The HitchHikers Guide to the History of the Wirral Coastline

[Tony]

At over 560 pages long, this book will enlighten the reader to the History of the Wirral Coastline, with a collection of previously unknown materials and pictures. The collection also offers a reminder of the type of buildings that swept not only the Wirral but as a country during the Industrial and Victorian eras. The area boasted many beautiful mansions, houses, public buildings and gardens which were created to mark the beginning of the modern way of life and make Britain look the most advanced country and front runner in world during its Industrial and Post Industrial eras. The area has been blessed with vast amounts of History and for a small area it excels more than most. Forget Westminster, the first parliament in the UK was actually on the Wirral, a little area of Merseyside across the River from Liverpool. It is the nation's capital of Viking history. Inside this book you will find information of the Viking Ship found in an area called Meols where Vikings first came ashore onto the Wirral. The name Wirral is derived from the Gaelic meaning “Wyre Heal” or “Myrtle Corner”. This is because of the peninsula being heavily forested in the past. The area was populated by large amounts of deer and other game, so much so that in Medieval times kings and noblemen used the area for hunting. The emblem of Wirral is the Wirral Horn. The Horn is a brass tipped hunting horn used by the foresters of Wirral and is portrayed in many of the Coats of Arms associated with the peninsula. The horn was given to Alan Sylvester... the first Forrester of Wirral and has passed through thirty generations to the present owner... the Honourable Vivian Baring who has leant it to Wirral Museums where it has been on display. There has been a settlement at what is today known as Wallasey for many thousands of years. Archaeological investigations at the highest point of Wallasey... St Hilary's Brow unearthed artefacts dating back to the Stone Age. The name "Wallasey" is derived from the Gaelic... "Wealas Eye" which roughly translated means Welshmen's or Strangers' Island. This was due to the fact that Wallasey could only be reached by crossing water whether it be the River Birkett, Wallasey Pool, the River Mersey or Liverpool Bay Birkenhead has often been overshadowed by its neighbour, Liverpool, but it has its own unique and interesting history. It was at the forerunner of the Parks Movement which the New York Central Park is designed on that of Birkenhead Park. Birkenhead was also first place in Europe with a street tramway. To the north of Birkenhead lies a ridge known as Bidston Hill. The hill lies between Wallasey Pool and the marshlands that extended from Moreton right the way up to Prenton prior to the Leasowe Embankment being constructed and Moreton Marshes being drained. The hill is an extension of the Storeton Ridge that runs down the Wirral as far as Storeton Quarry, where the Storeton Tramway (an early railway) conveyed the rock quarried at Storeton to docks at Bromborough Pool (Port Sunlight) on the banks of the River Mersey. At the north-western corner of the Wirral Peninsula, approximately one and a half kilometres off the coast, adjacent to West Kirby, there lies an exposed reef of sandstone. At high water, most of the reef is submerged. The three parts of the reef that are exposed form the Hilbre group of islands. Geological evidence suggests that originally, there was one large island. But, over the years, tide and weather erosion have worn away at the soft red sandstone to create three islands. The three islands that form the Hilbre chain of islands are known individually as Little Eye, Middle Hilbre and the main island of Hilbre itself. West Kirby is a town on the north-west corner of the coast of the Wirral Peninsula, in the county of Merseyside, England, at the mouth of the River Dee across from the Point of Ayr in North Wales. To the north-east of the town lies Hoylake, with the village of Caldy to the south-east.

The HitchHikers Guide to the History of the Wirral Coastline