Pensby () is a large village on the

Wirral Peninsula Wirral (; ), known locally as The Wirral, is a peninsula in North West England. The roughly rectangular peninsula is about long and wide and is bounded by the River Dee to the west (forming the boundary with Wales), the River Mersey to ...

, in

Merseyside Merseyside ( ) is a metropolitan and ceremonial county in North West England, with a population of 1.38 million. It encompasses both banks of the Mersey Estuary and comprises five metropolitan boroughs: Knowsley, St Helens, Sefton, Wi ...

, England. It is located to the north of the town of

Heswall Heswall is a town on the Wirral, Merseyside, England. At the 2001 Census, the population was 16,012, including the nearby villages of Barnston and Gayton. Before local government reorganisation on 1 April 1974 it was part of the administr ...

and approximately to the south west of

Thingwall Thingwall is a village on the Wirral Peninsula, in Merseyside, England. The village is situated approximately to the south west of Birkenhead and north east of Heswall. Historically part of Cheshire, the area is within the Pensby and Thingwal ...

. Historically within Cheshire, the area is part of the Pensby and Thingwall Ward of the

Metropolitan Borough of Wirral The Metropolitan Borough of Wirral is a metropolitan borough of Merseyside, in North West England. It has a population of 321,238, and encompasses of the northern part of the Wirral Peninsula. Major settlements include Birkenhead, Wallasey, ...

and is in the parliamentary constituency of

Wirral West Wirral West is a constituency represented in the House of Commons of the UK Parliament by Margaret Greenwood of the Labour Party since 2015. Constituency profile The constituency is one of four covering the Metropolitan Borough of Wirral. It ...

. At the 2001 census the village of Pensby had 6,900 inhabitants. The 2011 census measured the population of the Pensby and Thingwall ward at 13,007.

History

The name Pensby comes from

Old Norse Old Norse, Old Nordic, or Old Scandinavian, is a stage of development of North Germanic dialects before their final divergence into separate Nordic languages. Old Norse was spoken by inhabitants of Scandinavia and their overseas settlemen ...

, meaning a village or settlement at a hill called "Penn". The ''"by"'' suffix, included in neighbouring place names such as

Frankby Frankby () is a village on the Wirral Peninsula, in Merseyside, England. It is located between Greasby and Newton on the outskirts of the town of West Kirby. The hamlet of Larton is to the north west. Historically within the county of Ches ...

Greasby Greasby () is a large village on the Wirral Peninsula, Merseyside, England. A predominantly residential area, it is contiguous with Upton to the east and Saughall Massie to the north. The small village of Frankby is to the immediate west. Hist ...

, and

Irby Irby may refer to: * Irby (surname), a list of people * Irby, Merseyside, England, a village * Irby, Virginia, United States, an unincorporated community * Irby, Washington, United States, an unincorporated community * Irby in the Marsh, Lincol ...

, is

Viking Vikings ; non, víkingr is the modern name given to seafaring people originally from Scandinavia (present-day Denmark, Norway and Sweden), who from the late 8th to the late 11th centuries raided, pirated, traded and se ...

in origin. Over time, the name has been spelt variously as ''Penisby'' (c.1229), ''Penlisby'' (1307) and ''Pemmesby'' (1523). Lower Pensby was previously known as Newtown. This was due to the building of new houses around the turn of the twentieth century at the crossroads of Pensby Road and Gills Lane. The population of the village over time was recorded at 22 in 1801, 48 in 1901 and increasing significantly to 2,996 by 1951.

Geography

Governance

Pensby was formerly a

township A township is a kind of human settlement or administrative subdivision, with its meaning varying in different countries. Although the term is occasionally associated with an urban area, that tends to be an exception to the rule. In Australia, C ...

in the parish of Woodchurch, in the

Wirral Hundred The Hundred of Wirral is the ancient administrative area for the Wirral Peninsula. Its name is believed to have originated from the ''Hundred of Wilaveston'', the historic name for Willaston, which was an important assembly point in the Wirral ...

. It became a civil parish in 1866. Historically within the county of Cheshire, it was part of the

Wirral Rural District Wirral Rural District was a rural district on the Wirral Peninsula in Cheshire, England from 1894 to 1933. It was created under the Local Government Act 1894 from the Wirral Rural Sanitary District. From the beginning of the twentieth centur ...

from 1894 and

Wirral Urban District Wirral Urban District was an urban district in Cheshire, England from 1933 to 1974. It was created from part of the disbanded Wirral Rural District and covered an area in the south-west of the Wirral Peninsula. The civil parishes of Barnston, ...

from 1933. Further changes occurred on 1 April 1974, when local government reorganisation resulted in most of Wirral, including Pensby, transfer from Cheshire to the newly formed metropolitan county of

. Pensby is represented nationally through the parliamentary constituency of

. As of , the current Member of Parliament is

Margaret Greenwood Margaret Greenwood (born 14 March 1959) is a British politician who has served as the Member of Parliament (MP) for Wirral West since 2015. She is a member of the Labour Party. Biography A former teacher and community activist, Greenwood late ...

, a Labour representative. At local government level, it is part of a Pensby and Thingwall Ward of the

. It is represented on

Wirral Metropolitan Borough Council Wirral Metropolitan Borough Council, or simply Wirral Council, is the local authority of the Metropolitan Borough of Wirral in Merseyside, England. It is a metropolitan district council, one of five in Merseyside and one of 36 in the metropolit ...

by three councillors. The most recent

local elections In many parts of the world, local elections take place to select office-holders in local government, such as mayors and councillors. Elections to positions within a city or town are often known as "municipal elections". Their form and conduct vary ...

took place on 6 May 2021.

Community

Schools

Pensby's primary schools are Ladymount RC Primary, and Pensby Primary School. The local secondary school is

Pensby High School Pensby High School is a co-educational secondary school in Pensby, on the Wirral Peninsula Wirral (; ), known locally as The Wirral, is a peninsula in North West England. The roughly rectangular peninsula is about long and wide and ...

Churches

St. Michael and All Angels Church is a

Church of England The Church of England (C of E) is the established Christian church in England and the mother church of the international Anglican Communion. It traces its history to the Christian church recorded as existing in the Roman province of Britai ...

building on Gills Lane. The Emmanuel Holiness Church is an independent

Evangelical Evangelicalism (), also called evangelical Christianity or evangelical Protestantism, is a worldwide interdenominational movement within Protestant Christianity that affirms the centrality of being " born again", in which an individual expe ...

ministry which is on Heswall Mount. The Holy Family

Catholic The Catholic Church, also known as the Roman Catholic Church, is the largest Christian church, with 1.3 billion baptized Catholics worldwide . It is among the world's oldest and largest international institutions, and has played a ...

Church is on Pensby Road.

Leisure

Pensby has two community centres, the Hope Centre, adjoining Ridgewood Park on Fishers Lane, and the Kylemore Drive Community Centre. There is also an adult day centre on Somerset Road. Pensby Library is on Pensby Road. The 3rd Heswall Scout group is also based in Pensby.

Public Houses

The Pensby Hotel was the single pub in the village, but after a £500,000 cannabis bust by police, was boarded up and left empty after October 2013. There was a campaign for the building to be listed as a community asset, meaning that the community would have been given six months to prepare a bid for it, which may or may not have been accepted by the owner, but community asset status was rejected by Wirral Council in September 2015. Planning permission was subsequently granted for the demolition of the building and construction of the new care home, and demolition began in October 2016.

Parks and Commons

Pensby Wood and Ridgewood Park are adjacent to Fishers Lane.

Arrowe Park Arrowe Park is an area to the west of Birkenhead, within the Metropolitan Borough of Wirral, Merseyside, England. It is situated on the Wirral Peninsula, adjacent to the Woodchurch housing estate and to the south of the large village of Upto ...

is approximately north of Pensby.

Sport

The famous

Everton FC Everton Football Club () is an English professional association football club based in Liverpool that competes in the Premier League, the top tier of English football. The club was a founder member of the Football League in 1888 and has comp ...

footballer Dixie Dean played for Pensby Institute in his early days, on the fields at the side of Gills Lane. He was sold to

Tranmere Rovers Tranmere Rovers Football Club is a professional association football club based in Birkenhead, Merseyside, England. The team compete in , the fourth tier of the English football league system. Founded in 1884 as Belmont Football Club, they ado ...

for the fee of a new kit for the team. Pensby recreation centre and

bowling Bowling is a target sport and recreational activity in which a player rolls a ball toward pins (in pin bowling) or another target (in target bowling). The term ''bowling'' usually refers to pin bowling (most commonly ten-pin bowling), thou ...

club is on Pensby Road.

Transport

Road

Pensby is on the B5138 Pensby Road, which connects to the A540 and the A551. Junction 3 of the

M53 motorway The M53 is an motorway in the Metropolitan Borough of Wirral and Cheshire on the Wirral Peninsula in England. It is also referred to as the Mid Wirral Motorway. It runs between the Kingsway Tunnel, at Wallasey in the north, and the A55 at C ...

is within two miles of the village.

Bus

Services operating in the Pensby area, as of January 2020:

Rail

Heswall railway station Heswall railway station is a railway station on the eastern edge of the town of Heswall on the Wirral Peninsula in England. It is on the Borderlands Line. The station and all trains serving it are operated by Transport for Wales. In 2008 the s ...

on the Borderlands line is located approximately south-east of Pensby and provides services between

Wrexham Wrexham ( ; cy, Wrecsam; ) is a city and the administrative centre of Wrexham County Borough in Wales. It is located between the Welsh mountains and the lower Dee Valley, near the border with Cheshire in England. Historically in the count ...

and Bidston.

Landmarks

Pensby Hall is a two storeyed red

sandstone Sandstone is a clastic sedimentary rock composed mainly of sand-sized (0.0625 to 2 mm) silicate grains. Sandstones comprise about 20–25% of all sedimentary rocks. Most sandstone is composed of quartz or feldspar (both silicates ...

dwelling with a slate roof. The windows are a mix of casements and

sashes Sashes Island is an island in the River Thames in England at Cookham Lock near Cookham, Berkshire. It is now open farmland, but has Roman and Anglo-Saxon connections. The island is located between Hedsor Water and the present navigation cha ...

, some of which are

mullion A mullion is a vertical element that forms a division between units of a window or screen, or is used decoratively. It is also often used as a division between double doors. When dividing adjacent window units its primary purpose is a rigid supp ...

ed. Built in 1688, with some structural additions to the property in the 19th century, it was designated a Grade II

listed building In the United Kingdom, a listed building or listed structure is one that has been placed on one of the four statutory lists maintained by Historic England in England, Historic Environment Scotland in Scotland, in Wales, and the Northern Irel ...

in 1962.

References

Bibliography

External links

Irby Thurstaston & Pensby Amenity Society
{{Populated Places in Wirral Borough Towns and villages in the Metropolitan Borough of Wirral