History of Southport

Early history

In the late 18th century it was becoming fashionable for the well-to-do to relinquish inland spa towns and visit the seaside to bathe in the salt sea waters. At that time doctors recommended bathing in the sea to help cure aches and pains. In 1792 William Sutton, the landlord of the Black Bull Inn in Churchtown (now the Hesketh Arms) and known to locals as "The Old Duke", realised the importance of the newly created canal systems across the UK and set up a bathing house in the virtually uninhabited dunes at South Hawes by the seaside just four miles (6 km) away from the newly constructed Leeds and Liverpool Canal and two miles south-west of Churchtown. When a widow from Wigan built a cottage nearby in 1797 for seasonal lodgers, Sutton quickly built a new inn on the site of the bathing house which he called the South Port Hotel, moving to live there the following season. The locals thought him mad and referred to the building as the Duke's Folly, but Sutton arranged transport links from the canal that ran through Scarisbrick, four miles from the hotel and trade was remarkably good. The hotel survived until 1854 when it was demolished to make way for traffic at the end of Lord Street, but its presence and the impact of its founder is marked by a plaque in the vicinity, by the name of one street at the intersection, namely Duke Street, and by a hotel on Dukes Street which bears the legacy name of Dukes Folly Hotel.

19th century

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