Lathom as we know it today is principally made up of farms, cottages and buildings and a population of around one thousand people.
It is hard to visualise and understand just how significant and important it once was.
An Iron Age settlement was recently discovered in Lathom and if one studies the Domesday Book (the great survey published in 1086) it can be seen that Lathom was listed as 360 acres of farmland with 720 acres of woodland.
This made Lathom the most important of the 16 manors held in tenure by Uctred a Thane.
These manors played a key role in a defensive system of land tenure originally set up by King Athelstan in the tenth century to protect the emerging kingdom of England from the Norsemen of Dublin and York.
The importance of the manor is borne out by records showing that the De Lathom family possessed lands throughout West Lancashire, extending as far afield as Flixton near Manchester.
