[Report 1908] / Medical Officer of Health, Blackpool County Borough.

  • Blackpool (England). County Borough Council.
Date:
1908
Catalogue details

Licence: Attribution 4.0 International (CC BY 4.0)

Credit: [Report 1908] / Medical Officer of Health, Blackpool County Borough. Source: Wellcome Collection.

    11/180 (page 11)
    Blackpool presents the curious couditiou that the main direction of the natural drainage is away from the sea. Commencing at the north end, there is a depression near the Gynn Inn, not extending far inland, and then the land rises to the top of Warbreck Hill, with a short slope towards the sea, and a longer slope inland. There is a long slope also in a southerly direction to about the Manchester Hotel, where the main sewer outfall is situated. South of this, to the boundary between Blackpool and St. Annes, the surface is very Hat, and averages only about 20 feet above sea level. The main natural drainage of the northern part of the Borough is by means of a watercourse, known as the Tayton Dyke (for part of its course the bomidary between Blackpool and Hardhorn), into Marton Mere, and thence into the Wyre, and thus into the sea at Fleetwood. GEOLOGY. The town may be roughly divided into two portions ; the first being that north of the Central Station, and having a subsoil of glacial boulder claj^s, the two beds being separated by sands and shingle, together at Norbreck reaching more than 100 feet in thickness, and resting on an ancient plane of marine denudation cut in the new red marls which, east of Fleetwood are salt bearing, the rock salt being thicker than any in Cheshire. The second, which lies south of the Central vStation, consists of peat, lying on the glacial drift. This bed of peat is of varying thickness of 10, 20, or even 30 feet, being overlain with a greater or less thickness of blown sand. North of Blackpool it reappears at Rossall, and is associa- ted with a submerged forest. The boulder clay subsoil extends beneath Claremont, Talbot, Bank Hey, and a portion of Brunswick Ward, and also the easterly portion of Foxhall Ward. The portion of Brunswick Ward from the Central Station to Princess Street, and to a short distance east of the coast railway line, has a peaty subsoil, wdiich, in this locality, comes nearly to the surface, and is of \'ariable depth, rendering the ground very treacherous in places. The remainder of Foxhall and Waterloo Wards has a good depth of blown sand overlying the peat, except in isolated places. In parts of this portion of the Borough the sand is very fine, and in the ground it has almost the consistency of mortar.