Bispham is a village on the Fylde coast in Lancashire, England, a mile and a half north of Blackpool town centre. Geography and administration The village is part of the borough of Blackpool, and generally considered a suburb of the town. To the south of Bispham is Warbreck, North Shore and Layton, to the east is Carleton and to the north is Norbreck and Thornton Cleveleys and to the west, the Irish Sea. The area is mostly urban. Bispham was formerly in the Blackpool North and Fleetwood parliamentary constituency, but, as of the 2010 general election forms part of the Blackpool North and Cleveleys constituency whose M.P. is Paul Maynard. Bispham has three Blackpool Council electoral wards: Bispham, Greenlands and Ingthorpe. Demographics The population at the 2001 United Kingdom census was 19,165, 13.41% of the population of Blackpool (142,900), with 3,873 residents aged between 0 and 17 years old (20.21%), 4,329 aged 65 and over (22.58%) and 10,963 between the ages of 18 and 64 (57.21%). At the census 2011 the overall population using the same three wards increased to 20,001. Population by ward – Village history A 12,000-year-old animal skeleton (the Carleton Elk) found with barbed arrowheads near Blackpool Sixth Form College in 1970 provided the first evidence of humans living on The Fylde as far back as the Palaeolithic era. The Fylde was also home to a British tribe, the Setantii (the "dwellers in the water") a sub-tribe of the Brigantes, who from about AD80 were controlled by Romans from their fort at Dowbridge, Kirkham. During the Roman occupation, the area was covered by oak forests and bog land. Bispham, known until 1910 as Bispham-with-Norbreck, was originally a village in its own right, pre-dating the town of Blackpool by several hundred years. In 1066 Bispham was part of Tostig Godwinson, the Earl of Northumbria's, Lordship of Amounderness. It is featured in the Domesday Book of 1086 as Biscopham. (meaning Bishop's estate or Bishop's house) Many of the settlements and villages on The Fylde were Anglo-Saxon settlements. Some though were 9th and 10th century Viking place names. The Vikings and Anglo-Saxons seem to have co-existed peacefully with some Anglo-Saxon and Viking place names later being joined together—such as Bispham-with-Norbreck. Bispham having the Anglo-Saxon place name ham and Norbreck having the Viking place name, breck. Bispham-with-Norbreck comprised three hamlets – Great (or Greater) Bispham, Little Bispham and Norbreck, with Anchorsholme