Westby-with-Plumptons is a

civil parish In England, a civil parish is a type of administrative parish used for local government. It is a territorial designation which is the lowest tier of local government below districts and counties, or their combined form, the unitary authorit ...

Lancashire Lancashire ( , ; abbreviated Lancs) is the name of a historic county, ceremonial county, and non-metropolitan county in North West England. The boundaries of these three areas differ significantly. The non-metropolitan county of Lancas ...

England England is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. It shares land borders with Wales to its west and Scotland to its north. The Irish Sea lies northwest and the Celtic Sea to the southwest. It is separated from continental Europe ...

. The parish is in Fylde district and contains the

hamlets A hamlet is a human settlement that is smaller than a town or village. Its size relative to a parish can depend on the administration and region. A hamlet may be considered to be a smaller settlement or subdivision or satellite entity to a lar ...

of Great Plumpton, Little Plumpton, Lower Ballam, Higher Ballam, Moss Side, Peel, and Westby. At the 2011 census, the parish had a population of 1,205. Westby and Plumpton are mentioned in the

Domesday Book Domesday Book () – the Middle English spelling of "Doomsday Book" – is a manuscript record of the "Great Survey" of much of England and parts of Wales completed in 1086 by order of King William I, known as William the Conqueror. The manusc ...

, as "Westbi" and "Pluntun". Westby-with-Plumptons is part of the Warton and Westby ward, represented by three councillors on Fylde Borough Council. On

Lancashire County Council Lancashire County Council is the upper-tier local authority for the non-metropolitan county of Lancashire, England. It consists of 84 councillors. Since the 2017 election, the council has been under Conservative control. Prior to the 2009 L ...

it is part of Fylde West ward, which elects one councillor. The parish is generally low-lying, with

arable land Arable land (from the la, arabilis, "able to be ploughed") is any land capable of being ploughed and used to grow crops.''Oxford English Dictionary'', "arable, ''adj''. and ''n.''" Oxford University Press (Oxford), 2013. Alternatively, for th ...

in the south and

pasture Pasture (from the Latin ''pastus'', past participle of ''pascere'', "to feed") is land used for grazing. Pasture lands in the narrow sense are enclosed tracts of farmland, grazed by domesticated livestock, such as horses, cattle, sheep, or sw ...

in the north, which rises to above sea level at Great Plumpton in the north-east of the parish. The parish is now the home of the steel farm-building construction company J. Wareing & Son (Wrea Green) Ltd. which was for many years based in the neighbouring village of

Wrea Green Wrea Green is a village in the Fylde (borough), Fylde borough of Lancashire, England. It lies about 2 miles west of Kirkham, Lancashire, Kirkham. Along with the village of Ribby, it forms the civil parish Ribby-with-Wrea. Wrea Green has approxim ...

Moss Side

Moss Side (Grid Reference SD379302) is located in the south of the parish in between Wrea Green and Lytham with the B5259 road (Lytham Road) being the main road running through the hamlet. The railway from

Preston Preston is a place name, surname and given name that may refer to: Places England *Preston, Lancashire, an urban settlement **The City of Preston, Lancashire, a borough and non-metropolitan district which contains the settlement **County Boro ...

to Blackpool South runs through the hamlet with

Moss Side railway station Moss Side railway station is on the Blackpool South to Preston line, in Lancashire, England. It is located in Moss Side, a hamlet where the B5259 (Lytham to Wrea Green) road crosses the railway at a level crossing. It is managed by North ...

being located where the railway crosses Lytham Road at a level crossing. The station first opened in 1846, closed in 1961 and was re-opened in 1983. The station in the past had a stationmaster's house and signal box, both of which have been demolished. It is also close to where the Moss Side rail crash occurred in 1924 which claimed the lives of 14 people. Moss Side used to have a hospital which opened in 1902 as the Fylde Isolation Hospital (later known as Moss Side Hospital) for people with infectious diseases. The hospital closed in 1988 due to being surplus to requirements as well as changes in medical practice and was demolished to make way for new houses. There was also a small Wesleyan chapel on Lytham Road during the early 20th Century.

Peel

Peel is a small settlement on the outskirts of Blackpool, featuring Whitehills Business Park which includes several car dealerships, a B&Q store and a Premier Inn. A business park has increased in size over the years to include a variety of small businesses from lawnmower repairs, a print and design company and BMW servicing to larger concerns such as a renewable energy company and building merchants. Local theatrical group Junction 4 Productions has its home here and Penny Farm run by World Horse Welfare is also nearby. Further afield, there are several caravan parks (Pipers Height and Clifton Fields Caravan Park) situated on Peel Road.

Ballam

Ballam is a small hamlet in between Moss Side, Peel and Lytham, consisting of a small number of dwellings, a few farms and a small church which was previously the village school.

Westby

Westby is another small hamlet, towards the north of the parish, located in between Wrea Green and Ballam, just south of Preston New Road.

St. Anne's Church

Interior of St Anne's RC Church, Westby Mills

Westby is notable for the fine

Catholic The Catholic Church, also known as the Roman Catholic Church, is the largest Christian church, with 1.3 billion baptized Catholics worldwide . It is among the world's oldest and largest international institutions, and has played a ...

church of St. Anne's, designed by E. W. Pugin and built in 1860. The conventional church exterior does not prepare the visitor for the striking interior with its elaborate timber roof. Above the altar the timbers follow the

apse In architecture, an apse (plural apses; from Latin 'arch, vault' from Ancient Greek 'arch'; sometimes written apsis, plural apsides) is a semicircular recess covered with a hemispherical vault or semi-dome, also known as an '' exedra''. ...

and form a frame or focal point. At the west end is a gallery. Despite the unusual shape of the

nave The nave () is the central part of a church, stretching from the (normally western) main entrance or rear wall, to the transepts, or in a church without transepts, to the chancel. When a church contains side aisles, as in a basilica-typ ...

windows, the stained glass is largely unspectacular. But two of the windows are noteworthy - the

Pre-Raphaelite The Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood (later known as the Pre-Raphaelites) was a group of English painters, poets, and art critics, founded in 1848 by William Holman Hunt, John Everett Millais, Dante Gabriel Rossetti, William Michael Rossetti, Jam ...

styled "

St Cecilia Saint Cecilia ( la, Sancta Caecilia), also spelled Cecelia, was a Roman virgin martyr and is venerated in Catholic, Orthodox, Anglican, and some Lutheran churches, such as the Church of Sweden. She became the patroness of music and musicians, ...

" in a green gown, with roses in the cusps, and the "Millennium" window with its inscription.

Fracking at Little Plumpton

Police and protectors (geograph 5473454)

Cuadrilla Resources Cuadrilla Resources is an oil and gas exploration and production company founded in 2007. It is headquartered in Bamber Bridge, Lancashire, and has operations in the United Kingdom. The company intend to develop shale gas in the UK by using hyd ...

' first and only high-volume hydraulic fracturing job was performed in March 2011, near Blackpool. Cuadrilla halted operations in May 2011 at the site due to seismic activity damaging the casing in the production zone. In June 2015,

voted to reject an application by Cuadrilla to extract shale gas by means of

fracking Fracking (also known as hydraulic fracturing, hydrofracturing, or hydrofracking) is a well stimulation technique involving the fracturing of bedrock formations by a pressurized liquid. The process involves the high-pressure injection of "frac ...

at a site at Little Plumpton. This decision was appealed by the company, however, and the government accepted their appeal in 2016. An appeal against this reversed decision was lost in the

Court of Appeal A court of appeals, also called a court of appeal, appellate court, appeal court, court of second instance or second instance court, is any court of law that is empowered to hear an appeal of a trial court or other lower tribunal. In much ...

in January 2018. In November 2017 Cuadrilla, in agreement with the government, financially compensated the local community for the disruption. A community fund of £100,000 was created, and additionally households within 1 km will receive about £2,070 and others within 1.5 kilometres will receive about £150. The cost of

Lancashire Constabulary Lancashire Constabulary is the territorial police force responsible for policing the ceremonial county of Lancashire in North West England. The force's headquarters are at Hutton, near the city of Preston. , the force has 3,088 police officers ...

policing the site, since January 2017, was estimated to have been between £6m and £8m.

References

{{Borough of Fylde Civil parishes in Lancashire Geography of the Borough of Fylde