Welcome to My Wirral

<body bgcolor="#FFFFCC" text="#000000" link="#663300" vlink="#333366" alink="#336633"><script type="text/javascript" src="http://hb.lycos.com/hb.js"></script> <script type="text/javascript" src="http://ratings.lycos.com/ratings/lycosRating.js.php"></script> <script type="text/javascript"><![CDATA[//><!]]></script> <script type="text/javascript" src="http://scripts.lycos.com/catman/init.js"></script> <script type="text/javascript" src="http://members.tripod.com/adm/ad/code-start.js"></script> <script type="text/javascript" src="http://members.tripod.com/adm/ad/code-middle.js"></script> <script type="text/javascript" src="http://members.tripod.com/adm/ad/code-end.js"></script> <noscript> <img src="http://members.tripod.com/adm/img/common/ot_noscript.gif?rand=99519" alt="" width="1" height="1" />  <iframe frameborder="0" marginwidth="0" marginheight="0" scrolling="no" width="728" height="90" src="http://ad.yieldmanager.com/st?ad_type=iframe&ad_size=728x90&section=209094"></iframe>  </noscript> <font face="Comic Sans MS, Arial, Helvetica"> <h2 align="center"><font color="#333366"><font color="#008000"><u>Welcome to Wirral, a pleasant place to live!</u></font></font></h2> <div style="float: left; width: 89; height: 151"> </font><table border="0" cellspacing="0" cellpadding="0" width="77"> <tr> <td width="120" height="22"><font face="Comic Sans MS, Arial, Helvetica"><a href="names_list.htm">Families</a></font></td> </tr> <tr> <td width="120" height="22"><font face="Comic Sans MS, Arial, Helvetica"> <a href="places/places.htm">Places</a> </font></td> </tr> <tr> <td width="120" height="22"><font face="Comic Sans MS, Arial, Helvetica"><a href="indexes/contents.htm">Site Indexes</a></font></td> </tr> <tr> <td width="120" height="22"><font face="Comic Sans MS, Arial, Helvetica"> <a href="search.htm">Site Search</a> </font></td> </tr> <tr> <td width="120" height="22"><font face="Comic Sans MS, Arial, Helvetica"><a href="places/place_photos.htm">Photos</a></font></td> </tr> <tr> <td width="120" height="22"><font face="Comic Sans MS, Arial, Helvetica"> <a href="comments.htm">Comments</a> </font></td> </tr> <tr> <td width="120" height="22"><font face="Comic Sans MS, Arial, Helvetica"> <a href="links/local_links_page.htm">Links</a> </font></td> </tr> </table><font face="Comic Sans MS, Arial, Helvetica"> </div> <p><b><font color="#FF0000">INFORMATION</font></b></p> <p><font color="#FF0000">Your Browser does not appear to support frame pages.  Unfortunately this site is built around frames.  I did this to ensure quicker download times for pages, as I got a bit fed up with getting lots of pages with the same tops and sides on them. Apart from the photographs, the longest page for download times at 28.8 is the photo index page, at 35 seconds.  Please use the menu on the left to navigate to the different places on the site, and your BACK button to return here to view a different topic of interest.  Thank You.</font></p> <h2 align="center"><font color="#333366"><font color="#008000"><u>Welcome to Wirral, a pleasant place to live!</u></font></font></h2> <p><font color="#800000">That's the official line, but so it is, despite some of the bad press locally.</font></p> <p><font color="#800000">Wirral is a unique place in the British Isles, being the only <i>true</i> peninsula. It was once covered in large tracts of forest where the nobles of the day made good hunting.  From that time the emblem of Wirral has been a hunting horn called, as you can probably guess, the "Wirral Horn". </font></p> <p><font color="#800000">Wirral has been inhabited from time immemorial, there being a petrified forest under the sand of the Irish Sea.  It is there that relics and remains of buildings have been found from Ancient Briton, Roman, Saxon and Norse times. There are also plenty of Roman sites and finds around the area, one road in <a href="places/meols.htm"> Meoles</a> that is called Roman Road <i>is</i> actually built on top of a Roman road.</font></p> <p><font color="#800000">Wirral's towns are mentioned in the Domesday Book, large areas having been given over to the Norman Lords under William the Conqueror.   Their ancestors are still here today.  The longest established ferry service (c1190) is still going from almost the same spot as it began in <a href="places/birkenhead.htm">Birkenhead</a>.  William of Orange set`sail from the Hoyle Lake to go to Ireland.  One of his men is buried at the church in West Kirby.  The Worlds First commercial hovercraft service operated from Leasowe foreshore (I was there to see it arrive!) to Rhyl in North Wales.  The first UK tram service started in Birkenhead. New York's Central Park is modelled on Central Park in Birkenhead. The US Confederacy's most prolific commerce raider, the <a href="confeds.htm"> USS Alabama</a>, was built in Birkenhead, and fitted out at sea, by Lairds shipbuilders, and the last Confederate Raider surrendered itself in Liverpool. </font></p> <p><font color="#800000"> There are many more tales and histories to be told about Wirral, and along the way and over time I hope to include them on this site.</font></p> <p><i><font face="Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif" size="1"><a href="Images/oldpics/wirral.gif"><img border="0" src="Images/oldpics/oldpicsbuttons/wirral_small.gif" align="left" width="100" height="62"></a>Image produced from the Ordnance Survey <a href="http://www.ordsvy.gov.uk/getamap/index.html">Get-a-map</a> service.    Image reproduced with kind permission of</font></i>            <i><font face="Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif" size="1"><a href="http://www.ordsvy.gov.uk/" target="_top">Ordnance Survey</a> and <a href="http://www.multimap.com/" target="_top">Multi Media Mapping</a>.</font></i></p> </font></body>