Upton, Merseyside
Upton is a village in the northern part of the Wirral Peninsula, England, and is situated within of Birkenhead, of the Dee Estuary, a similar distance from the River Mersey, and from Liverpool Bay. The village is a ward of the Metropolitan Borough of Wirral in the metropolitan county of Merseyside. Upton was in the traditional county of Cheshire. At the 2011 census, the population was 16,130.
Upton was originally settled as an Anglo-Saxon farming community, and remained as a farming community until the village's rapid urbanisation and expansion from the mid-19th century. This was brought about by the development of Liverpool as a major port, with rail and road links across the Mersey estuary. The village now has a strong service economy which is based primarily around healthcare and retail, with a variety of places nearby, and within the village, to pursue sport and leisure activities.
History
Etymology
The name Upton is from the Old English upp, meaning up, high or a hill, and tūn, meaning a farmstead or settlement. Upton therefore could be explained as meaning Hill Farm. This is still recognisable today, as Upton is on a low hill. As the name Upton is relatively common, it was sometimes known historically as Upton in Wyrhale or Upton by Birkenhead.The name Overchurch may translate as "shore church", from the Old English ofer meaning a shore and cirice, a church. This implies that, during the Anglo-Saxon era, the shoreline of the Irish Sea was much closer to the centre of the village.
Ownership of the manor
Upton was originally settled as a farming community, during the Anglo-Saxon period. In Norman times, Upton was listed in the Domesday Book of 1086 as Optone and was written as being in the possession of William Malbank.The manor passed to the Orrebies under the family of Praers, and then through the Arderne family, and by marriage to Baldwin of Bold in 1310. His descendants owned the manor for six generations, before it was sold in 1614. Subsequent owners have included the Earls of Derby. Notably, as a likely consequence of the 8th Earl of Derby who lived at nearby Bidston Hall. From Elizabethan times, the manor was associated with Upton Hall, which passed hands along with the manor. Upton Hall was sold by the Webster family to the Society of the Faithful Companions of Jesus who turned it into a school.
Early modern
Upton was the primary economic centre of northern Wirral until the industrial development of Birkenhead during the mid-19th century. Five important local roads converged on the village, and its main thoroughfare was the place of a weekly market, recorded as being held from 1662.Fairs were also held in the village at Michaelmas and Easter.
When the original parish church at Overchurch was pulled down in 1813, a runestone, attributed to the 7th or 8th centuries, was discovered in the ruins. It has been interpreted as a memorial to Æthelmund, perhaps a local leader or missionary. The stone is now kept at the Grosvenor Museum in Chester.
"..though now only a small village, Upton was formerly considered the metropolis of the lower mediety of Wirral, and had two annual fairs of considerable importance, and also a weekly market that was discontinued in 1620, the village having been recently almost entirely rebuilt, contains several good houses, among which may be particularly mentioned Upton Hall ..."—said of Upton in the History of the Hundred of Wirral by William Williams Mortimer, 1847.
A major contributor to the village was William Inman, owner of the Inman Line, who donated money for the construction of St. Mary's Church. Inman resided at Upton Manor, within the grounds of Upton Park. Both Upton Manor and St. Mary's Church were designed by John Cunningham.
Few buildings remain in Upton from before the mid-19th Century. Two notable examples are the Stone House at the top of the village, on Ford Road, and the Old Smithy on Rake Lane. These buildings are both built of local red sandstone, hewn into large blocks. They are both of similar material and style to many old buildings which are found throughout Cheshire and Lancashire farming communities. Neither of these buildings is designated as a listed building.
World War II
Just prior to World War II, the War Department requisitioned a large amount of land to the northern side of Arrowe Farm, next to the Police station. This was used for military weapons storage. The camp was known as 64 Anti-Aircraft Ordnance Depot. The site had three reinforced bunkers for storage of ordnance, in the area which is now occupied by the Sainsbury's building. The site eventually came into the use of the Territorial Army and part of the area is currently in use by army and air force cadets.During this period, RAF West Kirby was also situated just under west the centre of the village, along Saughall Massie Road, and backed on to Larton.
Civic history
Upton was a township in the ancient parish of Overchurch in the Wirral Hundred, which became a civil parish in 1866 named Upton by Birkenhead.Between 1894 and 1933 Upton was administered as part of Wirral Rural District.
The civil parish was disbanded on 1 April 1933 and merged with Birkenhead St Mary and Wallasey and became part of the county boroughs of Birkenhead and Wallasey. In 1931 the parish had a population of 2564.
On 1 April 1974, local government reorganisation in England and Wales resulted in most of the Wirral Peninsula, including Upton, transferring from the county of Cheshire to the newly created county of Merseyside.
Geography, geology and environment
Upton lies at the geographic centre of the northern part of the Wirral Peninsula, from the Irish Sea at Leasowe Lighthouse, north-east of the Dee Estuary and a similar distance south-west of the River Mersey. Upton sits on a low-lying hill, in a wide and shallow glacial U-shaped valley, formed during the Quaternary Ice Age, between Bidston Hill and Thurstaston Hill. The underlying bedrock is Triassic bunter sandstone of the Helsby Sandstone Formation and the Sidmouth Mudstone Formation. This is overlain with boulder clay from the Quaternary Ice Age, similar to the nearby Dee Cliffs, and clay soil. The bedrock is not usually visible, as it is on the nearby Bidston Hill.The highest point in Upton is above sea level, just off the junction with the A551 and the B5139, at Moreton Road, in the centre of the village. A further prominence of above sea level is at Upton Manor, from the centre of the village. Most of the populated area is more than above sea level, and most of the ground is on a gentle hillside. Consequently, Upton has avoided the significant flooding which can happen in the nearby low-lying Fender valley. Due to its inland location and elevation Upton is not prone to coastal flooding, which can happen at West Kirby, Hoylake, Meols and New Brighton.
Upton is bounded by Arrowe Brook, at Upton Meadow, and the River Fender which is alongside the M53 motorway. Both are tributaries of the Birket, which discharges into West Float and then into the River Mersey.
Upton Meadow Millennium Wood
Upton Meadow Millennium Wood is an ancient, semi-natural woodland, a community forest and a county wildlife site which has informal public access. The area has of footpaths and a bridleway along the western boundary. The area is one of the last remaining unbuilt, natural areas in Upton. Parts of the site were planted in 1997 and the site was leased to the Woodland Trust on a 99-year lease, from Wirral Borough Council, in the same year. The woodland contains a mixture of species such as oak, ash, hazel, birch, blackthorn and hawthorn. Additional plantations by the local council, in 1980, have also included maple, grey alder, grey willow and guelder rose. Other plants include holly, English elm and sycamore. The area has a pond which contains a good population of invertebrates and some amphibians, with a significant colony of common toad. The meadow is and the habitat is rare, within the local area.Climate
Upton has a temperate maritime climate, similar to much of the rest of the United Kingdom. Being close to the sea and sheltered from the prevailing south-westerly wind by Snowdonia, the area has relatively warm summers. The winters are generally mild and wet, mornings with light frost are common, and there are few days of snow. The nearest official weather station, as the crow flies, is at Hall Road in Crosby, which is about away.- The earliest sunrise is on 18 June, at 4.43am. The latest sunrise is on 1 January, at 8.28am.
- The earliest sunset is on 14 December, at 3.53pm. The latest sunset is on 24 June, at 9.45pm.
- The Winter Solstice has 7h 29m 05s of daylight, and the Summer Solstice has 17h 01m 10s of daylight. Complete darkness occurs for about three hours a night, during midsummer, with about two hours of twilight either side.
Demography
At the 2001 census, the population was recorded as 15,731.
At the 2011 census, the population had increased to 16,130.
Key Statistics
In 2011 there were 31.7 persons per hectare and 7,127 occupied households in Upton.
17.2% of people aged 16 or older have five or more grade A-C GCSEs or equivalent. 29.2% have no formal qualifications. Both these percentages are higher than those for England as a whole.
Of the part of the adult population that is between 16 and 74 years of age, 34.7% is economically inactive and 5.4% is economically active but unemployed. This gives a combined non-employment rate of 40.1% of the adult population. 59.9% of adults are, therefore, occupied with work, training or education, in one form or another. 95.3% of the population is White British.
73.4% of people are Christian, 18.7% of people have no religion and 6.7% of people did not state their religion. The remaining 1.2% of people have other religions.