Overpool is a village on the

Wirral Peninsula The Wirral Peninsula (), 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 Dee Estuary to the west, the Mersey Estuary to the east, and Liverpo ...

Cheshire Cheshire ( ) is a Ceremonial counties of England, ceremonial county in North West England. It is bordered by Merseyside to the north-west, Greater Manchester to the north-east, Derbyshire to the east, Staffordshire to the south-east, and Shrop ...

, England. It is a suburb of

Ellesmere Port Ellesmere Port ( ) is a port town in the Cheshire West and Chester borough in Cheshire, England. Ellesmere Port is on the south-eastern edge of the Wirral Peninsula, north of Chester, on the bank of the Manchester Ship Canal. In the 2021 Unite ...

, and part of the unitary authority of

Cheshire West and Chester Cheshire West and Chester is a Unitary authorities of England, unitary authority area with Borough status in the United Kingdom, borough status in Cheshire, England. It was established on 1 April 2009 as part of the 2009 structural changes to l ...

History

The name means "upper pool" and derives from the

Old English Old English ( or , or ), or Anglo-Saxon, is the earliest recorded form of the English language, spoken in England and southern and eastern Scotland in the Early Middle Ages. It developed from the languages brought to Great Britain by Anglo-S ...

words ''uferra'' and ''pōl''. 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 at the behest of William the Conqueror. The manuscript was originally known by ...

under the ownership of William Malbank, the settlement had a population of only two households. Pool consisted of two

township A township is a form of human settlement or administrative subdivision. Its exact definition varies among countries. Although the term is occasionally associated with an urban area, this tends to be an exception to the rule. In Australia, Canad ...

s: Nether Pool and Over Pool, in Eastham parish of the Wirral Hundred. Overpool became a

civil parish In England, a civil parish is a type of administrative parish used for local government. It is a territorial designation which is the lowest tier of local government. Civil parishes can trace their origin to the ancient system of parishes, w ...

in 1866 and was part of Wirral Rural District from 1894. The parish was abolished on 1 April 1911 and absorbed into Ellesmere Port. The population was recorded at 89 in 1801, 72 in 1851 and 91 in 1901. From the 1930s, the settlement of Netherpool was lost to industrial redevelopment and the 16th century Poole Hall was demolished shortly before the outbreak of

World War II World War II or the Second World War (1 September 1939 – 2 September 1945) was a World war, global conflict between two coalitions: the Allies of World War II, Allies and the Axis powers. World War II by country, Nearly all of the wo ...

. In the 1960s, Overpool's shops on the north side of Rossmore Road West were: GM Birks (Hairdressers), A & JR Leach (Newsagents), a habitually vacant unit, G Partridge (Butchers), Ashe & Nephew (Off-licence), Rivacre Fish Bar (owned by Stan Fairbrother) later to become Harry's Fish Bar (owned by Harry Wong), General Store owned by Mr & Mrs Jones, then later by Mr & Mrs Laider, Betting Office, Rivacre Home Stores owned by a Mr Turner, then Mr & Mrs Walker, and finally a grocer's shop and monumental mason's yard owned by Mr Petrus. Mr & Mrs Steve Cox took this over and the mason's yard was built upon to double the size of the store. On the south side of Rossmore Road West: Overpool Service Station (an Esso filling station), a bakery (later owned by Patisserie Anglaise), Sharples' Newsagents, a Co-op butchers and supermarket, a general store owned by Mr Roberts, a laundrette, a hardware store, a cafe, Galaxie Newsagents, an electrical shop, a chemist owned by Mr Duffy, a Tesco supermarket, and finally the Post Office and Mr Burgess's butchers. The area underwent considerable change after the

Vauxhall Motors Vauxhall Motors Limited , ;Company No. 00135767. Incorporated 12 May 1914, name changed from Vauxhall Motors Limited to General Motors UK Limited on 16 April 2008, reverted to Vauxhall Motors Limited on 18 September 2017. is a British Automoti ...

factory opened nearby in 1962: several farms that had supplied milk and other dairy produce to the area were replaced by local authority housing. One was "Overpool Dairy" run by Charlie and Norman Dodd, and the other was Jones's farm which was next to the Dodd's place. Dodd's Farm delivered milk by horse and cart up to the early 1960s. Bowaters Mersey Paper Mill, which produced newsprint from the 1930s, was in nearby Netherpool and had a social club at Overpool that was a popular venue in the 1960s and 1970s. From 1974 to 2009 it was in

Ellesmere Port and Neston Ellesmere Port and Neston was, from 1974 to 2009, a local government district with borough status in Cheshire, England. It covered the southern part of the Wirral Peninsula, namely that part which is not included in the Metropolitan Borou ...

district.

Community

St Francis's Church stands at the top of Seymour Drive and there is a Methodist church in nearby Rossmore Road. The original Overpool Methodist Church was on Rivacre Road, a few hundred yards from the Rivacre Baths, on the same side of the road and next to Jones's farm (since demolished). The church was destroyed by fire in the early 1950s, and a new one was built on Rossmore Road (just down from Cemetery Gates, towards Little Sutton), as this was a more prominent place and nearer to the majority of houses. Housing in Overpool is split between owner occupied and local authority and on the north side of the roundabout is an estate of post-war prefabs built in the 1950s, known locally as 'Tintown'. Until it closed in 1981 Rivacre Baths, an open-air swimming pool, was a popular attraction in the area. The site of the baths is now occupied by local authority housing that backs on to Rivacre Valley, a local nature reserve and country park.

Transport

Overpool is divided by the A5463 Rossmore Road, which runs between Little Sutton in the west and junction 8 of the

M53 motorway The M53 is an motorway in the Metropolitan Borough of Wirral, Merseyside and the Borough status in the United Kingdom, borough of Cheshire West and Chester, Cheshire on the Wirral Peninsula in England. It is also referred to as the Mid Wirral ...

in the east. Overpool railway station opened in 1988, on the branch line that runs to Ellesmere Port from Liverpool Central. Since 1994, the station has been part of the Wirral line of the

Merseyrail Merseyrail is a commuter rail network which serves Merseyside and adjacent areas of Cheshire and Lancashire in the North West England, North West of England. Merseyrail serves 69 Railway station, stations, 67 of which it manages, across two lin ...

network. Overpool station is unstaffed and has no ticket office, but ticket machines are available on the platforms.

References

External links

{{authority control Villages in Cheshire Areas of Ellesmere Port Former civil parishes in Cheshire