Preston to Inglewhite - distance 10.5 miles

LRO ref DDX194/28

The route commenced at Preston market square and proceeded along Church Street and Ribbleton Lane and passed the Alms Houses at top of London Road. From here for a further mile there was only one house, shrubs at the roadside and a side road called “Aclegate Lane”.[Acregate] At “Ribbleton Row” the road passed through an open area 220 yards wide with 3 houses at each side. Mr Piggot occupied one of these, formerly on what is now at the Blackpool Road crossroads. (Mr George Piggot Esq. Gentleman occupied premises at 39 Fishergate Street)

The open area continued through the dip of Ribbleton common or moor and up to the hilltop by Ribbleton windmill. The next mile had “shrubs with sum small young trees on both sides” with a few houses; at the end of which was Cawson Cross by Thomas‘s house. This place is now called Three-Mile Cross but was measured at three and three quarters of a mile or 6,600 yards. This suggests that a customary mile was used when the name was given.

From this boundary cross through what is now Grimsagh to Cow Hill Moor were shrubs with some young trees on the right hand side and a few houses. One was occupied by “Wil Boy” and another one by “Rich Fishick”. Down the hill to the stream was a path called “agt [against] Higton Hal [Haighton Hall] Lane” occupied by Mr Wadsworth. From here, for a mile, ‘Cumber’ Lane, lined with trees, shrubs and farms on both sides, wound its way to the main road leading “to Long Ridg Chap[el]”. On to “Goosner” again with shrubs and a scattering of young trees, through the Hamlet of Cumeragh, leaving the road from Broughton to Chipping Chapel.

Having travelled 8.2 miles from Preston the surveyors turned left in Goosnagh by the church in the direction of Barton Hall, now demolished, for half a mile. Then proceeding along a wide road, across Westfield Brook, to Middleton Hall home of the Rigby Family. They came into Longley Lane and Inglewhite across Spartan Brook later used to drive a silk mill. From this stream led a path to Longley Hall lived in by Esquire Rigby.

Did our surveyors stay with Esquire Alex Rigby for the night or in Inglewhite?

This may account for their shorter walk the following day to Garstang via Beacon Fell.