Its name was given by Norwegian
Vikings who settled and colonised Wirral in the 10th century. Tranmere in
Old Norse is
Trani-melr, meaning "
crane (bird) sandbank" or "sandbank with the cranes". Until the early 19th century, Tranmere was the second most populous settlement in Wirral, with a population of 353 in 1801, centred mainly in the area of what is now Church Road and the nearby hamlet of
Hinderton. By 1901, the number of residents had grown to 37,709. Tranmere Old Hall and its estate, was situated around what is now Church Road. It was a large,
gabled building constructed around 1614. According to the author Philip Sulley's
The Hundred of Wirral (1889), in about 1860: ... [Tranmere Old Hall] was pulled down by an ignorant
boor who became possessed of it by some mischance, to make way for shops and houses. Tranmere was historically a
township in the
ancient parish of
Bebington in the
Wirral Hundred of
Cheshire. The township was made a
local government district in 1860, governed by a local board. In 1866 Tranmere became a separate
civil parish. The local government district was abolished in 1877 and its area was incorporated into the new
municipal borough of Birkenhead. Tranmere continued to be a civil parish within the borough until 31 March 1898 when all the parishes within the borough were merged into a single parish. In 1891 the parish had a population of 30,680. On creation of the county of Merseyside in 1974, Tranmere became part of the Metropolitan Borough of Wirral. The Ingleborough Road Memorial Playing Fields were part of the now defunct Birkenhead Institute school from 1925 and opened for use the following year. The fields and pavilion were created as a memorial to the former students of the school killed in action in
World War I, which included the poet
Wilfred Owen. Ornamental gates were added to the site in 1933. The site was purchased by
Tranmere Rovers Football Club in 1995. Despite opposition, the land was redeveloped for housing in 2012.
Ferry service Queen Elizabeth granted John Poole the lease of ferry rights at Tranmere in 1586. The
Etna, the first steam-powered ferry on the
River Mersey, operated from Tranmere Pool to
Liverpool on 17 April 1817. The early part of the 19th century was a prosperous time for Tranmere's ferry service, but this was to change with the completion of
Thomas Brassey's New Chester Road in 1833 and the opening of the
Chester and Birkenhead Railway in 1840. Further blows to trade came with the commencement of a horse-drawn
tramway in 1877 between
New Ferry and
Woodside Ferry and the opening of the
Mersey Railway between Liverpool and nearby
Green Lane railway station in 1886. By 1904, the ferry service had ceased and Tranmere Pool was enclosed as
Cammell Laird Dock as part of an extension of the shipyard. The shelter consists of a series of tunnels stretching to a total length of , and was designed to house up to 6,000 people; many of them workers at the strategically important
Cammell Laird shipyard. By the time the tunnels were completed, they were no longer needed as the threat of invasion had diminished. The tunnels were later used by the
Ministry of Food for storage, and were considered as a nuclear fallout shelter during the
Cold War era. The tunnels were sealed in 1989, amid growing health and safety concerns. The tunnels still exist and building work in 2008 uncovered a shaft, which allowed temporary exploration, before being sealed again. ==Geography==