Merseyside Central Heating Contractors Wirral Service Areas

Wirral is a peninsula in northwest England. It is bounded to the west by the River Dee, forming a boundary with Wales, to the east by the River Mersey, and to the north by the Irish Sea.

Providing Gas Engineer Services & Repairs Across Wallasey & Wirral.

Wirral Peninsula in northwest England

Wirral is a peninsula in northwest England. It is bounded to the west by the River Dee, forming a boundary with Wales, to the east by the River Mersey, and to the north by the Irish Sea.The roughly rectangular peninsula is about 15 miles (24 km) long and 7 miles (11 km) wide. Historically, Wirral was wholly within Cheshire; in the Domesday Book, its border with the rest of the county was placed at "two arrow falls from Chester city walls." However, since the passing of the Local Government Act 1972, only the southern third has been in Cheshire, with the rest in the Metropolitan Borough of Wirral in the modern county of Merseyside.

Wirral contains both affluent and deprived areas, the former largely in the west, south and north coast of the peninsula, and the latter concentrated in the east, around the built-up district of Birkenhead.

The name Wirral literally means "myrtle corner", from the Old English wir, a myrtle tree, and heal, an angle, corner or slope. It is supposed that the land was once overgrown with bog myrtle, a plant no longer found in the area, but plentiful around Formby, to which Wirral would once have had a similar habitat. The name was given to the Hundred of Wirral (or Wilaveston) around the 8th century

The earliest evidence of human occupation of Wirral dates from the Mesolithic period, around 7000 BC. Excavations at Greasby have uncovered flint tools, signs of stake holes and a hearth used by a hunter-gatherer community. Other evidence from about the same period has been found at Irby, Hoylake and New Brighton. Later Neolithic stone axes and pottery have been found in Oxton, Neston, and Meols. At Meols and New Brighton there is evidence of continuing occupation through to the Bronze Age, around 1000 BC, and funerary urns of the period have been found at West Kirby and Hilbre.

Before the time of the Romans, Wirral was inhabited by a Celtic tribe, the Cornovii. Artefacts discovered in Meols suggest it was an important port from at least 500 BC. Traders came from Gaul and the Mediterranean localities to seek minerals from North Wales and Cheshire.[4] There are remains of a small Iron Age fort at Burton, for which the town was named (burh tún being Old English for "fort town").

Around 70 AD, the Romans founded Chester. Evidence of their occupation on Wirral has been found, including the remains of a road near Mollington, Ledsham and Willaston. This road may have continued to the port at Meols, which may have been used as a base for attacking the north Wales coast. Storeton Quarry may also have been used by Romans for materials for sculpture. Remains of possible Roman roads have also been found at Greasby and at Bidston. By the end of the Roman period, pirates were a menace to traders in the Irish Sea, and soldiers may have been garrisoned at Meols to combat this threat.

Although Roman rule ended with the departure of the last Roman troops in 410, later coins and other material found at Meols show that it continued to operate as a trading port. Evidence of Celtic Christianity from the 5th or 6th centuries is shown in the originally circular shape of churchyards at Bromborough, Woodchurch and elsewhere, and also in the dedication of the parish church at Wallasey to a 4th-century bishop, Hilary of Poitiers. The Celtic names of Liscard and Landican (from llan-T/Decwyn) both suggest an ancient British origin. The name of Wallasey, meaning "Welsh (or foreigners') island", is evidence of British settlement.[3] The Welsh name, both ancient and modern, for Wirral is Cilgwri.[5] In Welsh mythology, the ouzel (or blackbird) of Cilgwri was one of the most ancient creatures in the world.