Blowick is a suburb on the east side of the town of

Southport Southport is a seaside resort, seaside town in the Metropolitan Borough of Sefton in Merseyside, England. It lies on the West Lancashire Coastal Plain, West Lancashire coastal plain and the east coast of the Irish Sea, approximately north of ...

Merseyside Merseyside ( ) is a ceremonial counties of England, ceremonial and metropolitan county in North West England. It borders Lancashire to the north, Greater Manchester to the east, Cheshire to the south, the Wales, Welsh county of Flintshire across ...

, England.

History and etymology

Blowick is part of the ancient parish of North Meols and was formerly a detached settlement, on the northern fringe of what is now Southport. The name derives from the

Old Norse Old Norse, also referred to as Old Nordic or Old Scandinavian, was 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 ...

name ''Bla Vik'' meaning "dark bay" as it was located at the end of a large inlet on the ancient lake of Martin Mere called "The Wyke" which ended roughly at Crowland Street and drained into the Old Pool. There are historically two Blowicks: Higher Blowick, situated around what is now the junction of Everard Road and Southbank Road, and Lower Blowick (Butts Lane, Norwood Road, etc.), which is the area around what locals tend to refer to now as simply Blowick. The countryside on which the nearby Kew Housing Estate is built on what was known as Blowick Moss, and a local road on the estate is known as Blowick Moss Lane.

Landmarks

The Southport gas holder on Crowland Street was the tallest building on the Southport skyline, visible from as far afield as

Blackpool Blackpool is a seaside town in Lancashire, England. It is located on the Irish Sea coast of the Fylde peninsula, approximately north of Liverpool and west of Preston, Lancashire, Preston. It is the main settlement in the Borough of Blackpool ...

and Parbold. The largest tower was decommissioned in January 2008, due to an environmental risk posed by the storage of oil within it. In September 2008, National Grid announced that two of the three gas towers would be dismantled by August 2009, with the fate of the smallest tower remaining uncertain. The news has met with mixed reactions from local residents, though the gas holder was voted one of the North West's biggest eyesores in a competition run by the

BBC The British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC) is a British public service broadcaster headquartered at Broadcasting House in London, England. Originally established in 1922 as the British Broadcasting Company, it evolved into its current sta ...

. The Thatch & Thistle is a modern thatched

public house A pub (short for public house) is in several countries a drinking establishment licensed to serve alcoholic drinks for consumption Licensing laws of the United Kingdom#On-licence, on the premises. The term first appeared in England in the ...

on Norwood Road built on the site of the original Blowick pub. Known for a time as The Thatch Inn, the pub closed on 21 August 2008 after Cains Brewery went into administration, but reopened the following day under new management. Haig Avenue football stadium, the home of National League North team Southport F.C., is also located in Blowick. The Southport Bus Depot is situated on Canning Road in Blowick and is a Victorian building with lavish architecture for a storage building and even has a clock built into the wall.

Education

The area has a secondary school Meols Cop High School and a sixth form college King George V College. The former was previously a

secondary modern school A secondary modern school () is a type of secondary school that existed throughout England, Wales and Northern Ireland from 1944 until the 1970s under the Tripartite System. Secondary modern schools accommodated the majority (70–75%) of pupil ...

and the latter a

grammar school A grammar school is one of several different types of school in the history of education in the United Kingdom and other English-speaking countries, originally a Latin school, school teaching Latin, but more recently an academically oriented Se ...

Transport

Blowick is served by Meols Cop railway station on Northern's Manchester to Southport Line. The station opened in 1887, originally as part of the Liverpool, Southport and Preston Junction Railway. In years gone by, Blowick had a further two railway stations: (closed 1938), also on the Liverpool, Southport and Preston Junction Railway, and Blowick railway station (closed 1939) on the Manchester and Southport Railway.

References

External links

King George V College

Meols Cop High School
{{Metropolitan Borough of Sefton Towns and villages in the Metropolitan Borough of Sefton Southport