

It was reduced in size in c1975 by demolition of the oldest parts.

In 2010 it underwent a further makeover by the new owners.

Lathom War Memorial, Hall Lane, Lathom, c1923.

First World War memorial, unveiled 1923, with further names added after the Second World War.

The memorial was provided by the Earl of Lathom and commemorates those who attended Lathom Chapel, or lived on the Lathom Park Estate.

The Lathom Park Estate played a key role in the British war effort during the First World War as a Remount Depot. The Earl of Lathom offered his land so that horses and mules could be prepared for their duties at the front line. Horses came to West Lancashire from all over the world, through the Port of Liverpool and travelled to Ormskirk by rail. After unloading they were ‘drove on the hoof’ through the country lanes to Lathom. Set out originally as a civilian establishment, with an ‘army’ emphasis on the layout, the park was divided into ‘squadrons’ of 500 horses, each with its own superintendents, foremen and 150 grooms. The War Office statistics indicate that between September 1914 and November 1917, 215,000 horses and mules passed through Lathom Park.