Caldy Hill

Caldy Hill is an area of heath and woodland on a sandstone outcrop on the Wirral Peninsula. The land was bought by Hoylake District Council between 1897 and 1974. The village of Caldy is nearby.

Including Stapledon Woods, the whole area covers 250 acres (1.0 km²) of which 13 acres (53,000 m²) are owned by the National Trust. The hill rises to 260 ft where there is a view-finder. From here there are fine views over the estuary of the River Dee to Hilbre Island and the Irish Sea. More distant views range to Snowdonia in the west and Blackpool and the Pennines in the east, more rarely as far as the Lake District to the north, and extremely rarely to the Isle of Man in the north-west.

The Mariners' Beacon stands nearby on the site of an old windmill, which was missed by mariners after it was destroyed by a gale in 1839. Consequently, the Trustees of the Liverpool Docks erected the Mariners' Beacon in 1841.

Calday Grange Grammar School is situated on Caldy Hill.

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Caldy

Coordinates: 53°21′32″N 3°09′50″W / 53.359°N 3.164°W / 53.359; -3.164

Caldy is a small, affluent village on the Wirral Peninsula, England, located to the south east of West Kirby. It is part of the West Kirby & Thurstaston Ward of the Metropolitan Borough of Wirral and is situated in the parliamentary constituency of Wirral West. At the time of the 2001 Census, Caldy had 1,290 inhabitants, of a total ward population of 12,869.

History

It was first mentioned in the Domesday Book in 1086 as being owned by Hugh of Mere. Nearby is a large area of National Trust land called Caldy Hill. Many of the houses and walls in the village centre are built from the local red sandstone.

Caldy was a township in the West Kirby Parish of the Wirral Hundred. The population was 92 in 1801, 142 in 1851, 202 in 1901 and 607 in 1951. Until the twentieth century, Caldy was effectively a farming and agricultural village. However, The Caldy Manor Estates Company divided the land into smaller building plots, and from here one of the north of England's most exclusive residential village emerged. Between 1894 and 1933, Caldy was part of Wirral Rural District, then subsequently Wirral Urban District. On 1 April 1974, local government reorganisation in England and Wales resulted in most of Wirral, including Caldy, transfer from the county of Cheshire to Merseyside.