Southport

Earliest settlements

There have been settlements in the area now comprising Southport since the Domesday Book, and some parts of the town have names of Viking origin. The earliest recorded human activity in the region was during the Middle Stone Age, when mesolithic hunter gatherers were attracted by the abundant red deer and elk population, as well as the availability of fish, shellfish and woodland.

Roman coins have been found at Halsall Moss and Crossens, although the Romans never settled southwest Lancashire.

The first real evidence of an early settlement here is in the Domesday Book, in which the area is called Otergimele. The name is derived from Oddrgrimir meaning the son of Grimm and is linked to the Old Norse word melr meaning sandbank. The Domesday Book states that there were 50 huts in Otergimele, housing a population of 200. The population was scattered thinly across the region and it was at the northeast end of Otergimele (present day Crossens), where blown sand gave way to alluvial deposits from the River Ribble estuary, that a small concentration of people occurred. The alluvium provided fertile agricultural land and the river itself stocks of fish.

It was here, it seems, that a primitive church was built, which gave the emerging village its name of Churchtown, the parish being North Meols (pronounced "meals", not "mells"). A church called St Cuthbert's is still at the centre of Churchtown.

With a booming fishing industry, the area grew slowly and hamlets became part of the parish of North Meols. From south to north, these villages were South Hawes, Haweside, Little London, Higher Blowick, Lower Blowick, Rowe-Lane, Churchtown, Marshside, Crossens, and Banks. As well as Churchtown, there were vicarages in Crossens and Banks.

Parts of the parish were almost completely surrounded by water until 1692 when Thomas Fleetwood of Bank Hall cut a channel to drain Martin Mere to the sea. From this point on, attempts at large-scale drainage of Martin Mere and other marshland continued until the 19th century, since when the water has been pumped away. This left behind a legacy of fine agricultural soil and created a booming farming industry.

Early history

In the late 18th century, it was becoming fashionable for the well-to-do to relinquish inland spa towns and visit the seaside to bathe in the salt sea waters. At that time, doctors recommended bathing in the sea to help cure aches and pains. In 1792, William Sutton, the landlord of the Black Bull Inn in Churchtown (now the Hesketh Arms) and known to locals as "The Old Duke", realised the importance of the newly created canal systems across the UK and set up a bathing house in the virtually uninhabited dunes at South Hawes by the seaside just four miles (6 km) away from the newly constructed Leeds and Liverpool Canal and two miles south-west of Churchtown. When a widow from Wigan built a cottage nearby in 1797 for seasonal lodgers, Sutton quickly built a new inn on the site of the bathing house which he called the South Port Hotel, moving to live there the following season. The locals thought him mad and referred to the building as the Duke's Folly, but Sutton arranged transport links from the canal that ran through Scarisbrick, four miles from the hotel, and trade was remarkably good. The hotel survived until 1854, when it was demolished to make way for traffic at the end of Lord Street, but its presence and the impact of its founder are marked by a plaque in the vicinity, by the name of one street at the intersection, namely Duke Street, and by a hotel on Duke Street which bears the legacy name of Dukes Folly Hotel.

19th century

Southport grew quickly in the 19th century as it gained a reputation for being a more refined seaside resort than its neighbour-up-the-coast Blackpool. In fact Southport had a head start compared to all the other places on the Lancashire coast because it had easy access to the canal system. Other seaside bathing areas couldn't really get going until the railways were built some years later. The Leeds and Liverpool canal brought people from Liverpool, Manchester, Bolton and Wigan amongst others. By 1820 Southport had over 20,000 visitors per year.

Southport Pier is referred to as the first true "pleasure pier", being one of the earliest pier structures to be erected using iron. A design from James Brunlees was approved at a cost of £8,700 and on 4 August 1859 a large crowd witnessed the driving home of the first support pile. The opening of the pier was celebrated on 2 August 1860.

Louis-Napoléon Bonaparte lived in exile on Lord Street, the main thoroughfare of Southport, between 1846 and 1848, before returning to France to become President and subsequently Emperor of the French. During his reign, he caused much of the medieval centre of Paris to be replaced with broad tree-lined boulevards, covered walkways and arcades, just like Lord Street. On the strength of this coincidence, it has been suggested that the redevelopment may have been inspired by memories of Southport's town centre.

On the night of 9 December 1886, the worst lifeboat disaster in the history of the UK occurred off the shores of Southport. A cargo ship called the Mexico was on its way to South America when it found itself in difficulty. Lifeboats from Lytham, St. Annes and Southport set off to try to rescue those aboard the vessel. The crews battled against storm-force winds as they rowed towards the casualty. The entire crew from the St. Anne's boat was lost and all but two of the Southport crew were too. In all, 28 lifeboatmen lost their lives on that night, leaving many widows and fatherless children. A memorial was erected in Duke Street Cemetery and a permanent exhibition used to be on display in the Museum of the Botanic Gardens (now closed) in Churchtown. There is also a memorial inside the Lifeboat house, now operated by the Southport Offshore Rescue Trust. Mexico was just one of many shipwrecks in the Southport area.

20th century

From 1894 to 1912 Birkdale and the adjoining village of Ainsdale were separate from Southport and administered by Birkdale Urban District Council before becoming part of the county borough of Southport in 1912. This was a huge expansion of the town.

In 1925, the RNLI abandoned the station at Southport and left the town with no lifeboat. In the late 1980s, after a series of tragedies, local families from Southport started to raise funds and bought a new lifeboat for the town stationed at the old RNLI lifeboat house. The lifeboat, operated by the Southport Offshore Rescue Trust, is completely independent from the RNLI and receives no money from them. Instead it relies entirely on donations from the general public.

On 21 March 1926, Henry Seagrave set the land speed record in his 4-litre Sunbeam Tiger Ladybird on the sands at Southport at 152.33 mph (245.15 km/h). This record lasted for just over a month, until broken by J.G. Parry-Thomas.

Governance

Politically, Southport is a stronghold of the Liberal Democrats with the current Member of Parliament, John Pugh, having a majority of 6024 over the Conservative Party at the 2010 General Election. In the election of 2015, Pugh was able to hold onto his seat, beating his closest opponent, Conservative Damien Moore, by 1339 votes.

Lancashire

Southport once lay within the historic county boundaries of Lancashire, and was incorporated as a municipal borough in 1866. It became a county borough independent of the administrative county of Lancashire in 1915, having reached the minimum 50,000 population (the 1911 census gave a figure of 51,643). The Birkdale Urban District, including the parishes of Birkdale and Ainsdale was added to Southport in 1912.

Merseyside

Under the 1971 Local Government White Paper, presented in February 1971, Southport would have lost its county borough status, becoming a non-metropolitan district within Lancashire. Rather than accept this fate and lose its separate education and social services departments, Southport Corporation lobbied for inclusion in the nearby planned metropolitan county of Merseyside, to join with Bootle and other units to form a district with the 250,000 required population. It was duly included in the Metropolitan Borough of Sefton.

This decision has been regretted by some of the population. A recurring local political issue has been the cross-party movement campaigning for Southport to leave Sefton and form its own unitary authority, perhaps adjoined to the neighbouring West Lancashire authority. Support for this has been seen amongst Liberal Democrat councillors, and also within the Southport Conservative Party.

The issue of Southport having little in common with the Labour heartland of Bootle and the evidence that Southport infrastructure was progressively being allowed to wither – in favour of sustained investment in Bootle re-emerged in the early 1980s. A Southport born man Kevin Laroux Wood stood in the parliamentary election for the Southport Constituency on 9 June 1983. He was supported by a team of like minded people who raised the funds needed and formed the "Southport Back in Lancashire Party". Posters were distributed and articles published in the Visiter newspaper. Although he was not elected as MP, it put the issue firmly on the local agenda which continues to this day. In the same period in 1980, a Private Member's Bill proposed restoring Southport to Lancashire, and renaming the residue of Sefton to the Metropolitan Borough of Bootle. The Local Government Boundary Commission for England conducted a review of the area in 1987, which attracted 10,000 messages, of which "70% were pro forma". In 1990 the LGBC made suggestions that Southport, Ainsdale and Birkdale should be made a district of Lancashire: the final recommendations in 1991 "concluded that public opinion was more evenly divided than initially thought", and also that eastward transport links with Lancashire were poor compared to those southward to the Liverpool area.

Sefton

The government again directed the Local Government Commission for England to make a review in December 1996 (after it had finished the work on the creation of unitary authorities), commencing in January 1997. This review was constrained by the legal inability of the commission to recommend that the current Sefton-West Lancashire border be altered. In a MORI poll conducted at the behest of the LGCE, 65% of Southport residents supported the campaign, compared to 37% in the borough as a whole. Local MPs Matthew Banks and Ronnie Fearn (MPs for Southport at various times) supported making Southport a unitary authority, with Banks wishing to see it tied to Lancashire ceremonially, but Fearn wishing to see it remain, as a separate borough, in Merseyside.

The commission noted that Southport would have a relatively low population for a unitary authority, even including Formby (89,300 or 114,700), and that it was worried about the viability of a south Sefton authority without Southport, and therefore recommended the status quo be kept. The commission suggested the use of area committees for the various parts of the borough and also that Southport could become a civil parish. Another request made in 2004 was turned down, the Electoral Commission must request such a review.

In 2002, a local independent party calling themselves the Southport Party was established, with many members supporting a policy of "Southport out of Sefton." Three council seats were won in the 2002 local elections, including that of the leader of Sefton Council, Liberal Democrat Councillor, David Bamber. At the following election there were no gains and a drop in the number of votes for the party. At the all out election in 2004, one of their councillors stood down, whilst the other two lost their seats.

To date, there have been no further moves to change Sefton's boundaries, but the Boundary Commission indicated in 2004 that a future review is possible.

Geography

At 53°38′43.44″N 3°0′29.88″W the town is situated in North West England. The closest cities are Preston approximately 20 kilometres (12 mi) to the north east and Liverpool approximately 27 kilometres (17 mi) to the south.

Existing on the West Lancashire Coastal Plain, most of the town is only slightly above sea-level and thus parts of Southport used to be susceptible to flooding. This would be most frequently noticed on Southport's Marine Drive, which was regularly closed due to flooding from high tides. But in February 1997, new sea defences started being constructed and in 2002 the whole project was completed.

Southport has a maritime climate like most of the UK. Due to its position by the coast, Southport rarely sees substantial snowfall and temperatures rarely fall below −5 °C (23 °F) so it doesn't have frequent frosts. Southport generally has moderate precipitation, unlike the rest of western UK.

The coast-to-coast Trans Pennine Trail (TPT) stretches the breadth of northern England – 215 miles (345 km) from Southport in the west to Hornsea in the east. The TPT is an exciting route for walkers, cyclists and horse riders linking the North and Irish seas and passing through the Pennines. Its route takes you alongside rivers and canals and through some of the most historic towns and cities in the North of England. You can follow historic railways and canals and follow in the footsteps of packhorse traders on ancient salt routes.

Demography

The United Kingdom Census 2001 showed a total resident population for Southport of 90,336. Approximately 19,000 were aged 16 or under, 60,000 were aged 16–74, and 10,000 aged 75 and over. According to the 2001 census, 96% of Southport's population claim they have been born in the UK.

Historically the population of Southport began to rapidly increase during the Industrial Revolution and the Victorian era. From then the population has been stable with minor decline in some areas of the town. Southport is quite affluent compared with other parts of the north west.

People from Southport are known as "Sandgrounders", although there is debate about what is sufficient to qualify for that name as the majority of the locals are today made up of liverpudlians who over the past 20 years have move out of the city and larger towns within Merseyside to settle in Southport which has not left many of the original Lancashire residents.

Tourism

As a seaside town Southport has a long history of leisure and recreation and is still heavily dependent on tourism. The town went into decline when cheap air travel arrived in the 1960s and people chose to holiday abroad due to competitive prices and more reliable weather. However, the town kept afloat with people coming to spend the day by the seaside on bank holidays and weekends. The town has diversified with annual events, shopping and conferences. In 2011 Southport was named the 14th most popular coastal resort in the country, benefiting from a 23% rise in money spent in the resort in that year. Part of the resort's progress is a result of the money invested in Southport over recent years.

Annual events

Business

While Southport has a dependence on tourism the town is also home to many businesses both in the private and public sector. Some manufacturing facilities were situated in the town, most notably Chewits were manufactured in the town from 1965 to 2006, only closing to move production to Slovakia. Manufacturing has diminished in the last few decades and only a few sites are still in production in the town today.

Lord Street is the main shopping street of Southport. It is one of the great shopping streets of Northern England and is said to be the inspiration for the tree-lined boulevards of Paris. In the 2000s Chapel Street was pedestrianised and is home to some of the UK's most famous brands. Southport also has a newly renovated indoor market situated on King Street and Market Street as well as a farmers' market held on the last Thursday of every month on Chapel Street.

Southport is now a premier destination for conferences in the north west following the multimillion-pound investment programme for the Southport Theatre & Convention Centre. Recently it has hosted the United Kingdom Independence Party national conference as well as the regional Labour Party conferences for the past few years.

England's Golf Coast

Southport is often called England's Golfing Capital because it is at the centre of England's Golf Coast and has the UK's highest concentration of championship links courses. Royal Birkdale Golf Club is one of the clubs in the Open Championship rotation for both men and women. The club has hosted the men's championship nine times since 1954, most recently in July 2008, and has hosted the women's tournament five times, including 2010. Southport's other courses include the 9-hole Southport Old Links in High Park, the Hesketh Golf Club, Hillside Golf Club and Southport and Ainsdale Golf Club.

Landmarks

One of Southport's main attractions for many years was Pleasureland, a fairground established in 1912. It was owned by the Thompson Family, and was closed in September 2006. A replacement fairground on the same site, provisionally named New Pleasureland, opened in July 2007. An earlier permanent funfair, Peter Pan's Playground, closed in the 1980s and is now the site of part of the Ocean Plaza shopping development. A former landmark of Pleasureland was the Looping Star roller coaster, which was on site from 1985 to 1987. It featured in the video for the pop single Wonderful Life, by Liverpool band Black, which was also shot at other parts of the Sefton and North West coastline. On 24 April 2009 a serious fire occurred at the oldest attraction within New Pleasureland. Called The River Caves, it was completely destroyed in this arson attack, and a 16-year-old boy was arrested in connection with the fire.

Southport Model Railway Village is situated in Kings Gardens opposite the Royal Clifton Hotel and near the Marine Lake Bridge. The Model Railway Village opened in May 1996 and was created by Ray and Jean Jones. The Jones family still run the attraction today. The Model Railway Village season extends from April to the end of October. The season has extended into weekend openings during November, February and March, weather permitting. An earlier model village, the Land of the Little People, was demolished in the late 1980s to make way for the aborted Winter Gardens/SIBEC shopping development. Its site is now occupied by a Morrison's supermarket.

Other major attractions in Southport include Splash World, an indoor water park situated on the back of the Dunes swimming pool which opened in June 2007.

Meols Hall, a manor house, home of the Hesketh family is open to the public for a limited period each year. Set in its own expansive grounds, it boasts a history back to the Domesday Book and is full of interesting pictures and furniture.

Southport also boasts one of the few lawnmower museums.

The Power Station, that was the base of the town's former radio station Dune FM, on the edge of Victoria Park, which itself is home to the Southport Flower Show.

Architecture

Southport has many unique buildings and features, many of which are privately owned Victorian villas and houses and the town centre shops are of architectural interest. The most notable buildings, gardens and places of architectural interest are:

Also of architectural interest, but not extant, are:

Road

Due to its position by the coast, Southport is a linear settlement and as such can only be approached in a limited number of directions by road.

The main roads entering Southport are:-

There is no direct connection to the motorway from Southport; the nearest connections are:

An east-west bypass for the A570 at Ormskirk is planned to relieve congestion on Southport's main access route to the motorway network, although the effectiveness of the proposals are still under debate.

Several areas within Southport town centre have recently undergone major road redevelopment; the largest scheme was the construction of the Marine Way Bridge (opened May 2004), which connects the Lord Street shopping district with the new seafront developments. The 150-foot (46 m) high structure is thought to have cost in the region of £5 million.

Also one of the main shopping areas in the town, Chapel Street, has undergone a pedestrianisation scheme to be similar to parts of Liverpool city centre.

Bus

Due to the limited number of directions by road, many of the services operated in Southport are from one place South to one place North or East of Southport.

The main operator is Arriva North West, that operates many services to Liverpool, Ormskirk and other places to and through Southport as well as some local services.

Stagecoach in Preston operates two services in Southport, the citi 2 (Preston – Southport) and the X2 (Preston – Liverpool)

Rail

Southport railway station has a frequent service of trains to Liverpool and a regular service to Wigan, Bolton, Manchester and Manchester Airport. In addition, there are stations at Birkdale, Hillside and Ainsdale on the Liverpool line, part of the Merseyrail network, and at Meols Cop on the Manchester line.

The Liverpool line was originally built by the Liverpool, Crosby and Southport Railway in 1848, to a terminus at Eastbank Street. It was followed on 9 April 1855 by the Manchester and Southport Railway with a line to Manchester via Wigan, with stations at St Luke's and Blowick.

Formerly, Southport was also served by three further railway lines:-

In July 1897, both the West Lancashire and the Liverpool, Southport and Preston Junction Railways were absorbed into the Lancashire and Yorkshire Railway (L&Y). The L&Y had a large terminus at Southport Chapel Street and could see no sense in operating two termini at very close proximity. In 1901, the L&Y completed a remodelling of the approach lines to Central to allow trains to divert onto the Manchester to Southport line and into Southport Chapel Street Station. Southport Central was closed to passengers and it became a goods depot eventually amalgamating with Chapel Street depot. It survived intact well into the 1970s.

On Southport Pier can be found the Southport Pier Tramway which transports passengers from the Promenade to the pier head over 3,600 feet (1,100 m) on a 3 ft 6 in (1,067 mm) gauge. This closed in 2016 because of the effect on the pier of the weight of the trams.

Education

The town possesses a variety of academic institutions. The all-girls Greenbank High School is situated next to the Royal Birkdale Golf Club, and is a certified Specialist Language College, teaching Spanish, French, German, Russian, Italian and Mandarin Chinese GCSE's. World-famous actress Miranda Richardson was educated at the school. The male equivalent (also situated in Birkdale) is the all-boys Birkdale High School, a school specialising in Mathematics.

Meols Cop High School is situated in the Blowick area of Southport and is one of the six schools in the country chosen to be written about in OfSTED's School Inspections handbook of 2012. Meols Cop High School has recently become one of the highest achieving schools in Sefton, with 96% of the students obtaining at least 5 GCSE's at A*-C grades. The school is oversubscribed and is currently building an additional 2 new classrooms to make way for new year groups with the amount of students increasing every year. The school is a specialist school in sports.

There are several other high schools in the town, including Stanley High School, which is a specialist Sports College and whose former students include comedian Lee Mack and world-famous chef Marcus Wareing and Christ the King.

Independent schools

The town's last remaining independent preparatory school, Sunnymede School, which was in Westcliffe Road, Birkdale closed in 2010 due to a lack of pupils. In the past the town had more independent schools which included Tower Dene, which was situated on Cambridge Road. This school closed in 2002 due to a similar fate. One of the Victorian houses that housed the school has since been turned into apartments, the other is now a nursery. Kingswood College (originally St Wyburn's) is now housed outside Southport at Scarisbrick Hall, but it takes many pupils from the town. Brighthelmston School (girls) and University School (boys) are long closed.

Further education

The town has two Further education colleges: Southport College that is situated near to the town centre and King George V College which is on Scarisbrick New Road in the Blowick area of the town.

Southport College offers a wide range of subjects and courses that are available to meet a range of students with different abilities but does not offer a wide range of A-Level courses as they used to when they first opened as Southport Technical College. Courses at the college include Diplomas, NVQs, BTECs and Access courses. In addition, Southport College offers some higher education courses in conjunction with the University of Central Lancashire, Edge Hill University and Liverpool John Moores University.

King George V College (KGV) offers both A-Level and Business And Technology Education Council courses and the college requires higher GCSE grades to be accepted onto the course desired. In 2015 Ofsted reported that it 'Requires improvement'. In 2013 the college was the best performing state funded college in an 18-mile radius of KGV. For the fourth year running, KGV achieved the highest point score per student for state education in Sefton for A levels and their equivalent advanced level courses. The college has also been described by OFSTED as "outstanding" (grade 1).

It originally opened as King George V Sixth Form College in 1979, and replaced the former King George V Grammar School for Boys, which occupied the same site from 1926 until its demolition in stages during the 1980s as the College was fully opened.

Football

Southport is home to Southport F.C. who play in the National League, the fifth tier of English football, after winning the Conference North title in the 2009–10 season.

The club entered The Football League in 1921 and became a founder member of the Third Division North. In 1978 the club were voted out of the Football League following three consecutive 23rd (out of 24) placed finishes, and was replaced by Wigan Athletic. Southport were the last club to leave the Football League through the re-election process. Automatic relegation from the Fourth Division was introduced in 1986–87.

They have played at the Haig Avenue ground since 1905.

Rugby

Southport is also home to a rugby union team, Southport Rugby Football Club, who play at the Recreational Ground on Waterloo Road, Birkdale. The junior section of Southport RFC is known as the Southport Sharks, which has sides that range from 6 years old upwards. They also play on the same grounds, and train every Sunday 10am-12noon.

Golf

The town is probably best known for golf; the Royal Birkdale Golf Club situated in the dunes to the south of the town is one of the venues on The Open Championship rotation and has hosted two Ryder Cups. Nearby Southport and Ainsdale Golf Club is also a two time Ryder Cup venue and both Hillside Golf Club and Hesketh Golf Club host many major events as well as being final open qualifying courses. Many smaller links courses also surround the town.

Kite surfing

Southport's location by the coast also lends itself to some more specialised sporting activities – Ainsdale Beach, south of the town, is popular for kite sports, including kite-surfing.

Speed record

In 1925, Henry Segrave set a world land speed record of 152.33 mph (245.15 km/h) on the beach, driving a Sunbeam Tiger. His association is largely forgotten locally, but is commemorated by the name of a public house on Lord Street.

Water

Marine Lake lies nestled between the town centre and the sea and is used for a variety of water-sports including water-skiing, sailing and rowing. The lake is home to the West Lancashire Yacht Club and Southport Sailing Club, both of which organise dinghy racing. The annual Southport 24 Hour Race, organised by the West Lancashire Yacht Club, is an endurance race of national standing, with an average turnout of 60 to 80 boats. In 2006, the event marked its 40th anniversary.

Cycling

The flat and scenic route alongside the beach is very popular with cyclists, and is the start of the Trans Pennine Trail, a cycle route running across the north of the country to Selby in North Yorkshire, through Hull and on to Hornsea on the east coast.

In June 2008, Cycling England announced Southport as one of the 11 new cycling towns. These 11 towns shared £47 million from the government to be spent solely on cycling schemes in the towns. Southport's Cycling Towns programme aims to encourage tourism and leisure cycling, create regeneration opportunities and significantly increase cycling to school. There are now many cycle lanes in Southport and more are planned, to encourage cycling in the town.

Famous animals and entities

Newspapers

The town's media consists of two rival newspaper groups, and two radio stations. The independently owned 'Champion' newspaper is a free weekly paper and Trinity Mirror's 'Sefton & West Lancs Media Mix' titles The Mid-week Visiter and The Southport Visiter (now out on a Thursday) are free and paid-for respectively. The town also falls within the circulation areas of three regional hard copy newspapers; The Liverpool Echo, The Liverpool Daily Post and The Lancashire Evening Post. Southport is also covered by several local and regional magazines, like Lancashire Life. The local Ranger Service, which is part of Sefton MBC, runs a quarterly free magazine called Coastlines.

Old Southport newspapers now out of print are as follows: Independent 1861–1920s; Liverpool & Southport News 1861–1872; Southport News (West Lancs) 1881–1885; Southport Standard 1885–1899; Southport Guardian 1882–1953; Southport Journal 1904–1932; Southport Star; Southport Advertiser.

The area also has many online media sites, including the UK's first online newspaper, the Southport Reporter, as well as Internet forums and blog sites.

Broadcasting

The town's commercial radio station Dune FM closed during August 2012. On a regional level Southport is covered by several local and regional radio stations, including Radio City 96.7, City Talk 105.9, Magic 1548, 97.4 Rock FM, Magic 999 and BBC Radio Merseyside.

Sandgrounder Radio, a dedicated DAB radio station, which launched on Saturday 11 June 2016 now serves the town.

Southport is situated within the television regions of BBC North West and ITV's Granada Television.