Coordinates: 53°23′42″N 2°57′07″W / 53.395°N 2.952°W
| Edge Hill | |
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  Edge Hill
Edge Hill shown within Merseyside |
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| Metropolitan borough | Liverpool |
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| Metropolitan county | Merseyside |
| Region | North West |
| Constituent country | England |
| Sovereign state | United Kingdom |
| Post town | LIVERPOOL |
| Postcode district | L7 |
| Dialling code | 0151 |
| Police | Merseyside |
| Fire | Merseyside |
| Ambulance | North West |
| European Parliament | North West England |
| UK Parliament | Liverpool Riverside |
| List of places: UK • England • Merseyside | |
Edge Hill is a district of Liverpool, England. It is located to the south east of Liverpool city centre, bordered by the city centre, Kensington, Wavertree and Toxteth.
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History
The area was first developed in the late 18th/early 19th century (Georgian era). Only a few of the Georgian houses of the time still survive. The later terraces, of the Victorian era, have also largely been demolished and though some modern housing has been built the area still has a depopulated appearance with many vacant lots and derelict pubs and shops.[citation needed]
Its most famous resident is perhaps Joseph Williamson (1769-1840) a tobacco magnate who was responsible for much of the building in the area during the early 1800s.[citation needed] He is most famously remembered as the "Mole of Edge Hill" due to his fascination with employing hundreds of men to dig a network of tunnels beneath the Edge Hill area. Part of the tunnel network is now open to the public as a tourist attraction.
In the early 19th century, it was the site of two railway works. Both the Liverpool and Manchester Railway and the Grand Junction Railway initially set up workshops there, but with little room to expand as business grew, the Grand Junction Railway moved its main locomotive production to Crewe in 1843. The Liverpool and Manchester was absorbed by the Grand Junction in 1845, which in turn became part of the London and North Western Railway in 1846, but locomotives continued to be built at Edge Hill until 1851.
Edge Hill station was built in 1836. The station building is the oldest in the world still served by passenger trains[1] There was a "Moorish Arch" with a stationary engine hauling trains up and down from Crown Street Station until locomotive-hauled trains were able to cope with the gradient. The station retains its original buildings but is very quiet owing to the sheer lack of population or industry in the area.
Formerly all trains stopped at Edge Hill at the entrance to the tunnel to Lime Street station, giving rise to "getting off at Edge Hill" as a euphemism for coitus interruptus.[2]
Edge Hill was the site of huge railway marshalling yards until the 1960s, sorting trains to and from the docks via the Victoria Tunnel and Wapping Tunnel to Park Lane and Waterloo goods stations on the dockside.
The Old Stableyard on Smithdown Lane once housed Roy Rogers' horse Trigger during a visit to Liverpool.[citation needed].
Crown Street Resource Centre is a mental health resource centre in Edge Hill opened in 1982 and run by Liverpool social services and Merseycare for people living in the Liverpool city area.
Groove Armada wrote a song entitled "Edge Hill" during a period in which they lived in a homeless shelter in the neighbourhood.[citation needed]
Edge Hill University began work in the area in 1885 as a teacher training college, though it moved to its current Ormskirk site in 1933.[3]
See also
References
- ^ Civil Engineering Heritage: Northern England, p. 250, Rennison, R. W & Barbey, M. F., London (1996)
- ^ Lern Yerself Scouse, vol. 4: "The language of Laura Norder", Fritz Spiegel, Liverpool (1989)
- ^ Edge Hill University - History
External links
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