Prenton

Coordinates: 53°22′20″N 3°02′19″W / 53.3721°N 3.0385°W / 53.3721; -3.0385

Prenton is a suburb of Birkenhead, Merseyside, on the Wirral Peninsula, England and a 'post town' in the CH postcode area. Administratively, it is also a ward of the Metropolitan Borough of Wirral. Before local government reorganisation on 1 April 1974, it was part of the County Borough of Birkenhead, within the county of Cheshire. At the 2001 Census, the population of Prenton was 14,429, consisting of 6,787 males and 7,642 females, increasing slightly to 14,488 at the 2011 Census (male=6,954:female=7,534).

History

Prenton appears as Prestune in the Domesday Book of 1086, with the name Pren- ton persisting despite the Norman-French accented spelling. Domesday describes Prenton as having a one-league square woodland - which is nine square miles, if the 'League' is taken in its Old English measurement of x3 miles. The size and importance of the wood may reflect the name of the settlement. Pren is Welsh (British) for the material 'wood' and in the name Prenton there is the Saxon suffix tún for a settlement, which suggests a settlement in a wood. The Welsh/British name for Prenton would thus be Prentre which could easily have changed into Prenton following Anglian penetration of the area in the early seventh century. Note that Landican (one mile distant from Prenton) retained its Welsh/British name even through Anglian and subsequent Norse occupation. Domesday also records the presence of a water mill at Prenton, and this has been provisionally identified at Prenton Dell.