Bootle
Coordinates: 53 ° 27 ′ N , 3 ° 0 ′ W
Bootle is a city in the west of England and is located immediately north of Liverpool at the mouth of the River Mersey in the Metropolitan Borough of Sefton , the administrative seat of which is the city. Administratively, this borough has been part of Metropolitan County Merseyside since 1974, and Bootle is historically in the county of Lancashire . The city has 59,123 inhabitants.
The old city center is dominated by Victorian buildings such as the town hall and the municipal baths. A quarter with large office buildings extends to the east. To the west are the Leeds and Liverpool Canal and the port facilities on the Mersey. To the north is the New Strand Shopping Center, which made international headlines when two-year-old James Bulger was kidnapped and then murdered by two ten-year-olds there in 1993 .
history
The place name Bootle comes from the Old English botle , in German: building without it being clear which building this refers to. The place, which was built near the sand hills on the east bank of the Mersey estuary, was mentioned as Boltelai in the Domesday Book of 1086 and remained an insignificant hamlet for a long time.
The rise began when Bootle at the beginning of the 19th century. was increasingly used as a seaside resort by the residents of Liverpool. Some of the villas from this period have been preserved in the so-called Bootle Village. In the 1840s Bootle was connected to the Liverpool- Southport railway line . In the second half of the 19th century. The docks of Liverpool also extended northward to the urban area of Bootle, which was now heavily influenced by industrialization. In 1868 Bootle was given the status of its own municipal borough, and in 1889 that of its own county, so it was spun off from Lancashire. In 1905 the parish Orrell was incorporated. Because of the port facilities, Bootle was the target of German bombing attacks during World War II, which destroyed around 90% of the building fabric.
The reconstruction of the city mainly comprised districts located slightly inland, which were built as part of social housing. Settlements like Netherton were based on the New Towns concept . The shipyard crisis in the 1960s and 1970s led to increased unemployment, which attempts were made to counteract this by expanding the service sector, for example by setting up the headquarters of the National Girobank. The proposal to be incorporated into Liverpool, with which the city had long grown together (Liverpool city center is just 4 km south), opposed Bootle, which in 1974 was instead added to the new borough of Sefton. However, there has been a joint police force since 1967, the Liverpool and Bootle Constabulary.
traffic
Bootle has two train stations on the Liverpool-Southport route : Oriel Road near the old city center and New Strand by the shopping center to the north of the city. There is also a line for freight traffic (bootle branch). The local transport lines of the Liverpool Overhead Railway and the Liverpool Tramways Company were discontinued in the 1950s. The central bus station is located at the New Strand Shopping Center.
Personalities
In Bootle were born:
- Elaine Feinstein (1930–2019), poet and writer
- Allan Williams (1930–2016), promoter and first manager of the Beatles
- Tom Baker (born 1934), actor
- Tom O'Connor (born 1939), comedian
- George Davies (* 1941), fashion designer (Next and George at Asda)
- Billy J. Cramer (born 1943), musician
- Hughie McAuley (born 1953), soccer player and coach
- Roy Evans (* 1948), Liverpool FC football coach
- Alvin Martin (* 1958), football player for West Ham United
- John P. O'Brien (* 1963), translator and poet
- Craig Charles (born 1964), actor, poet, television presenter
- Steve McManaman (born 1972), soccer player
- Ste McNally (* 1978), guitarist and singer with BBMac
- Jamie Carragher (* 1978), Liverpool FC football player
- Nick Dougherty (* 1982), golfer
- Jose Baxter (born 1992), football player
