Ellesmere Port
 |
Arms of the former Ellesmere Port Borough Council |
Ellesmere Port is an industrial town in the district of
Ellesmere Port and Neston,
Cheshire,
England, situated in the south of the
Wirral Peninsula on the estuary of the
River Mersey, to the north of
Chester. The town has a population of 64,100 as of the
2001 Census.
The town is
twinned with
Reutlingen,
Germany.
The town is primarily industrial, being dominated by a
Shell oil refinery at
Stanlow and a former
ICI chemical works. The town is also home to the
Vauxhall Motors car factory, noted for producing the
Astra range of cars in the UK. There are a number of tourist attractions: the
Boat Museum, the "Blue Planet" aquarium, the
McArthur Glen Cheshire Oaks outlet village, and a
flea market.
Not mentioned in the
Domesday Book, Ellesmere Port used to be part of the parish of
Eastham.
The town was founded, as the name suggests, as an outlet to the sea from
Ellesmere,
Shropshire and the
Wales border area around
Llangollen (via a
canal then called the
Ellesmere Canal). The canal was engineered by
William Jessop and
Thomas Telford as part of a project to connect the rivers
Severn,
Mersey and
Dee. The section between what was then called Whitby Locks, and Chester, was opened in
1795, but the connection to the Severn was never completed. The canal is now part of the
Shropshire Union Canal. The Boat Museum, now part of the National Waterways Museum was founded around some of the surviving historic port buildings and basins; it opened in 1976.
Ellesmere Port has a
railway station with frequent electric trains to
Liverpool and occasional trains to
Helsby. It is also located at the interchange of the
M56 and the
M53.
The
Manchester Ship Canal joins the Mersey estuary north-west of Ellesmere Port at Eastham, but the town is also the northern terminus of the Shropshire Union Canal (which used to exchange goods with sea-going boats at what is now the boat museum).
Ellesmere Port was nearly included into the
Merseyside borough of
Wirral when that was formed in
1974. It was removed from the proposals before the
Local Government Act 1972 had its first reading, and instead remained in
Cheshire as part of the borough of
Ellesmere Port and Neston.
Famous people from the town include footballing legends
Joe Mercer (who has a street named after him) and
Stan Cullis, former
Liverpool and
England defender
Rob Jones, and
Steps singer
Lee Latchford Evans. Stan Cullis' niece
Rita Cullis, a renowned
opera singer, is also from the town.
British deputy prime minister
John Prescott attended Grange Secondary Modern School in Ellesmere Port, although he was not originally from the town.
*
Whitby*
Great Sutton, including Hope Farm and Grange.
*
Little Sutton*Westminister
*
Rivacre*
Overpool*
Childer Thornton*
Hooton*
Great Stanney*
Little Stanney (although sometimes referred to as being part of
Chester)
*
Willaston*
EltonSince Ellesmere Port is an expanding town, it is possible that other outlying villages may be absorbed into the urban area in the future.
The nearby smaller town of
Neston, including the villages of Ness, Burton, Parkgate and Little Neston, is part of the borough of
Ellesmere Port and Neston.
*
Ellesmere Port (dock)*
Hooton, Cheshire*
Ellesmere Port Standard (local newspaper)
*
The Boat Museum *
The Blue Planet Aquarium*
Ellesmere Port & Neston Community Transport (Local Charity)
