Thingwall is a village on the

Wirral Peninsula Wirral (; ), known locally as The Wirral, is a peninsula in North West England. The roughly rectangular peninsula is about long and wide and is bounded by the River Dee to the west (forming the boundary with Wales), the River Mersey to t ...

, in

Merseyside Merseyside ( ) is a metropolitan county, metropolitan and ceremonial counties of England, ceremonial county in North West England, with a population of List of ceremonial counties of England, 1.38 million. It encompasses both banks of the Merse ...

, England. The village is situated approximately to the south west of

Birkenhead Birkenhead (; cy, Penbedw) is a town in the Metropolitan Borough of Wirral, Merseyside, England; historically, it was part of Cheshire until 1974. The town is on the Wirral Peninsula, along the south bank of the River Mersey, opposite Liver ...

and north east of

Heswall Heswall is a town on the Wirral, Merseyside, England. At the 2001 Census, the population was 16,012, including the nearby villages of Barnston and Gayton. Before local government reorganisation on 1 April 1974 it was part of the administr ...

. Historically part of

Cheshire Cheshire ( ) is a ceremonial and historic county in North West England, bordered by Wales to the west, Merseyside and Greater Manchester to the north, Derbyshire to the east, and Staffordshire and Shropshire to the south. Cheshire's county t ...

, the area is within the Pensby and Thingwall Ward of the

Metropolitan Borough of Wirral The Metropolitan Borough of Wirral is a metropolitan borough of Merseyside, in North West England. It has a population of 321,238, and encompasses of the northern part of the Wirral Peninsula. Major settlements include Birkenhead, Wallasey, Be ...

and the parliamentary constituency of

Wirral West Wirral West is a constituency represented in the House of Commons of the UK Parliament by Margaret Greenwood of the Labour Party since 2015. Constituency profile The constituency is one of four covering the Metropolitan Borough of Wirral. It ...

. At the 2001 census, Thingwall had 3,140 inhabitants. The 2011 census registered the total ward population at 13,007.

History

From the

Old Norse Old Norse, Old Nordic, or Old Scandinavian, is a stage of development of North Germanic languages, North Germanic dialects before their final divergence into separate Nordic languages. Old Norse was spoken by inhabitants of Scandinavia and t ...

, meaning 'assembly field', the name indicates that it was once the site of a Germanic ''thing'' (or ''þing''). Similar place names in the

British Isles The British Isles are a group of islands in the North Atlantic Ocean off the north-western coast of continental Europe, consisting of the islands of Great Britain, Ireland, the Isle of Man, the Inner and Outer Hebrides, the Northern Isles, ...

include

Tynwald Tynwald ( gv, Tinvaal), or more formally, the High Court of Tynwald ( gv, Ard-whaiyl Tinvaal) or Tynwald Court, is the legislature of the Isle of Man. It consists of two chambers, known as the branches of Tynwald: the directly elected House of ...

Dingwall Dingwall ( sco, Dingwal, gd, Inbhir Pheofharain ) is a town and a royal burgh in the Highland council area of Scotland. It has a population of 5,491. It was an east-coast harbour that now lies inland. Dingwall Castle was once the biggest cast ...

, and Tingwall; see also Thingvellir in Iceland and

Tingvoll Tingvoll is a municipality in Møre og Romsdal county, Norway. It is part of the Nordmøre region. The administrative centre is the village of Tingvollvågen. Other villages include Meisingset, Kvisvik, and Torjulvågen. The municipality cove ...

in Norway. The settlement was recorded in the

Domesday Book Domesday Book () – the Middle English spelling of "Doomsday Book" – is a manuscript record of the "Great Survey" of much of England and parts of Wales completed in 1086 by order of King William I, known as William the Conqueror. The manusc ...

of 1086 as ''Tuigvelle'', and has been variously known as ''Fingwalle'' (1180); ''Thingale'' (circa 1250); ''Thynghwall'' (1426). Previously a township in Woodchurch Parish,

Wirral Hundred The Hundred of Wirral is the ancient administrative area for the Wirral Peninsula. Its name is believed to have originated from the ''Hundred of Wilaveston'', the historic name for Willaston, which was an important assembly point in the Wirral ...

, it was added to Birkenhead

county borough County borough is a term introduced in 1889 in the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland, to refer to a borough or a city independent of county council control, similar to the unitary authorities created since the 1990s. An equivalent ter ...

in 1933. The population was 52 in 1801, 96 in 1851 and 156 in 1901. Traditional buildings/walls in the area are constructed of locally-quarried yellow

sandstone Sandstone is a clastic sedimentary rock composed mainly of sand-sized (0.0625 to 2 mm) silicate grains. Sandstones comprise about 20–25% of all sedimentary rocks. Most sandstone is composed of quartz or feldspar (both silicates) ...

. Several small sandstone

quarries A quarry is a type of open-pit mine in which dimension stone, rock, construction aggregate, riprap, sand, gravel, or slate is excavated from the ground. The operation of quarries is regulated in some jurisdictions to reduce their environ ...

once existed in the area including one at the top of the appropriately named Quarry Lane. Little evidence of these quarries now exists as the land has been redeveloped for housing or for the construction of a second above-ground fresh water

reservoir A reservoir (; from French ''réservoir'' ) is an enlarged lake behind a dam. Such a dam may be either artificial, built to store fresh water or it may be a natural formation. Reservoirs can be created in a number of ways, including contro ...

. Thingwall Mill was constructed in the eighteenth century on the site of a much older medieval mill. Damaged in a storm in 1897 and subsequently disused, the mill was demolished in 1900. However, remnants of the building, including the original

millstone Millstones or mill stones are stones used in gristmills, for grinding wheat or other grains. They are sometimes referred to as grindstones or grinding stones. Millstones come in pairs: a convex stationary base known as the ''bedstone'' and ...

, can still be found on Mill Road. Thingwall Hall was built in 1849 for a Liverpool merchant and demolished in 1960. It was part of the Royal Liverpool Children's Hospital from 1917, providing care for long-term patients. On 1 April 1974, local government reorganisation in England and Wales resulted in most of Wirral, including Thingwall, being transferred from the county of

Geography

Thingwall lies on the western side of the northern part of the Wirral Peninsula, from the

Irish Sea The Irish Sea or , gv, Y Keayn Yernagh, sco, Erse Sie, gd, Muir Èireann , Ulster-Scots: ''Airish Sea'', cy, Môr Iwerddon . is an extensive body of water that separates the islands of Ireland and Great Britain. It is linked to the Ce ...

Hoylake Hoylake is a coast, seaside town in the Metropolitan Borough of Wirral, Merseyside, England. It is at the north west of the Wirral Peninsula, near West Kirby and where the River Dee, Wales, River Dee meets the Irish Sea. Historic counties of En ...

, from the

Dee Estuary The Dee Estuary ( cy, Aber Dyfrdwy) is a large estuary by means of which the River Dee flows into Liverpool Bay. The estuary starts near Shotton after a five-mile (8 km) 'canalised' section and the river soon swells to be several miles ...

and about from the

River Mersey The River Mersey () is in North West England. Its name derives from Old English and means "boundary river", possibly referring to its having been a border between the ancient kingdoms of Mercia and Northumbria. For centuries it has formed part ...

Rock Ferry Rock Ferry is an area of Birkenhead on the Wirral Peninsula, England. Administratively it is a ward of the Metropolitan Borough of Wirral. Before local government reorganisation on 1 April 1974, it was part of the county of Cheshire. At the 2 ...

. Thingwall sits at the western side of the wide and shallow glacial

U-shaped valley U-shaped valleys, also called trough valleys or glacial troughs, are formed by the process of glaciation. They are characteristic of mountain glaciation in particular. They have a characteristic U shape in cross-section, with steep, straight s ...

, formed during the

Quaternary Ice Age The Quaternary ( ) is the current and most recent of the three periods of the Cenozoic Era in the geologic time scale of the International Commission on Stratigraphy (ICS). It follows the Neogene Period and spans from 2.58 million years ...

, between Thurstaston Hill and Storeton Ridge. The underlying bedrock is

Triassic The Triassic ( ) is a geologic period and system which spans 50.6 million years from the end of the Permian Period 251.902 million years ago ( Mya), to the beginning of the Jurassic Period 201.36 Mya. The Triassic is the first and shortest period ...

of the

Helsby Sandstone Formation The Sherwood Sandstone Group is a Triassic lithostratigraphic group (a sequence of rock strata) which is widespread in Britain, especially in the English Midlands. The name is derived from Sherwood Forest in Nottinghamshire which is underlain by r ...

and the Wilmslow Sandstone Formation, and Triassic

siltstone Siltstone, also known as aleurolite, is a clastic sedimentary rock that is composed mostly of silt. It is a form of mudrock with a low clay mineral content, which can be distinguished from shale by its lack of fissility.Blatt ''et al.'' 1980, p ...

of the Tarporley Siltstone Formation. This is overlain with

boulder clay Boulder clay is an unsorted agglomeration of clastic sediment that is unstratified and structureless and contains gravel of various sizes, shapes, and compositions distributed at random in a fine-grained matrix. The fine-grained matrix consists ...

from the Quaternary Ice Age, similar to the nearby Dee Cliffs, and clay soil. The bedrock is not usually visible, as it is at the summit of Thurstaston Hill.

Governance

Thingwall is part of the

, in the

metropolitan county The metropolitan counties are a type of county-level administrative division of England. There are six metropolitan counties, which each cover large urban areas, with populations between 1 and 3 million. They were created in 1974 and are each di ...

of Merseyside. The village is part of the parliamentary constituency of

. The current Member of Parliament is

Margaret Greenwood Margaret Greenwood (born 14 March 1959) is a British politician who has served as the Member of Parliament (MP) for Wirral West since 2015. She is a member of the Labour Party. Biography A former teacher and community activist, Greenwood later ...

, a

Labour Party (UK) The Labour Party is a political party in the United Kingdom that has been described as an alliance of social democrats, democratic socialists and trade unionists. The Labour Party sits on the centre-left of the political spectrum. In all gen ...

representative. At

local government Local government is a generic term for the lowest tiers of public administration within a particular sovereign state. This particular usage of the word government refers specifically to a level of administration that is both geographically-loca ...

level, the village is part of the Pensby and Thingwall Ward of the Metropolitan Borough of Wirral. Thingwall is represented on

Wirral Metropolitan Borough Council Wirral Metropolitan Borough Council, or simply Wirral Council, is the local authority of the Metropolitan Borough of Wirral in Merseyside, England. It is a metropolitan district council, one of five in Merseyside and one of 36 in the metropolit ...

by three councillors. The most recent

local elections In many parts of the world, local elections take place to select office-holders in local government, such as mayors and councillors. Elections to positions within a city or town are often known as "municipal elections". Their form and conduct vary ...

took place on 6 May 2021.

Notable people

Alan Gill Alan David Gill is an English vocalist, guitarist and songwriter, who formed part of the synthpop band Dalek I Love You and the post-punk/neo-psychedelic band the Teardrop Explodes. Biography Early career Living in Thingwall, Wirral, he form ...

and

David Balfe David Balfe (born 1958 in Carlisle, Cumberland) is a musician and record company executive, most notable for playing keyboards with the Teardrop Explodes, founding the Zoo and Food independent record labels, signing Blur and for being the subj ...

, English musicians with the late 70s / early 80s bands Radio Blank,

Dalek I Love You Dalek I Love You were a synthpop group from the Wirral, England. At various points in their existence, the band was also known as Dalek I. Record executives at Phonogram shortened the band's name without telling them for the "Freedom Fighter ...

and

The Teardrop Explodes The Teardrop Explodes were an English post-punk/neo-psychedelic band formed in Liverpool in 1978. Best known for their Top Ten UK single "Reward", the group originated as a key band in the emerging Liverpool post-punk scene of the late 1970s. T ...

, both raised in Thingwall. *

went on to run his own record labels. One of these to which he signed Blur, and later became the inspiration behind their 1995 number one song,

Country House An English country house is a large house or mansion in the English countryside. Such houses were often owned by individuals who also owned a town house. This allowed them to spend time in the country and in the city—hence, for these peopl ...

. *

Marty Willson-Piper Marty Willson-Piper (born 7 May 1958) is an English guitarist and singer-songwriter best known as a former long-time member of the Australian psychedelic rock band The Church. He joined in 1980 after seeing an early gig where they were perform ...

, English guitarist and songwriter with Australian band The Church, was raised in Thingwall. * Septimus Francom, English athlete, born in Thingwall. * George Payne, English footballer, died in Thingwall.

References

Bibliography

* * * *

External links

Viking Wirral
{{Populated Places in Wirral Borough Towns and villages in the Metropolitan Borough of Wirral Thing (assembly)