Whiston is a large village and civil parish within the Metropolitan Borough of Knowsley in Merseyside, England. It is located 8 miles east of Liverpool. The population was recorded as 13,629 at the 2001 Census, which increased to 14,263 at the 2011 Census. A new village, Halsnead Garden Village, has been proposed with government support, and will be located in the Halsnead area of the town. The new village will contain over 1500 houses, a primary school, a country park and various community and leisure facilities. Construction will cost around £270m.
History
in Lancashire, it was known for its coal mines. Its recorded history begins in the 13th century but its roots are much older. In the mid 14th century, the manors of Whiston, Skelmersdale, Parr and Speke, were held by William Dacre, 2nd Baron Dacre. A polished stone hand-axe, a relic of the Neolithic Age, was discovered there in 1941 and in 1986 fragments of flint tools were found on a local farm. The Church of St. Nicholas on Windy Arbor Road was consecrated on 30 July 1868. It hosts a war memorial, designed by Sir Giles Gilbert Scott, which was struck by lightning in 1928. The memorial was replaced in 1932. It gave its name to and formerly administered the Whiston Rural District, which operated under the county of Lancashire from 1895 until 1974 when it ceased to exist upon local government boundary changes and the formation of the Metropolitan Borough of Knowsley, Merseyside.
Governance
Whiston consists of the Whiston North and Whiston South wards of the Metropolitan Borough of Knowsley. The North and South wards are separated by the Liverpool to Manchester Railway, which runs directly through the town. Whiston was formerly the headquarters of the Whiston Rural District.
Local industry includes Glen Dimplex Home Appliances, producing kitchen appliances and employing approximately 1,000 people.
Education
Primary education
St Luke's Catholic Primary School
Halsnead County Primary School & Training School
Whiston Willis Primary School
St Leo's Catholic Primary School
Secondary education
In 2010, two of Whiston's secondary schools were closed and redeveloped under the Labour Party governments 'Building Schools for the Future' scheme. This £150 million programme created seven new 'Centres for Learning' to replace the ten existing secondary schools within the Knowsley borough.
Constructed in 1964, Knowsley Higher Side Comprehensive School was one of the first comprehensive schools in the local area, purpose built under the Labour Party's education reforms to formally abolish the tripartite system of education; to amalgamate grammar, technical and secondary modern schools into one appropriately named Comprehensive System. In March 2010, after serving the local area for 46 years, Higher Side Comprehensive School was permanently closed and subsequently demolished to make way for the new St Edmund Arrowsmith Catholic Centre for Learning which was constructed on vacant land behind Higher Side's main buildings. The land on which Higher Side once stood now serves as a car park and recreational area for staff and pupils of the new St Edmund Arrowsmith. The only remaining building of the former Higher Side School site is the former Whiston & PrescotCity Learning Centre, now St Edmund Arrowsmith Science Hub. The building was originally constructed and opened in 2000. Pupils of the school who were still enrolled at Higher Side at the time its closure were transferred to its replacement Knowsley Park Centre for Learning based on Knowsley Park Lane, Prescot.
Closed, relocated and rebuilt behind the former Knowsley Higher Side Comprehensive School on Cumber Lane. Renamed as 'St Edmund Arrowsmith Catholic Centre for Learning'. The original St Edmund Arrowsmith Building on Scotchbarn Lane was retained for several years and redeveloped as a youth training academy, but has also since been demolished.
