|
Coordinates: 53°17'34?N 2°55'21?W? / ?53.2927, -2.9224
Overpool is a village on the Wirral Peninsula in Cheshire, England. It is a suburb of Ellesmere Port.
[edit] History
Until 1911, Overpool was part of the parish of Eastham in the Wirral Hundred. The population was 89 in 1801, 72 in 1851 and 91 in 1901.[1] Historically, there were three settlements or small villages - Poole, Over Poole and Nether Poole. Of these, only Overpool remains extant. The area is separated by a roundabout at Cemetery Gates.
[edit] Community
St Francis's Church stands at the top of Seymour Drive and there is a Methodist Church in nearby Rossmore Road.
Until it closed in the 1970s Rivacre Baths, an open air swimming pool, was popular and people from as far away as Liverpool visited the baths. The site of the baths is now occupied by local authority housing that backs on to Rivacre Valley, a conservation area and wildlife park.
There is a small but basic shopping area at Overpool that was augmented in the 1960s with some new units, but the old Post Office (that shared accommodation with a butcher's shop) still exists.
Housing in the area 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.
The area underwent considerable change after the Vauxhall Motors factory opened nearby: several farms that had supplied milk and other dairy produce to the area were replaced by local authority housing.
Bowaters Mersey Paper Mill which produced newsprint from the 1930s stood close by and had a social club at Overpool that was a popular venue in the 1960s and 1970s.
[edit] Transport
Overpool railway station opened in the 1980s, on the branch line that runs to Ellesmere Port from Liverpool. Since 1994, the station has been part of the Wirral Line of the Merseyrail network. Overpool station is merely a drop off/pickup stop with no ticket office.
[edit] References
(Source: Wikipedia) |