Haddle House Estate

Twiddling the destination blind of preserved PD3 529 brought up "HADDLE HOUSE ESTATE" on the front and both "HADDLE HOUSE EST VIA WARBRECK DRIVE & BISPHAM VILLAGE" AND "HADDLE HOUSE ESTATE VIA WARBRECK DRIVE, BISPHAM & NORBRECK" squeezed into the side blinds. You would struggle to find Haddle House Estate on a map; nor people who could easily identify it. Haddle House was an old farmhouse in the Anchorsholme area - and became part of the 1950s housing development in that area.

At the time Bispham was served by a number of bus routes from Blackpool - the 7/7A circulars via Devonshire Road/Warbreck Drive; the 15A via Warbreck Hill Road and Bispham Road and the 22 via Layton and Bispham Road with just route 9A/9B extending beyond Bispham to Cleveleys via Devonshire Road (9A) or All Hallows Road (9B) and Fleetwood Road.

This all changed in October 1959 when the 22/22A took over the 9A/B routes to Cleveleys and the 9 later reappeared as a Blackpool to Bispham service into the new Ingthorpe Estate (Ingthorpe Avenue/Ashfield Road area). The 7/7A was joined by new service 7C which ran via Dickson Road, Gynn, Warbreck Drive, Red Bank Road then as the 22A via All Hallows Road and Fleetwood Road turning up Valeway Avenue, North Drive and Luton Road to the junction with Anchorsholme Lane East - Haddle House terminus, This ran every 30 minutes - rising to every 20 minutes during Blackpool's odd peak of 12noon to 6pm.

Norbreck was served from 1965 when alternate 7C journeys were diverted Bispham Library via Devonshire Road, Guildford Avenue, Norbreck Road, Russell Avenue, Fleetwood Road to rejoin the 7C route. Rather than 7D (which wasn't on the blind) this used the now vacant 8 number. Norbreck was now also served by route 25A so the 8 ended in 1967 - at the same time the 7C was diverted into Ingthorpe alongside the 9s serving Ingthorpe Avenue, Ashfield Road, Fairfax Avenue, Whiteholme Road back onto Fleetwood Road and then into Cleveleys - removing Haddle House from Blackpool's blinds for ever - the new blinds for the Swifts showed "Cleveleys via Ingthorpe Avenue and Luton Road"

In 1969 the 7C was one of the first two routes converted to OMO operation with AEC Swifts and in 1973 was diverted away from Fleetwood Road to run past the new College along Ashfield Road and Warren Drive.

Whiteholme appeared on as the terminus of the 7C from 1975 as shown here on Swift 560 passing the Supermarket building under construction on the site of North Station.

In  March1975 it was cut back following the extension of route 9 to Cleveleys and for a few months terminated at the College of Technology but from 30 June it was extended to "Whiteholme" - another transport department name for Anchorsholme Lane/Luton Road junction. Initially alternate journeys ran via Sevenoakes Drive or North Drive to reach the terminus (as 7B or 7C) before a standard route via North Drive, Anchorsholme Lane to the terminus and back via Luton Road was adopted in 1982 along with new route number 8.

At deregulation Blackpool chose not to register service 8 and Fylde won it on tender retaining the same hourly timetable. It soon realised that it could - just - reach Cleveleys centre and back in an hour so Fylde duly registered the service commercially and extended it there in April 1987, later doubling the frequency and eventually extending it to Lytham as part of trunk route 11. Today the link is maintained through Line 3 every 20 minutes just like the peak 7C back in 1959.

Swift 584 passes another lost bus terminus (Cavendish Road to the left of the bus) on its way from Whiteholme to Blackpool in 1984

So Haddle House Estate terminus lasted from 1959 to 1967, Whiteholme from 1975 to 1987. The terminus today is no longer served - Line 3 now penetrates the housing estate and Line 11 runs via Anchorsholme Lane East - the nearest stop is known simply as "Duck Pond".