Knowsley is a large village and

civil parish In England, a civil parish is a type of administrative parish used for local government. It is a territorial designation which is the lowest tier of local government below districts and counties, or their combined form, the unitary authority ...

in the

Metropolitan Borough of Knowsley The Metropolitan Borough of Knowsley is a metropolitan borough in Merseyside, North West England. It covers several towns and villages, including Kirkby, Prescot, Huyton, Whiston, Halewood, Cronton and Stockbridge Village; Kirkby, Huyton, and ...

Merseyside Merseyside ( ) is a metropolitan county, metropolitan and ceremonial counties of England, ceremonial county in North West England, with a population of List of ceremonial counties of England, 1.38 million. It encompasses both banks of the Merse ...

England England is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. It shares land borders with Wales to its west and Scotland to its north. The Irish Sea lies northwest and the Celtic Sea to the southwest. It is separated from continental Europe b ...

, commonly known as Knowsley Village. Historically part of

Lancashire Lancashire ( , ; abbreviated Lancs) is the name of a historic county, ceremonial county, and non-metropolitan county in North West England. The boundaries of these three areas differ significantly. The non-metropolitan county of Lancashi ...

, at the 2001 Census it had a population of 11,343. It gave its name to the wider borough when it was formed in 1974. The parish includes

Knowsley Hall Knowsley Hall is a stately home near Liverpool in the Metropolitan Borough of Knowsley, Merseyside, England. It is the ancestral home of the Stanley family, the Earls of Derby. The hall is surrounded by of parkland, which contains the Knowsley ...

and

Knowsley Safari Park Knowsley Safari is a safari park and tourist attraction near Prescot, England. It is a member of the British and Irish Association of Zoos and Aquariums (BIAZA) and the European Association of Zoos and Aquaria (EAZA). It contributes to conservat ...

. There are three main built-up areas in the parish: the village of Knowsley, the nearby business park in the north west, and in the south-west a suburban area including

Stockbridge Village Stockbridge Village is an area of Knowsley in Merseyside, England. The population of the ward at the 2011 census was 6,018. It was the subject of an article in a special report by ''The Economist'' entitled "A new kind of ghetto", which descri ...

and the northern fringe of

Huyton Huyton ( ) is a town in the Metropolitan Borough of Knowsley, Merseyside, England. Part of the Liverpool Urban Area, it borders the Liverpool suburbs of Dovecot, Knotty Ash and Belle Vale, and the neighbouring village of Roby, with which it f ...

. To the west of Knowsley is the area of Woolfall Heath.

General information

Knowsley Village consists primarily of two residential areas: a council estate, and a private estate. There is a parade of shops on Sugar Lane that serve the local community. The village has one public house, The Derby Arms. A second pub, the Pipe and Gannex, was demolished in 2018. There are two public parks, The Rec, off Knowsley Lane, and Mill Lane, as well a woodland in the centre of the village, Syders Grove. Milbrook Manor, a prominent building on the village green, served as the Village school until the 1980s, when it was redeveloped as a restaurant. As of 2019, it was being converted into residential accommodation. The village has two churches, the Anglican St Mary's and the Roman Catholic St John Fisher. St Mary's is a grade II listed building built by the Stanley family in the late 19th century.

History

The name derives from the

Anglo-Saxon The Anglo-Saxons were a Cultural identity, cultural group who inhabited England in the Early Middle Ages. They traced their origins to settlers who came to Britain from mainland Europe in the 5th century. However, the ethnogenesis of the Anglo- ...

''Cēnwulfes lēah'', meaning "Cēnwulf's wood/clearing". When the

Angles The Angles ( ang, Ængle, ; la, Angli) were one of the main Germanic peoples who settled in Great Britain in the post-Roman period. They founded several kingdoms of the Heptarchy in Anglo-Saxon England. Their name is the root of the name ' ...

Northumbria la, Regnum Northanhymbrorum , conventional_long_name = Kingdom of Northumbria , common_name = Northumbria , status = State , status_text = Unified Anglian kingdom (before 876)North: Anglian kingdom (af ...

overran the

British Celtic Insular Celtic languages are the group of Celtic languages of Brittany, Great Britain, Ireland, and the Isle of Man. All surviving Celtic languages are in the Insular group, including Breton, which is spoken on continental Europe in Brittany, ...

kingdom of

Rheged Rheged () was one of the kingdoms of the ''Hen Ogledd'' ("Old North"), the Brittonic-speaking region of what is now Northern England and southern Scotland, during the post-Roman era and Early Middle Ages. It is recorded in several poetic and ba ...

, the village was likely taken over or founded by an Anglo-Saxon called Cēnwulf. The village of Knowsley is hundreds of years older than the neighbouring city of

Liverpool Liverpool is a city and metropolitan borough in Merseyside, England. With a population of in 2019, it is the 10th largest English district by population and its metropolitan area is the fifth largest in the United Kingdom, with a popul ...

. Its name occurs in the ''

Domesday Book Domesday Book () – the Middle English spelling of "Doomsday Book" – is a manuscript record of the "Great Survey" of much of England and parts of Wales completed in 1086 by order of King William I, known as William the Conqueror. The manusc ...

'' of 1086 as ''Chenulveslei'' in the ancient

hundred 100 or one hundred (Roman numeral: C) is the natural number following 99 and preceding 101. In medieval contexts, it may be described as the short hundred or five score in order to differentiate the English and Germanic use of "hundred" to de ...

West Derby West Derby ( ) is an affluent suburb of Liverpool, England. It is located East of the city and is also a Liverpool City Council ward. At the 2011 Census, the population was 14,382. History West Derby Mentioned in the ''Domesday Book'', West ...

South Lancashire South Lancashire is a geographical county area, used to indicate the southern part of the historic county of Lancashire, today without any administrative purpose. The county region has no exact boundaries but generally includes areas that form t ...

,Open Domesday Online: Knowsley
accessed July 2018. and has been recorded as ''Knuvesle'' (1199); ''Knouselegh'' (1258); ''Knouleslee'' (1261); ''Knusele'' (1262); and ''Knouslegh'' (1346). There are a few notable entries in Knowsley's history: *

King Henry VII Henry VII (28 January 1457 – 21 April 1509) was King of England and Lord of Ireland from his seizure of the crown on 22 August 1485 until his death in 1509. He was the first monarch of the House of Tudor. Henry's mother, Margaret Beaufo ...

visited in 1495. *

William Shakespeare William Shakespeare ( 26 April 1564 – 23 April 1616) was an English playwright, poet and actor. He is widely regarded as the greatest writer in the English language and the world's pre-eminent dramatist. He is often called England's nation ...

is said to have performed in a play held in Knowsley in 1589. *

Capability Brown Lancelot Brown (born c. 1715–16, baptised 30 August 1716 – 6 February 1783), more commonly known as Capability Brown, was an English gardener and landscape architect, who remains the most famous figure in the history of the English la ...

is responsible for creating some of Knowsley's landscaped gardens in the 1770s. *

Edward Lear Edward Lear (12 May 1812 – 29 January 1888) was an English artist, illustrator, musician, author and poet, who is known mostly for his literary nonsense in poetry and prose and especially his limerick (poetry), limericks, a form he popularised. ...

wrote "

The Owl and the Pussycat "The Owl and the Pussy-cat" is a nonsense poem by Edward Lear, first published in 1870 in the American magazine '' Our Young Folks: an Illustrated Magazine for Boys and Girls'' and again the following year in Lear's own book ''Nonsense Songs, S ...

" while staying at

. From 1895 the area was part of

Whiston Rural District Whiston Rural District was a rural district of the administrative county of Lancashire, England. It was created in 1895 by renaming the Prescot Rural District when the parish of Prescot was removed from that rural district and created a separate ...

. On 1 April 1974 the village became part of the newly formed Metropolitan Borough of Knowsley in the nascent county of Merseyside.

References

External links

Liverpool Street Gallery - Liverpool 34
{{Authority control Towns and villages in the Metropolitan Borough of Knowsley Civil parishes in Merseyside

General information

History

See also

References

External links