Hoylake

Hoylake
Hoylake beach, looking towards Hilbre Island.
Hoylake  Hoylake shown within Merseyside
Population	5,710 (2001 Census)[1]
OS grid reference	SJ215888
Metropolitan borough	Wirral
Metropolitan county	Merseyside
Region	North West
Country	England
Sovereign state	United Kingdom
Post town	WIRRAL
Postcode district	CH47
Dialling code	0151 632
Police	Merseyside
Fire	Merseyside
Ambulance	North West
EU Parliament	North West England
UK Parliament	Wirral West
List of places UK England Merseyside

Hoylake is a seaside town within the Metropolitan Borough of Wirral, on Merseyside, England. It is located at the north western corner of the Wirral Peninsula, near to the town of West Kirby and where the River Dee estuary meets the Irish Sea. As of the 2001 Census, the population of Hoylake was 5,710^[1] of a total population of 13,042, as part of the Hoylake & Meols local government ward.^[2]

History

In 1690, William III set sail from Hoylake with a 10,000-strong army to Ireland, where his army was to take part in the Battle of the Boyne. The location of departure remains known as Kings Gap.^[3]

The present day township grew up in the nineteenth century around the small fishing village of Hoose.^[4] The name Hoylake was derived from Hoyle Lake, a channel of water between Hilbre Island and Dove Point.^[5] Protected by a wide sandbank known as Hoyle Bank and with a water depth of about 20 feet, it provided a safe anchorage for ships too large to sail up the Dee to Chester.^[6]

To facilitate safe access into the Hoylake anchorage, two lighthouses were constructed in the 1760s^{[citation needed]}. The lower light was a wooden structure that could be moved according to differing tides and shifting sands to remain aligned to the upper light, which was a permanent brick building. Both of these structures were rebuilt a century later.^[7] The upper lighthouse, consisting of an octagonal brick tower, last shone on 14 May 1886 and is now part of a private residence in Valentia Road.^[7] The lower lighthouse, closer to the shore in Alderley Road, was deactivated in 1908^[8] and demolished in 1922.

The Royal Hotel was built by Sir John Stanley in 1792, with the intention of developing the area as a holiday resort. The numerous steam packet vessels sailing between Liverpool and North Wales which called at the hotel provided valuable patronage. By the mid-nineteenth century a racecourse was laid out in the grounds of the hotel. The hotel building was demolished in the 1950s.^[9]

Hoylake's lido, located on the promenade, was opened in June 1913 and rebuilt in the late 1920s. In 1976, the Hoylake Pool and Community Trust took over the running of the facility from Wirral Borough Council.^[6] The baths finally closed in 1981.^[10]

The Hoylake and West Kirby War Memorial is a notable local landmark, as it was designed in 1922 by the British sculptor Charles Sargeant Jagger who was responsible for a number of war memorials around the world, including the Royal Artillery Memorial at Hyde Park Corner in London.

Civic history

The township of Hoose was part of the West Kirby Parish, Wirral Hundred. It became part of Hoylake and West Kirby civil parish in 1894. The population was 60 in 1801, 589 in 1851 and 2,701 in 1901.^[11]

Hoylake was governed by an urban district council until 1 April 1974 when it was absorbed into the newly created Metropolitan Borough of Wirral when local government reorganisation took place across the UK. At that point, Hoylake ceased to be in Cheshire, and became part of the nascent county of Merseyside.

Community

Hoylake is a largely residential area and there is an active nightlife in the town centre, which is located at the original village of Hoose.^[4]

The town supports a permanent lifeboat station, manned by the RNLI. Initially founded in 1803 by the Mersey Docks and Harbour Board, it is one of the oldest in the country.^[12] In 2008, the RNLI began to raise £2 million for a new lifeboat station and new generation all-weather lifeboat, to facilitate a faster response time to emergencies and rescues in the Irish Sea and the rivers Dee and Mersey.The building was finally opened in 2009.

There are also sailing and sand yachting clubs.

Education

Hoylake includes the independent Kingsmead School, which educates girls and boys from 2 to 16 years old. Hoylake Holy Trinity C of E Primary school is the towns main primary school, educating children from the ages of 3 to 12.

Sport

Golf

Hoylake is the home of the Royal Liverpool Golf Club, built in 1869 on the site of the Royal Hotel racecourse.^[4] It is the second oldest golf links in England, predated only by the Royal North Devon Golf Club, in Westward Ho!, Devon.^[13] It has hosted many major tournaments such as The Open Championship and the Walker Cup. The club is often referred to as "Hoylake". It hosted the Open again in July 2006, after a gap of almost 40 years, with Tiger Woods earning the Claret Jug for the second year in a row. Hoylake-born amateur golfer John Ball Jnr. won the Open in 1890, becoming the first Englishman to do so. Another local amateur, Harold Hilton became Open champion two years later. He won again in 1897 at his home club of Royal Liverpool.

Rugby union

Hoylake RFC rugby club was founded in 1922. Its predecessor, connected with the Royal Liverpool Golf Club, had been founded in the 1890s. British Open golf champion Harold Hilton was also captain of the rugby team for the 1890/91 season.^[9]

Swimming

Hoylake ASC was founded in 1931. The club now trains at the West Kirby Concourse and the Calday Grange Swimming Pool.

Sand yachting

Hoylake is one of the premier sites for Sand Yachting in Britain,^[13] with banks around a quarter of a mile offshore. The town's beach was the venue for the European Sand Yacht Championships in 2007 and 2011.^[14]

Cricket

Cricket was played at the now disused Ellerman Lines Cricket Ground from as early as the 1920s, when the then newly formed West Wirral Cricket Club played at the ground. It was later sold to Ellerman Lines, who transformed the site into their social club. Cheshire played minor counties cricket there from 1957 to 1968. The ground also held Cheshire's first ever appearance in List A cricket against Surrey in the first round of the 1964 Gillette Cup.^[15] The ground was later sold, with the site becoming a nightclub, before being demolished following a fire. The site of the ground has been selected for construction of 62 affordable homes.^[16]

Transport

Hoylake and Manor Road railway stations serve the town. Both are on the West Kirby - Liverpool Central branch of the Wirral Line with services operated by Merseyrail. Buses run through Hoylake on routes including West Kirby to New Ferry, West Kirby to Birkenhead, Newton to Meols, and Eastham Ferry to Leasowe. A night bus from central Liverpool terminates in Hoylake.

Notable people

Cliff Williams (1949- ), bassist of AC/DC grew up in Hoylake, as well as becoming influenced by the local Merseybeat movement.

Lieutenant Colonel Jack Armand Cunningham (1890-1966) DSO, DFC, Order of Leopold, Legion d'honneur, Croix de guerre, the World War I flying ace, retired to Hoylake and eventually died there.

Julian Budden, Italian opera scholar and BBC radio producer (1924–2007) was born in Hoylake.

The former Olympic Games cyclist Chris Boardman (1968- ) was born in Hoylake.

Helen Forrester (1919- ), author of Twopence to Cross the Mersey was also born in the town.^[17]

Former actress and current (as of 2007) Labour MP Glenda Jackson (1936- ), James Bond actor Daniel Craig (1968- ) and pianist Stephen Hough (1961- ) grew up in Hoylake. James Skelly, Ian Skelly, Bill Ryder-Jones, Nick Power, Lee Southall, Paul Duffy, and John Duffy, from the band The Coral, were also raised there.

John Lennon's first wife Cynthia moved from Liverpool to Hoylake after their divorce in 1968. Cynthia had also grown up in Hoylake as a child. Their son Julian Lennon (1963- ) spent much of his early life in Hoylake.^[18]

In 1940, comedian Eric Morecambe won a local amateur talent contest, held at Hoylake's Kingsway Cinema. His prize was an audition before impresario Jack Hylton and subsequently where he first met his future comedy partner Ernie Wise.^[19]

Mike Rutherford (1950- ) of Genesis was a boarder at The Leas School, formerly on Meols Drive, influenced heavily in his Genesis progression by Joseph Roberts, also from Hoylake.^{[citation needed]}

Curtis Warren (1963- ), well-known Merseyside figure and formerly featured in the Sunday Times Rich List, owned a house on Meols Drive.

Indie rock bands The Coral, The Rascals and The Little Flames are from Hoylake.

Joshua Armitage, pen-name "Ionicus" (1913-1998), the "Punch" artist and designer of covers for Penguin's editions of P.G. Wodehouse, was born in Hoylake and lived and worked there his whole life.

See also

• Congregational Church, Hoylake
• Hoylake Holy Trinity C of E Primary school
• Hoylake Holy Trinity Church
• Hoylake Parade community centre

References

External links

• Hoylake News
• Hoylake & West Kirby website
• Royal Liverpool Golf Club
• Hoylake Lifeboat
• Hoylake Sailing Club
• Wirral Sand Yacht Club
• Kingsmead School
• Merseytravel
• Wirral Way community magazine
• West Kirby Light Opera Society
• Hoylake Village Life