Starr Gate is a suburb in the South Shore district of

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 ...

in the county of

Lancashire Lancashire ( , ; abbreviated ''Lancs'') is a ceremonial county in North West England. It is bordered by Cumbria to the north, North Yorkshire and West Yorkshire to the east, Greater Manchester and Merseyside to the south, and the Irish Sea to ...

, England. It is located at the southwest end of Blackpool on the Fylde coast, adjacent to the Squires Gate district of Blackpool. The place is named after the spiky "''Starr''" grass which grows on the local sand hills to the south of Starr Gate. "Gate" (''Geat'' in

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 ...

) means "Way", taken 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 ...

''Gat'' - an opening or passage.

Transport

Starr Gate is served by Squires Gate railway station on the Blackpool to Preston line. The southern terminal loop of the Blackpool Tramway is located at Starr Gate, along with the Starr Gate tram depot from which trams run up the coast into central Blackpool and to

Fleetwood Fleetwood is a coastal town in the Borough of Wyre in Lancashire, England, at the northwest corner of the Fylde. It had a population of 25,939 at the 2011 United Kingdom census, 2011 census. Fleetwood acquired its modern character in the 1830 ...

. Starr Gate is also immediately adjacent to Blackpool International Airport. From May to September 1973, a

hovercraft A hovercraft (: hovercraft), also known as an air-cushion vehicle or ACV, is an amphibious craft capable of travelling over land, water, mud, ice, and various other surfaces. Hovercraft use blowers to produce a large volume of air below the ...

provided a transport service from the tram terminus to

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 ...

. In 2005 there were hopes of reviving the service."Hopes high for hovercraft dream"
''The Blackpool Gazette'', 21 September 2007.

References

Geography of Blackpool {{Lancashire-geo-stub