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Archiver > CHESHIRE > 1999-11 > 0942529825


From: "Gilbert Upton" <>
Subject: FW: [CHS] Please explain Wirral
Date: Sat, 13 Nov 1999 21:50:25 -0000


In Ellison's book describing Wirral and pulished in
1955, he describes Wirral thus:

The Peninsula is roughly rectangular in shape, with its
axis running NNW and SSE for a distance of about 18
miles measured from the middle of the Leasowe
Embankment to the outer suburbs of Chester. For the
most part, the average width is about 7 miles, with a
direct line across the southern boundary increasing to
about 11 miles: the area of land is approximately 100
square miles.
Wirral lies between the broad estuaries of the Mersey
and Dee and is bounded on its northern coast by the
open Irish Sea. The remaining boundary is not so
easily determined but I have taken the area known as
the Hundred of Wirral and so have omitted little, if
any, of the peninsula proper. Thus, my southern
boundary follows a transverse valley, the Vale of
Broxton, through which runs the Ellesmere Port-Chester
Canal. Starting at Blacon on the Dee, it cuts through
to this canal and follows it almost to Croughton, where
it leaves to join the Gowy. The line of the river is
then the boundary until it enters the Mersey just east
of Stanlow Point.
The name Wirral occurs in the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle as
Wirheal, literally “myrtle-corner” (Anglo-Saxon wir= a
myrtle tree; heal= angle, corner or slope), the
supposition being that this corner of land was
originally overgrown with bog-myrtle This plant is no
longer to be found in Wirral, nor is it mentioned in
any of the local Floras published since the first,
written by T.B. Hall in 1839. It is still plentiful in
the Formby hinterland, across the Mersey, and it seems
highly probable that the same suitable habitat was to
be found in Wirral in the past.
The origin of the division of land known as a “hundred”
goes back at least to the time of King Alfred. He
divided the country into counties or shires, and these
in turn into hundreds, subdivided into tithings or
towns. Historians have never agreed as to what is
really meant by a “hundred”, but it seems likely that
it has a military origin, i.e. the district furnishing
a hundred warriors. Alternatively it may signify the
area occupied by a hundred families or be a unit of a
hundred hides of land.
The main mass of Wirral is a plateau of Triassic
sandstone, 120-160 feet in height, between two deep
valleys through which flow the Mersey and Dee. Running
north and south are a series of rocky ridges roughly
parallel. On the western side of this plateau, Grange
and Caldy Hills shelter West Kirby from the east,
rising steeply from the town to a height of 256 feet.
At Caldy the ridge ends abruptly and there is a gap
until the rock escarpment of Thurstaston Hill appears.
Gradually rising to 255 feet at the view-finder, the
ridge continues south, still rising, until the highest
point in Wirral, 359 feet, is reached at Heswall. With
occasional dips, the high ground persists in the same
direction until it ends at Burton, 222 feet.
On the eastern side there runs a similar ridge. but it
does not reach as far south. Wallasey rises from the
sand dunes to 188 feet and comes down to tide level
again at the Wallasey Pool - now enclosed by a dock
system but once a tidal creek. On the southern side of
this gap we have Flaybrick Hill and Bidston Hill (231
feet), Prenton (259 feet) and Higher Bebington (229
feet) where the high ground ends.
En passant it is interesting to note that in 1827
William Laird, founder of the great Birkenhead
shipbuilding firm, conceived the idea of a ship canal
joining the Mersey and the Dee at an estimated cost of
£1.5 millions. At the Mersey end Wallasey Pool would
have been converted into a floating harbour and dock;
the exit into the Dee would have been at Dawpool. The
Corporation of Liverpool, who had the monopoly of the
Mersey, strongly opposed Laird's plan and bought most
of the land on the south side of Wallasey Pool to
prevent it being carried out. This policy succeeded
and so the whole of northern Wirral was saved from
industrial development.
The transverse valley through which flows the Gowy has
been the cause of much speculation among geologists in
the past. Many supported the theory that this had been
the old bed of the Mersey, which would then flow into
the Dee in the neighbourhood of Sealand, but this
channel has since been found to be far too shallow.
Modern geologists think it possible that a channel may
be found running through-the deep deposit of boulder
clay covering so much of mid-Wirral. A few years ago a
gorge with a maximum depth of 137 feet was discovered
at Hooton. This was deeper than any part of the
ancient Mersey channel, and suggests that the gorge
entered the Lower Mersey somewhere between Widnes and
the Dee.
The northern part of the Peninsula, between the two
hills of Wallasey and West Kirby, is flat and
low-lying. This strip, perhaps 1.5 miles in width,
borders the coast: before the building of the Leasowe
Embankment it was subject to flooding by exceptionally
high tides. The soil is a mixture of alluvium (sand
and clay), post-glacial debris and blown sand:
extensive market gardens have flourished in this area
for more than a hundred and fifty years.

G i l U p t o n



-----Original Message-----
From: Dave Jowitt [mailto:]
Sent: 12 November 1999 23:39
To:
Subject: Re: [CHS] Please explain Wirral


Donna - Wirral is a wonderful (I am not biased -
honest!) peninsula twixt
Mersey and Dee. The north corner is New Brighton, West
is Hoylake/West
Kirby. The southern boundary (of the peninsula, not the
modern Metropolitan
Borough) is fuzzy but approximately from Burton on the
Dee to Ellesmere Port
on the Mersey. Birkenhead (and Price Street) is on the
north east shore,
opposite Liverpool.

The Borough of Wirral is the bit in Merseyside, the
southern bit is still in
Cheshire where it all used to be!

There is a local website which I will dig out and let
you know.

Hope this helps!
Dave Jowitt

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