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5 unusual facts about St Helens, Merseyside


British Rail Class 112

The cars were built for services in the LMR Central Division and in the Liverpool - St Helens area, where the gradients in the Lancashire & Yorkshire area required more power.

Edmund Knowles Muspratt

His father was also a chemical industrialist who had established factories in Liverpool, St Helens and Newton-le-Willows.

Sir Joseph Beecham, 1st Baronet

Beecham was the proprietor of the Aldwych Theatre in London, a Justice of the Peace for Lancashire and was Mayor of St. Helens between 1889 and 1899 and again from 1910 to 1912.

The Big Art Project

The project also comprises a website centred on The Big Art Mob - designed to create the first comprehensive map of public art across the UK using photographs from people's mobile phones - and significant public art works such as Jaume Plensa's Dream (sculpture) in St Helens, Merseyside.

Watcyn Thomas

A teacher by profession, he moved to St Helens to teach at Cowley Grammar School in 1929, and played rugby for Waterloo and Lancashire, captaining Lancashire to the championship in 1934-35.


1988 FA Cup Final

The Merseysiders were awarded a penalty on the hour mark following a foul by Clive Goodyear on John Aldridge, though replays showed that Goodyear won the ball cleanly, but Aldridge's penalty was saved by Beasant's diving save to his left, thus becoming the first keeper to save a penalty in a Wembley FA Cup final.

A Guy Called Gerald

It was one of the first acid house tracks produced in the UK, and released on a small Merseyside independent label (Rham! Records) based in Liscard, Wallasey.

Anderton Shearer Loader

It was utilised by Anderton's employers at Groves Ravenhead Colliery in St Helens.

Barclay Curle

As part of the Seawind Group, the company is no longer based in Glasgow but retains shiprepair facilities in Birkenhead, Merseyside, and at Appledore, Devon.

Battle of the Raz de Sein

On 12 April 1798 the British blockade fleet under the command of Admiral Lord Bridport sailed from its winter anchorage at St Helens on the Isle of Wight for the Breton coast.

Beatlejuice

Beatlejuice began in 1994 when John Muzzy and Brad Delp saw Bob Squires' Beatles cover band Merseyside play in Newburyport, Massachusetts and they decided to start their own band.

Butler Cole Aspinall

The son of the Reverend James Aspinall, he was born in Liverpool, Merseyside, England in 1830, educated for the law, and was called to the Bar in 1853.

Children's Adventure Farm Trust

Each year the Adventure Farm helps 3,000 children aged 4 to 16, coming from all over the North West, with people coming from Cheshire, Lancashire, Merseyside, Cumbria, Staffordshire, Yorkshire, North Wales and Derbyshire.

Church of St Luke, Liverpool

It stands on the corner of Berry Street and Leece Street, looking down the length of Bold Street, Liverpool, Merseyside, England.

Cleaver Heath Nature Reserve

Heswall Dales is regarded as the second best example (after Thurstaston Common) of lowland heath in Merseyside, hosting localised species including Western Gorse Ulex gallii, Many-stalked Spike Rush Eleocharis multicaulis and Green-ribbed Sedge Carex binervis.

Clive Jenkins

Upon retiring, for a time Clive Jenkins ran a B&B in St Helens, Tasmania, before returning to Britain.

Crosby railway station

When the line closed, a group of lads from Merseyside removed the station nameboard and to this day it is believed to hang on the wall of the scout headquarters in the Liverpool suburb that shares its name.

Crossens

Crossens is the northernmost district of the town of Southport, Merseyside, England and part of the ancient parish of North Meols.

Daphne Pearson

When her father was appointed as vicar of a parish in St Helens, Isle of Wight, her family moved there, to a house facing France across the English Channel; she later said that was the first time in her life she considered joining the Navy.

Everyman and Playhouse Youth Theatre

Located at Liverpool's Everyman Theatre, the Youth Theatre is open to teenagers from all over Merseyside.

Fred Pickering

He went on to make 97 league appearances and score 56 goals in his four years on Merseyside though was surprisingly left out of the 1966 FA Cup Final side in favour of little-known Cornishman Mike Trebilcock, who vindicated his selection by scoring twice in Everton's 3-2 win over Sheffield Wednesday.

Garswood railway station

Garswood railway station serves the village of Garswood in the Metropolitan Borough of St Helens, Merseyside, England.

Harold Newgass

On November evening of 28/29 November 1940, a German parachute mine fell on the Garston Gas Works in Merseyside.

Headbolt Lane railway station

Headbolt Lane is a proposed new railway station in the Northwood area of Kirkby, Merseyside, England.

Jim Harley

After the 6 year break Harley returned to Merseyside and played in 17 games of the first post-war championship winning side, a side that contained the likes of Jack Balmer, Bill Jones, Berry Nieuwenhuys, Albert Stubbins, Billy Liddell and Bob Paisley.

Jimmy Lewthwaite

He continued to excel as a footballer and had trials with Blackburn Rovers and Preston North End before switching to rugby league with Barrow in 1943, making his first-team debut against St Helens in April that year.

Jodie Taylor

That term she scored 109 goals across 125 games for Oldershaw School, Merseyside Under–16s and Tranmere's reserve team.

John Graham Davies

In Spring 2009, Graham-Davies' play 'Beating Berlusconi', based on Liverpool FC's remarkable 2005 UEFA Champions League victory over AC Milan began touring across venues on Merseyside including the Unity Theatre in Liverpool, and has subsequently toured internationally, with a Norwegian production opening in the autumn of 2011.

Kevin Penny

After a Challenge Cup tie against St Helens, his play on the wing was compared by BBC commentator Ray French to Saints' South African wing of the 1960s, Tom van Vollenhoven.

Liverpool Pride

Liverpool Pride is a registered charity run by a Board of Trustees with the stated aim of promoting equality and diversity, advancing education, and eliminating discrimination in relation to LGBT people across the six districts of Liverpool City Region: Halton, Knowsley, City of Liverpool, Sefton, St Helens and Wirral.

Lord Street

Lord Street, Southport, the main shopping street of Southport, in Merseyside, England

M53 motorway

When the M53 was first planned in the early 1960s, it was designed as a route to connect the two Mersey road tunnels with the A55 trunk road on the Welsh border, giving Liverpool and the rest of Merseyside a direct link with Chester and the towns on the North Wales coast.

Merchant Taylors' School

Merchant Taylors' Girls' School (founded 1888), a British public school for girls, also located in Great Crosby on Merseyside

Monument to the Mersey Tunnel

The Monument to the Mersey Tunnel stands in Chester Street, Birkenhead, Wirral, Merseyside, England, near the western entrance to the Queensway Tunnel, one of the two Mersey Tunnels carrying roads under the River Mersey between Liverpool and the Wirral.

National Hunter

The system was set up in 1993, by MCL Software of Southport, Merseyside, now an Experian subsidiary.

New Brighton A.F.C.

New Brighton Association Football Club was a football club from the seaside resort of New Brighton, in Wallasey, Merseyside in England.

Nichols plc

Nichols plc, based in Newton-le-Willows, Merseyside, England, is a company well known for its lead brand Vimto, a fruit flavoured cordial.

Peter Kilfoyle

The eleventh of fourteen children born to an Irish Catholic family on Merseyside, Kilfoyle was educated by the Irish Christian Brothers at St. Edward's College in Liverpool; his father died when he was 10 years old.

Philip Sheppard

In 1961 Sheppard started a colony of scarlet tiger moths by the Wirral Way, West Kirby, Merseyside, which were rediscovered in 1988 by Cyril Clarke, who continued to observe them in his retirement to study changes in the moth population.

Pilkington

Pilkington Group Limited is a multinational glass manufacturing company headquartered in St Helens, United Kingdom and a wholly owned subsidiary of the Japan-based NSG Group.

Port of Liverpool Police

The Port of Liverpool Police has entered into a memorandum of understanding with Merseyside Police, the territorial police force with statutory responsibility for policing Merseyside, which sets out how the two forces operate together and the sharing of certain resources, for example, custody facilities.

Ravenhead glass

It was founded in 1850 by Frances Dixon and John Merson after a move from their earlier (1842) factory at Thatto Heath near St Helens.

Red Rum

Merseyrail has named one of their trains in Red Rum's honour as part of a Merseyside Legends programme.

Stanley Park Stadium

Liverpool's then CEO, Rick Parry threatened to move Liverpool into a neighbouring borough on Merseyside because the only other site he considered viable was to become a residential estate in Garston.

Stewart Haslinger

Stewart Haslinger (born 25 November 1981, in Ainsdale, Merseyside) is an English chess Grandmaster and former British Junior champion.

Thatto Heath railway station

Thatto Heath railway station is located in the Thatto Heath area of St Helens, Merseyside, England.

The Greasy Pole

Sir Humphrey Appleby is meeting in his office with Sir Wally McFarlane, Chairman of the British Chemical Corporation, which is on the verge of securing a massive contract from the Italians for the manufacture of propanol at their plant in Merseyside.

The Swinging Blue Jeans

Hedley Vick - Guitarist - 24 April 1952, Bromborough, Merseyside; 1975/6 including tours of UK, Europe and New Zealand; brother of opera director, Graham Vick


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