Our easy-to-use website contains details and locations of places to visit around this area. Please select from:

	Places to Stay: Bed and Breakfast Hotels and Guest Houses Pubs with Accommodation Self Catering
	Places to Eat and Drink: Cafes, Coffee & Tea Shops Pubs serving Food Restaurants and Bistros
	Places of Interest: Places to Visit
	Gardens Centres: Garden Centres/Nurseries
	Specialist Shops: Antiques & Restoration Arts and Crafts Fashions Gifts Home and Garden Jewellery Food and Drink Shops

The Wirral

Two Old English words meaning heath land covered with bog myrtle gave The Wirral its name and well into modern times it was a byword for a desolate place. The 14th century author of Sir Gawayne and the Green Knight writes of

“The wilderness of Wirral:
few lived there who loved with a
good heart either God or man”.

The Wirral’s inhabitants were infamous for preying on the shipwrecks tossed on to its marshy coastline by gales sweeping off the Irish Sea. The 19th century development of shipbuilding at Birkenhead brought industry on a large scale to the Mersey shore but also an influx of prosperous Liverpool commuters who colonised the villages of the Caldy and Grange Hills and transformed the former wilderness into a leafy suburbia. The 1974 Local Government changes handed two thirds of The Wirral to Merseyside leaving Cheshire with by far the most attractive third, the southern and western parts alongside the River Dee. Tourism officials now refer to The Wirral as the “Leisure Peninsula”, a fair description of this appealing and comparatively little-known area.