Strangely enough, there probably were a lot of woods at one time all the way up and down the Lancashire coast - this will have been a
long time ago. They ran up to the edges of the meres, and when they fell, they went into the waters which would shift in size and shape many times over the centuries. That's where all the Bog Oaks come from that break the ploughs. Fleetwood is at the Northern end of one of the old meres that have long since been drained away.
The story about the Hesketh family might be right though, as they also had much to do with building Southport, being the big landowning family, and there's also Hesketh Bank - about 15 miles as the bird flies from Fleetwood but about 50 by car! There's also Fleet Street, the locals' name for the road from Ormskirk to Southport.
Sorry, bit of a pet subject there...much to davem's horror, him being a sinister tyke.
