Leyland Historical Society

Seven Stars Hotel

The area known as Seven Stars is around the two public houses, the Original Seven Stars at the end of Slater Lane and the Seven Stars at the corner of Fox Lane and Leyland Lane. The name is said to originate from the daughters of Atlas who in the Greek myths were transformed into stars. The favourite design of the Seven Stars sign is six stars arranged in a circle with the seventh star in the centre.

The trustees of the Penwortham & Wrightington Turnpike Road Trust held their annual general meeting here in 1847.

THE PUBLIC HOUSES AND INNS OF LEYLAND.

LEYLAND LANE AND ONTO THE MOSS.

The Crofters

This public house, which takes its name from a job in the bleaching and dyeing trade, was given this name by the mill workers of Leyland.

The pub used to open at 6 am to catch the night shift coming from John Stanning’s Bleach Works. Mr Robinson, the landlord always having twenty pints lined up on the bar.

The Midge Hall or the Railway

When the East Lancashire Railway opened through Midge Hall in 1859 and a station near the level crossing were erected it wasn't long before the Railway was opened serving the travelling public and the local community.   

In recent years it has changed its name to the Midge Hall for while the railway is still open from Preston to Ormskirk, trains no longer stop at the station which closed in September 1961.

The Wheatsheaf

The Wheatsheaf name was used as the sign of the baker. It has been said that some pubs with this sign also baked on the premises and thereby combined the two staffs of life in one business.

The name of Heaton Street off Golden Hill Lane probably commemorates the landlord of the Wheatsheaf named Heaton between 1810 and 1815, who financed the building of the cottages.           

Broadfield Arms

Where Broadfield Arms is situated there was an old farmhouse called Baker's Farm, which was badly damaged during the war in 1940 by a bomb.

When the public house was built, it was the law that new pubs had to take over the licence from a pub that had closed, hence the present day drinkers of the Broadfield Arms have the disfranchised patrons of the Clyde Arms, Dark Lane, Mawdesley to thank for their place of refreshment.       

Old Original Seven Stars

The public house with a Datestone of "I.I.A. 1686" arranged in the form of a triangle, the top initial being the surname, while the other two initials being the Christian names of the husband and wife in residence. The first instance recorded of its use as a public house only occurs in the Census of 1871. This public house was the last to brew its own beer, with horse stables at the rear.

Between the public house and the mill where the row of shops are now situated was the site of the six old alms houses built in 1691, before being pulled down and rebuilt in Fox Lane by Misses Susan Maria and Mary Farington in 1849. Along the side of these houses was the village pump.