Irby, Cheshire
| Irby | |
| Cheshire | |
|---|---|
 The Irby Mill pub, Mill Lane | |
| Location | |
| Grid reference: | SJ256845 |
| Location: | 53°21’7"N, 3°7’1"W |
| Data | |
| Post town: | Wirral |
| Postcode: | CH61 |
| Dialling code: | 0151 |
| Local Government | |
| Council: | Wirral |
| Parliamentary constituency: |
Wirral West |
Irby is a village on the Wirral Peninsula of Cheshire, inland of the estuary of the River Dee, with Heswall immediately to the south-east, with just a narrow green strip to separate it from Irby, and West Kirby to the north-west, separated by Thursaston Common. To the north of Irby stands the associated hamlet of Irby Hill, almost joining Greasby and the swelling suburbs of Birkenhead reaching to the other coast of the Wirral.
The 2001 census recorded a population of 6,110; by the time of the Census 2011 a separate statistic for Irby was no longer maintained.
Irby's small shopping area has a convenience store, which includes a branch of the Post Office. The shopping area also includes hairdressers, a florist, fish and chip shops, restaurants and an off licence.
Contents
History
The name ‘Irby’ is believed to be of Old Norse origin, meaning; "the farmstead of the Irishmen". Other nearby towns and villages with the Viking by suffix in their name include Frankby, Greasby and Pensby.
The village was formerly a township in Woodchurch Parish of the Wirral Hundred.
Irby Mill
A reference to the existence of a mill at Irby was made in a rental agreement of 1431, whereby tenants were expected to "...grind at Irby Mill to the 16th measure." This referred to the miller receiving this amount in flour as a toll. This original wooden structure was replaced by a post mill in the early 18th century. After being disused since about 1878 and in a very dilapidated condition, the mill was demolished in 1898.[1] Along with a similar structure in Burton, it was one of the last post mills of its kind on the Wirral.[2] The demolition work was carried out by unskilled labour hired by the miller. They removed the brick base first, resulting in the whole structure becoming dangerously unsafe and crashing to the ground, narrowly avoiding injury or loss of life.[3]
The Irby Mill public house, which opened for business in 1980, stands adjacent to the site in a building formerly known as 'Irby Mill Cottage'[4]
Irby Hall
Irby Hall was built in the early 17th century, with an entrance façade added in 1888. The hall was built on the site of an 11th-century moated manor and courthouse of St Werburgh's Abbey.[5] The moat is now dry, but has a prominent outer bank.[6] Irby Hall is a Grade II listed building.[7]
Geography, geology and environment
Irby sits on the western side of the northern part of the peninsula, four miles from the open Irish Sea at Hoylake, a mile from the Dee Estuary and about four and a half miles from the River Mersey at Tranmere. Irby is on the eastern side of Thurstaston Hill, at the western side of a wide and shallow glacial U-shaped valley, formed during the Quaternary Ice Age. The underlying bedrock is Triassic bunter sandstone of the ‘Helsby Sandstone Formation’, and Triassic siltstone of the ‘Tarporley Siltstone Formation’.[8][9] This is overlain with boulder clay 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.
Irby is bounded by Greasby Brook, to the west, which also flows through and alongside Thurstaston Common. The brook has its source in the fields to the south-west of Irby. Meanwhile, Irby is bounded to the north, east and south by part of the field drainage which forms Arrowe Brook.
Churches
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- Church of England: St Chad's (a chapel of ease to St Bartholomew's Church in Thurstaston)[10]
- Evangelical: Irby Evangelical Church
- Methodist: Irby Methodist Church
Society
Irby has a village hall, situated on Thingwall Road, which hosted a performance by The Beatles on 7 September 1962.[11][12]
- Scouts: 1st Thurstaston Scout Group,[13] which was started in 1933 shortly after the 3rd World Scout Jamboree, held about a mile away, in Arrowe Park, in 1929.
- Social club: The Irby Club was formed in the early 1930s, and is situated in the centre of the village in a building which was once the farm house for the former Rookery Farm.[14]
The Anchor Inn on Thurstaston Road is one of the oldest buildings in Irby,[15] and, according to an entry in the BBC Domesday Project, was built as a cottage in the 17th century.[16]
The Shippons is on Thingwall Road and is a sandstone village pub, converted from old farm buildings.[17] The Irby Mill is away from the centre of the village, at Irby Hill, towards Greasby. This is a converted miller's cottage constructed in the early 19th century, which had its original windmill demolished in 1898.[18][19]
- Cricket: Irby Cricket Club, established in 1948.
- Football: Irby's Football Club
- Taekwon-Do: based at Irby Village Hall with separate adult and children's classes
Outside links
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("Wikimedia Commons" has material about Irby, Cheshire) |
References
- ↑ Young, Derek (1983). Pictures from the past: A unique collection of photographs of old Greasby, Irby, Woodchurch and Upton. The author. sec. Greasby.
- ↑ Burnley, Kenneth (1982), The Wirral Journal – Volume 1, Number 3
- ↑ Boumphrey, Ian & Marilyn (2000), Yesterday's Wirral: Pictoral History, p. 13, ISBN 1-899241-15-9
- ↑ Irby Mill Hill – the mills, the cottage and the pub, archived from the original on 25 October 2007, https://web.archive.org/web/20071025141410/http://www.oldcommunitykit.ik.com/pub/customersites/communitykit/tis-040510124458.nsf/0/79C28CDC20891A85802570220017FD02?open&add=yes, retrieved 9 July 2010
- ↑ Randall 1984, pp. 85–86
- ↑ National Monuments Record: No. 66242 – Irby Hall
- ↑ National Heritage List 1075368: Irby Hall (Grade II listing)
- ↑ "Baseline Report Series: 2. The Permo-Triassic Sandstones of west Cheshire and the Wirral". British Geological Survey. p. 7. http://nora.nerc.ac.uk/3567/1/CR02109N.pdf. Retrieved 6 January 2015.
- ↑ "Geology of Britain viewer". British Geological Survey. http://www.bgs.ac.uk/discoveringGeology/geologyOfBritain/viewer.html. Retrieved 6 January 2015.
- ↑ "Welcome to St. Bartholomew's Thurstaston, with St. Chad's, Irby". thurstaston.org.uk. http://www.thurstaston.org.uk/. Retrieved 5 January 2015.
- ↑ "Irby Village Hall". wirralwell.org. http://wirralwell.org/listing/irby-village-hall/. Retrieved 5 January 2015.
- ↑ "Live: Village Hall, Irby, Wirral". The Beatles Bible. http://www.beatlesbible.com/1962/09/07/live-village-hall-irby-wirral/. Retrieved 5 January 2015.
- ↑ "Home". 1st Thurstaston Scout Group. http://www.firstthurstaston.co.uk/. Retrieved 5 January 2015.
- ↑ "A Brief History of the Club". The Irby Club. http://www.irbyclub.co.uk/history-of-the-club.html. Retrieved 5 January 2015.
- ↑ "Wirral: Thurstaston, Irby, Frankby, Greasby and Arrowe Park". allertonoak. http://www.allertonoak.com/merseySights/WirralTI.html. Retrieved 5 January 2015.
- ↑ "The Anchor Inn, Irby". BBC Domesday Reloaded. BBC Online. https://www.bbc.co.uk/history/domesday/dblock/GB-324000-384000/page/7. Retrieved 5 January 2015.
- ↑ "Shippons". WhatPub!. http://whatpub.com/pubs/WIR/091/shippons-irby. Retrieved 5 January 2015.
- ↑ Aird, Alisdair; Stapley, Fiona (2011). The Good Pub Guide: The North of England. Ebury Press. ISBN 9780091949617. https://books.google.com/books?id=24WK0o2BqZoC&pg=PT133&lpg=PT133&dq=irby+mill+history&source=bl&ots=fAhXH-QHF9&sig=yOV4pF3dyEatNxtrHYC5A2kIN38&hl=en&sa=X&ei=8LyqVM6DDJHaatzVgrgK&redir_esc=y#v=onepage&q=irby%20mill%20history&f=false. Retrieved 5 January 2015.
- ↑ "Irby mill, cottage and pub". Greasby on the Wirral peninsula. http://www.greasby.btck.co.uk/IrbyMillCottagePub. Retrieved 5 January 2015.
- Randall, David (1984). The Search for Old Wirral. Countryvise. ISBN 9780907768807. OCLC 263480984.
Further reading
- Boumphrey, Ian (1991). Yesterday's Wirral 6: Neston, Parkgate and Heswall Including Thurstaston, Irby and Greasby. Ian & Marilyn Boumphrey. ISBN 9780950725550. OCLC 656102143.
- Mortimer, William Williams (1847). The History of the Hundred of Wirral. London: Whittaker & Co.. pp265-266. https://archive.org/stream/historyhundredw01mortgoog#page/n304/mode/2up.
- Philpott, Robert A.; Adams, Mark H. (2011). Irby, Wirral: Excavations on a Late Prehistoric, Romano-British and Mediæval Site, 1987–96. Liverpool: National Museums Liverpool. ISBN 9781902700410. OCLC 751807305.
- Young, D. M. (1993). Old Irby. Wallasey: Inprint.
